IT IS ordination season once again. I attended a joyful ordination of deacons in the diocese of Portsmouth, where I live: I knew several of the candidates. Of course, I could not help but be aware that the Church of England faces a continuing drop in the numbers of those coming forward for ordination.
Residential theological colleges struggle to keep afloat. In many dioceses, courses are becoming shorter, and ordinands are getting older. During the ordination service, the bishop asks whether “those whose duty it is to examine these candidates have found them to be of godly life and sound learning”. To this the answer is, of course, affirmative.
The selection process, as laid out by the Ministry Division, looks rigorous, but its presumptions seem to me to favour a certain style of confident, mission-focused ministry, which non-Evangelicals will have to learn to parrot before they have a chance of being considered.
Many will respond that ministers who fit this description are just what the Church needs; they might even quote the Five Marks of Mission, an attempt to write an agenda for today’s Church which was invented by the Anglican Communion without any real attention to the theology of the Church of England’s focused, localised ministry.
Today’s selection criteria appear to exclude those whose gifts are primarily pastoral, those who are capable of bearing with difficult situations over time, those whose ministry is focused in prayer. Ministers are invited to “treasure” those for whom they care, but nowhere are they expected to learn from them, to be changed by them.
It worries me that the Church’s approach to ministry seems to exclude the genuinely humble, the curious, the intellectually focused, those for whom Christian faith is more defined by questions than answers. It is also sadly true that too many ordinands embark on their ministries with a poor knowledge of the scriptures and the barest understanding of the Church of England.
The deal for those ordained is not great these days. It is difficult to find experienced training incumbents with the time and skills to support curates in training. Parish ministry is challenged as never before, with fewer priests spread thinly, and more and more subject to diocesan priorities rather than free to discern the work of the Spirit on the ground.
Personal resilience is more than ever needed by those in ordained ministry. When even those who are outwardly robust often struggle, there is a worrying tendency in some dioceses to encourage individuals with a history of mental or emotional fragility into ministry.
Of course, with courage and good support, such people can be a gift to the Church. But they can also become overwhelmed in ways which drain their communities and leave them with an overwhelming sense of failure. Discernment is not just a matter of filling in forms: it should be grounded in theology and pastoral wisdom, not panic.