THE GIFT OF SELF-SUPPORTING ORDAINED MINISTRY

Transcription

1 THE GIFT OF SELF-SUPPORTING ORDAINED MINISTRY

2 Diocese of Oxford Diocesan Church House North Hinksey Lane Oxford OX2 ONB Tel: Published June 2013

3 INTRODUCTION Self-Supporting Ministry in the Diocese of Oxford 2/3 THE STORIES: LOCAL MINISTRY Roger Burne: Call began at baptism 5/6 Anne Kiggell: An eleventh hour call 7/8 Richard Chand: Anglican Asian living fellowship 9/10 THE STORIES: DEPLOYED INTO PARISH MINISTRY Andrew Parry: Balancing work, ministry and family life 12/13 Philip Davies: House for Duty 14/15 THE STORIES: BEYOND THE PARISH Anne Holmes: Chaplaincy 17/18 CONTENTS Charlotte Bannister-Parker: A call to mission 19/20 Teresa Morgan: Ministry in the work place 21/22 WANT TO KNOW MORE? The criteria for selection 23 How to explore Self-Supporting Ministry further 24/25 1

4 SELF-SUPPORTING MINISTRY IN THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD Ask any Self-Supporting Minister (SSM), and they will tell you that Self- Supporting Ministry is a privilege and a joy. It is a privilege to be able to make a free gift of one s time and energy to God in ordained ministry. It is a joy to serve God s people in all the ways that Self-Supporting Ministry can, in all the places it can reach. The road to ordained ministry is often a long and winding one, and this is perhaps especially true of SSMs. A vocation to SSM can emerge at any age, but many people come to it later in life, after years of Christian discipleship and service. A vocation to ministry may be both the culmination of a life of faith and the beginning of a new chapter, and SSMs bring to their ministry a deep understanding of Christian living in all its aspects. Some people are sure from the beginning they are called to this form of ministry, while others are given it by the Church. A significant number of SSMs feel called to minister simultaneously in the Church and in the wider world, by working or bringing up a family alongside their ordained ministry. Some priests and deacons move between selfsupporting and stipendiary ministry in the course of their ordained life as family or work circumstances change. SSMs are selected, trained and ordained in the same ways as stipendiary clergy. Once ordained, nearly all are licensed to a parish, or a group of parishes, and many spend the rest of their ministerial lives in The call to ordination came as a surprise and I was initially reluctant to consider leaving nursing, my primary vocation. The process of discernment helped me accept my calling and to discover the possibility of working both as a nurse and an ordained self-supporting minister. parishes as associate clergy, priests-in-charge, vicars or rectors. Some, though, have roles across deaneries rather than parishes, while others become chaplains (in industry, 2

5 hospitals, schools, universities or prisons), or develop new and experimental forms of ministry and mission. As his or her ministry develops, an SSM may also be asked to take on extra responsibilities within the Church, perhaps becoming an Area Dean or a Director of Ordinands. When an SSM is ordained, he or she agrees with their Bishop or Archdeacon and local colleagues how many hours per week they are able to give to ministry, bearing in mind their other commitments. The hours one can give may change several times during an SSM s ministering life. Once they are licensed, SSMs also work out with their ministerial colleagues who will do what. In some teams, people specialise in different areas (e.g. youth work, teaching, the ministry of healing); in others, everyone does a bit of everything. Some SSMs are called to be worker priests or ministers in secular employment (MSEs). MSEs have secular jobs and regard much, if not the whole of their ministry as occuring in their place of work. The priestly or diaconal activities of MSEs in their workplaces are very varied. They often act as pastoral support - an attentive and compassionate presence among their co-workers. They may convene prayer groups, discussion or Bible study groups or take informal services. They often find themselves baptising, marrying or burying colleagues or colleagues relatives. They may exercise a prophetic ministry, speaking out or acting on behalf of someone in the organisation who is being treated unjustly or unkindly. MSEs are in their workplace as Christ is in the world: a quiet presence, often unnoticed but working constantly to make their organisation a more neighbourly, more just and more compassionate place. Ordained local ministry fits me perfectly, as a farmer. It is a joy baptising babies in the same font where I was baptised. 3

