Priests today

Please forgive the jargon which might not mean much to those outside the Anglican Church -but this hasty post is aimed at people within the Church. (See below if you need a informed introduction to the jargon and the initials which I have copied from Maggi Dawn's post on this post - thanks Maggi!)

I am preparing at the moment for gathering which I have been asked to make a contribution about how the role of local-level priest might develop in the future. This is a time when the parish priests role is being forced to change by external forces - largely financial rather than anything genuinely theological - I guess what I want to do is ask whether these are wholly negative or whether God might be at work through them.

My framework is that the current types of priesthood ( OLM, NSM, and Stipendiary) have been pragmatically developed and as such offer false and misleading distinctions which only encourage a sense of tiers - for me a priest is priest however s/he has been trained or however a particular Diocese decides to allocate them to roles.

In my experience the range of ability and creativity varies across all three strands, without reference to their formal designation.What the Church is missing in its understanding and allocation is the need for two types of local priest - whether they are serving what we currently know as a parish or across a wide group of parishes.

The first type is what I am at the moment calling an Apostolic Priest - this is a person which is primarily called to a missional role - a role of questioning - a role of moving around the Church (perhaps every five years)- a role of bringing insight and experience from elsewhere to a particular locality.

The second type is what I am calling an Associate Priest  this is the person who has a long-term commitment within a location or situation - s/he may have been called from 'within' that situation - the role is primarily what we know now as a pastoral one - this is person who is able to sit alongside people for more than a decade or generation.

Each unit of mission (be it parish , group or whatever) should have the benefit of the ministry of both types

Individual ordinands would opt for one at the start of their training training alongside people of both types but could transfer at any stage of training or ministry with further specialist training

Both types would be equal in status - both could be incumbent or leader-priest within a particular situation.

Both types could be in priests in secular employment or part or full -time.

I think this basic framework would offer a priesthood to the Church which could easily flex and dapt to whatever framework of local mission and ministry the Church decides to offer.

dit: Definitions: an OLM is an Ordained Local Minister - for a definition, the Guildford Diocesan vocations booklet is clear and concise.

Stipendiary means that a priest is given enough material benefits that they can manage without having a paid job and concentrate their energies entirely on the Church and her mission. A stipend is not a salary, and it's not much to live on, but that's partly the point! Receiving a stipend also usually means promising not to receive any additional income from other sources.

NSM means non-stipendiary minister. In practical terms re. ministry within the Church setting that can either mean someone who devotes all their time and energy to the ministry but for whatever reason does not need a stipend, or it may mean someone who has a paid job, either full or part time, and devotes whatever time they can above and beyond that to the Church. However this definition fails to account for the fact that many people become NSM's because they feel that their priestly ministry is specifically lived out in the mission context of their "secular" setting. There is a debate there that needs to be had more thoroughly - it would be valuable a) to challenge the idea that the work of a priest is confined to the CHurch, but also b) that there is any distinction between the vocation of an NSM who is a priest-at-work, and the fact that all Christians in work have a vocation, both to their work and to the context in which they do it. But for this blog, at least, that's a debate for another day!

The development of all these categories, like everything else in the physically manifest church, has been affected both by theological reasoning and by practical necessity. Any revisions to them should also take both of those things into account, since we do actually live on earth and not in heaven.

Comments

[Ministir]

I find your post intereting. The Methodist Church is facing the same sort of problems as it engages with different patterns of ministry. You should also know that I am the minister in charge of pastoral matters at Oakworth Methodist Church. What do you think of ecuninism?

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