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2 Ministerial Deployment

2.1 ‘Ministers are called to participate in [the church’s total] ministry and to give leadership to the church in recognising it and sharing it with the world’. That sentence from last year’s Synod Moderators’ Report introduced a section which addressed the difficulties currently created by the gap ‘between the number of posts we have available for stipendiary ministers and the number of ministers there are to fill the posts’, and offered some possible strategies for countering those difficulties.

2.2 The process by which churches are helped to identify a minister to whom they wish to extend a call may appear, to those not directly involved, to be unduly protracted. It would seem that with a wide range of vacant pastorates, there would be no difficulty in making the ‘right’ introduction. Circumstances, however, often dictate otherwise: some stipendiary ministers for family or other reasons are very restricted in the area within which they can move; theological perspectives narrow the range of options; particular strengths or experience are necessary for some situations. When, rarely, a minister adaptable to many situations and ready to go anywhere turns up we can spend an hour trying to decide why any one of a number of possible pastorates should be given preference over the others!

2.3 But this is a scenario in which anecdotal information can give a distorted picture. Accordingly we decided to analyse our records following a scheme devised and used by one of our number, to see whether any pattern emerged and if so whether it might offer any crumb of comfort to those who feel that the system works to their disadvantage.

2.4 We looked at what had happened to ministers (43 from ten Synods) seeking a move and churches (83 from twelve Synods) seeking a minister over the previous twelve months. We were aware that we were looking at only a very small and statistically unreliable sample, that the time scale concerned was only that from when a church or minister came on our list to when a call was made and accepted (i.e. not from ‘vacancy’ to ‘induction’), and that the data collected from the Synods had not been recorded and presented in identical ways. Even so, with all its unreliability, what emerged surprised us. We discovered that 37% of churches settled with their first introduction, with an average time on our lists of 7 months, and 35% settled with their second or third introduction, average time on our lists of 13 months. 65% of ministers settled with their first introduction and another 23% with their second, all being on our list for not more than seven months.

2.5 While those times are shorter than we expected the real lessons are to be drawn from those situations which are not included above. But it is precisely the varied nature of the features that create the delays that makes it difficult to draw lessons. Perhaps we can say no more than the obvious: that unless a pastorate appears to present opportunities for effective ministry then it can be very difficult to find a minister who wishes to be introduced. The difficulties arise when there is no clear meeting point between what a minister can offer and what churches are looking for.

3 The Church’s Calling and Personal Leadership

3.1 So much for the process - or at least our part in it. There is, however, another concern engaging many of our people and this is the perceived present shortage of ministers of Word and Sacraments. In terms of the relationship between the membership of the Church and the number of ministers, there is no shortage; the ‘shortage’ arises from the fact that the number of congregations has not declined in the same proportion as the total membership. The remainder of this report is concerned with the way in which that perceived shortage may lead us to a broader understanding of the mission of the whole people of God and with one particular area, the world of work, in which that mission is exercised.

3.2 Personal leadership remains at the heart of the life of the Church and of each congregation in particular. That leadership has until now been most clearly identified with the ministry of Word and Sacraments, though it must be noted that congregations without ‘their own minister’ can flourish and grow where the personal element is represented by someone with a sensitivity to God’s will and openness to the gifts of others, whether an interim moderator, an elder, or a non-ordained member.

3.3 There has been a renewed awareness in recent decades of the calling of the whole Church, constituted locally as individual congregations, to a task of mission in service of the gospel. The Church exists as a servant of the mission of God and no member of the Church is exempt from that calling. It may be that the perceived shortage of ministers referred to above, seen against a background of this renewed understanding of the call for the gifts of every member to be used in mission, may be a nudge or something stronger from the Holy Spirit to the whole Church to rethink its policy on ministry. The Basis of Union asserts (paragraph 24) that the Church will ‘take steps to ensure that so far as is possible ordained ministers of the Word and Sacraments are readily available to every local church’. But note that the purpose of that undertaking is that ‘it may be clearly seen that the worship of the local church is an expression of the worship of the whole people of God’. Worship is central to the Church’s life, but what is the relation between worship and ministry? May it be that the time has come to revise our view of the ministry of Word and Sacraments as the chief focus of personal leadership within each congregation? Should we be looking anew at pastors and evangelists, trainers and enablers, with a renewed emphasis on ‘the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry’ (Ephesians 4. 12)? What we have looked upon as a problem may really be staring us in the face as an opportunity.

4 Looking Outwards from the Local Congregation

4.1 Such a broadening of our view of ministry would in itself help us to resist what our 1999 report, quoting Walter Brueggemann, called ‘the Church’s enduring domestication of vision’. Reflection upon the ‘five marks of mission’, usefully summarised as ‘tell, teach, tend, transform and treasure’, suggests that only one of them, the second, ‘to teach, baptise and nurture new believers’, can remotely be considered as having an inward reference to the Church’s own life. The other four, taken seriously, force the Church to look beyond its own walls and help the world discern the loving and reconciling power of God in its midst. In the Industrial Mission Association’s magazine IMAgenda (Special Edition 2000 page 10) the Bishop of Worcester, Peter Selby, writes ‘The church’s identity may be affirmed and celebrated in its gathering, but it is discovered in its scattering. It is in the scattered, dispersed areas of life, where we teach in schools, treat people in hospitals, make things in factories, pursue criminals, set interest rates, bring up our children, that faithful discipleship is discovered, measured and given character.’

4.2 There are a number of particular ministries that focus this fundamental engagement of the Church with the world, among them that of Church Related Community Workers, whose number we are now actively seeking to increase. But there are also ministers of Word and Sacraments who find themselves called to give a positive lead to the Church in its response to the world by engaging in tasks beyond the pastorate, some of them on a full time basis. In this they give a firm example of those ‘radical dissenters from the false worship of our society, whose dissent does not drive them (timidly or defiantly) into a ghetto, but out into the world’ (paragraph 1 of ‘Seven Fundamental Qualifications for the Ministry’ URC Manual 2000, page K2). Chaplaincies in hospitals, educational institutions and the Armed Forces have long been one means of direct expression of the Christian gospel and are well understood and established among us. But there are other models often struggling to gain the same recognition and support, even though it is now some twenty years since, through the inspiration of union with the Reformed Association of the Churches of Christ, non-stipendiary ministry was introduced with this type of ministry as one of its major models, often through ministers engaged in secular employment. (Manual 2000, page K4.)

5 The Church’s Response to the World of Work

5.1 The Church has long affirmed its calling to promote the gospel in the fields of health-care and education. But for many the end of education is a job and the atmosphere in which the job is performed can be a vital factor in fostering or hindering good health. Economic factors play a large part in shaping the life and geography of our communities. The success (or failure) of those with the task of establishing a base for employment and wealth creation is often at the heart of the ‘shalom’ of whole communities. It may be, as we shall note later, that the Church’s interest in and support of those who venture in our name into the world of industry, business and the economy has been faltering and spasmodic. Yet because the world has been diverted from attention to the truths of the gospel and become ignorant of the love and strength implicit in it, there is an even greater need for those who can speak of the gospel’s power to people in work or seeking work or bruised in some way by their work, and can do so explicitly as representing the Church of Jesus Christ. To do so, however, requires a particular humility and willingness to learn. Not only have many people through experience or through rumour developed a negative view of the Church and its mission, but in addition rapid change in society and the kaleidoscopic nature of the forces which shape it create ever new tensions at the inter-face of the gospel and the world.

5.2 Part of the Church’s concern for the world of work is expressed through Industrial Mission. Finding the right word is difficult. ‘Industrial’ still for many suggests too narrow a focus, excluding the world known as ‘commerce’; ‘chaplaincy to people at work’ has difficulty encompassing the unemployed. Perhaps the difficulty itself indicates the breadth of the field. Certainly one word that is right is ‘mission’, for this part of the Church’s life is a true engagement with the task to which we are impelled by the gospel, to proclaim and express the love of God for all people. Industrial Mission is concerned with the arena in which many people spend the greater part of their adult life. Despite the fact that many of our churches have in their congregation very few people actively involved in the world of work the Church has a duty to understand what happens there and how it affects those who are a part of it. Enlightened by this understanding the Church has a number of tasks - to offer support to all involved at whatever level, to provide a resource of prayer and Christian insight for those wrestling with the demands of their work or frustrated by unemployment, and to offer the values of the kingdom of God as guidelines for policies and systems that will make for fulfilling work and the recognition of each person’s dignity as a human being.

5.3 In the work-place differences between denominations lose most of their relevance. Industrial Mission is a thoroughly ecumenical endeavour, uniting ordained and lay people from a variety of traditions and bringing together people of different faiths. Its means of working are similarly varied: although connections with Trade Union leaders and business managers are important, many chaplains find that visiting people in offices or on the shop-floor is still a vital part of the process of establishing one’s identity, winning people’s confidence and creating trust, a process out of which arise the pastoral opportunities for presenting the gospel in word or deed. A worker struggles with marriage difficulties, a manager faces a difficult decision as to whom to make redundant, a crisis in relationships develops within the work-force. Here the chaplain has a vital role in listening, supporting and mediating. Pastoral gifts of a high order are required in helping those made redundant to retain their sense of self-worth, or in acting sensitively where there is a suspicion that racial attitudes or discrimination on religious or other grounds have influenced decisions.

5.4 But chaplains have a prophetic role as well as a pastoral one. Those questions about values and meaning that for church people are raised by worship and Bible study are encountered in the day to day experience of the world of work. Bringing Christian truths to bear on the assumptions and methods of commercial and industrial activity through conferences, seminars or workshops is a prophetic task, also exercised through the writing of articles and broadcasting.

5.5 In such ways chaplains have opportunities to influence the influences in the creation of environments and relationships that affirm the value of work and the dignity of workers. The Church’s care is demonstrated for the great number of people who do not come into our buildings, and means are found of letting the Gospel be heard where doors are closed, through the growth of secular alternatives such as counselling and other professional welfare services, to more conventional Christian work.

5.6 It is not, of course, a uniform picture. Chaplains do experience rejection and hostility, though more often they receive a warm reception from people who are delighted that someone has shown an interest. But what of their involvement with and reception by the Church of whose mission they are a vital part? Does the Church listen to them, and try to understand through them the forces at work in industry and commerce, along with the strains and joys of working in that environment? Does the Church support them as they seek to encourage the adoption of Christian values in the world of work? Where members of our congregations are involved in that world do we listen enough to them for the insights into the Gospel that they glean from that world, and are we assiduous in our care for them as they revel in its joys and wrestle with its problems?

5.7 Writing in the article quoted above Maggie Pickup is hardly enthusiastic: ‘It would be true to say that affirmation and support of the mission of the dispersed has been more than neglected in the great ecclesiastical scheme of things’. To that charge many of us would have to plead guilty. Again, the picture has many hues. Chaplains speak warmly of congregations where they are invited regularly to preach in services or address meetings, where people are aware of the environment in which they work and from where support is given not only personally but also through members of the congregation becoming involved in the ecumenical bodies that have responsibility for the work. Here, information and support flow in both directions, and people explore the meaning of the gospel not only for individual lives but also for the systems and structures of our common life, of which industry and commerce are so large a part.

5.8 We are right to be concerned that the Church has sufficient trained and effective leadership for the needs of its congregations. But if we are to avoid the domestication by the Church of its vision it is essential that we release sufficient resources, especially of personnel, for what Maggie Pickup calls ‘the creative sustaining mission of God [that] is the gracious gift of eternal love to and for all time’. We live in a world in which more people than ever before are in some form of paid employment. The development of regional structures is creating new centres of economic and political power in which faith communities struggle to be heard. If we are to have any clear idea of the kind of society in which we are called to speak of that gracious gift of eternal love, we have to be aware of the issues surrounding the values, aims and ethos of the organisations which create employment and the culture of ambition and success which shapes so much of our thinking about work. For that awareness, and for the Church’s more effective mission, we need to listen to and wholeheartedly support those who have a particular ministry in the world of work.

6 Personalia

6.1 At this Assembly we bid farewell to our two longest serving colleagues. David Helyar retires after 14 years service as Moderator of the Southern Synod, and John Humphreys moves to another appointment after 12 years service as Moderator of the Synod of Wales. They have been steadfast, wise and loving colleagues; we shall miss their friendship but wish them every blessing in the future. In their place we look forward to welcoming Nigel Uden (Southern) and Peter Noble (Wales). Derek Wales will retire in January after serving the greater part of one term as Moderator of the Wessex Synod. He has been an active servant of the Moderators Meetings as its secretary, and will be missed for his cheerfulness and wise friendship. It is hoped that a nomination for his successor will be brought to the Assembly.

6.2 We are delighted that one of our colleagues has been elected as Moderator of General Assembly and we wish Elizabeth Welch God’s blessing during the Assembly and throughout her year in office.