6 THE STORIES: THE CALL STORIES AND TRAINING THE STORIES: LOCAL MINISTRY

7 ROGER BURNE: CALL BEGAN AT BAPTISM Looking back, I wonder how and when it all started. Was it at my baptism in 1947? Or when I was asked if I had ever considered a recognised form of ministry in 2001? Perhaps it was when we took our children to a school Harvest Festival in about 1977 and decided there might be something in this church stuff after all. Was it when the power of prayer became so obvious during my years of work in a children s hospice? Or was it some time during the last 15 years of my life as a GP when I became aware that there was something tugging at me something that I would now recognise as the Holy Spirit, prompting and urging me along Photo: Roger joining in the local community scarecrow competition in his parish. a new and different path? Was it while my mother suffered from Alzheimer s Disease for ten years before her death and the grief that followed? However and whenever it started, I found that I responded almost instantly when the question was finally put into words. I knew with deep certainty that I must offer myself for ordination. In 1987 we had come to the Church of the Holy Family in Blackbird Leys where I now serve, and found it a community of love and healing. More than that, we found a relatively deprived community which, though it was often given a bad press, actually held huge riches. The nature of the church as a...cont d 5

8 Local Ecumenical Partnership (LEP) created an atmosphere of sharing and acceptance. It is not that there are no differences between us, but when we seek to draw on the riches and understanding of five different denominations (Church of England, Baptist, Methodist, Moravian and United Reformed Church), it is important to be confident in the faith we share as well as being clear where the differences lie. In 2003, I started part-time training on what is now the Oxford Ministry Course. It was hard work but enormous fun. I discovered that even at approaching 60 I could learn new subjects and new ways of studying so much so that after ordination I completed an MA in Ministry, with encouragement and support from the Diocese. Ordination at Michaelmas 2006 was closely followed by retirement from medicine. After retirement, I had offered the Church two or three days a week plus Sundays. In the event I worked considerably more than that for the next five years. When work is a passion, worthwhile and enjoyable, it is easy to become very involved. I had anticipated that the period of transition from lay person to ordained and from GP into retirement might be problematic. Whether because of good preparation, good fortune or the love and support of those around me, it was surprisingly easy. During my MA I had discovered an interest in contemplative prayer and a spirituality which leans towards silence and solitude. I was looking forward to developing these interests during a sabbatical, but I developed a severe and progressive muscular weakness, and spent the sabbatical dealing with that instead. What next? I will return to whatever normal life will now become and to Holy Family, but sabbaticals change things. The Holy Spirit will have plans for me and I look forward to finding out what they are. I have always been an expert in doing too much, so I hope that if nothing else changes I may learn to dwell a little more in prayer before leaping into action. 6

9 ANNE KIGGELL: AN ELEVENTH HOUR CALL I was accepted for training for Ordained Local Ministry in 1999, at the age of 63, after an exploratory period when I first retired from salaried work. One of the selectors expressed reservations about whether the Diocese would get its money s worth, considering my advanced age. Thirteen years later I am still an active member of a benefice team, with main responsibility for one of the village churches and pastoral care of its community and those years of working life have all fed experience and skills into this eleventh hour ministry. I was ordained into a situation of some stress and conflict, which resulted within four months in an interregnum which lasted more than a year. It was in at the deep end with a vengeance! I worked with four training incumbents outside the benefice as I served my title, but within it I was the only ordained person, and after eight months, the only priest, in three parishes. With two lay readers and help from deanery clergy we set about rebuilding our life. Bishop Dominic (former Bishop of Reading) authorised me to perform marriages as a deacon, so I was conducting all baptisms, marriages and most funerals from the very beginning of my ministry....cont d 7

10 The next incumbent of our modern Catholic benefice was a member of Reform, with strong views about women s role, and a reluctance to accept my priestly ministry. I was virtually barred from two of the churches, but left alone in the parish where I lived, where our worship continued largely as before. My incumbent was an enthusiastic and friendly young man; so long as we avoided theological arguments, we got on well. After four years my incumbent departed, and we began a second interregnum. Already in my seventies, I found a programme of two services most Sundays, and sometimes three, was more tiring than before, but still manageable. We now have a new priest-incharge, and while he allows me great autonomy in my own home parish, we do share the services and my load is lighter I sometimes even have a free Sunday. During my ministry I have taken a full part in deanery and chapter affairs. There is only one benefice in the deanery where I have not officiated, an enriching experience in itself. For the deanery synod, I served two three-year terms on the Standing and Pastoral Committees. I also served as secretary (and stand-in chair for one year) of the deanery Spiritual Development Group, a body which invites a variety of high-quality speakers several times a year. It is a wonderfully rich and rewarding life, and one can only be grateful to a diocese which embraced the concept of ordained local ministry so enthusiastically. Teams of local, self-supporting and stipendiary, part-time and full-time ordained priests working together, sharing gifts and passions are a sign to the world that God values diversity, loves difference and uses what we give to bring life to communities, churches and our places of work - The Venerable Karen Gorham (Archdeacon of Buckingham). 8

11 RICHARD CHAND: ANGLICAN ASIAN LIVING FELLOWSHIP My name is Richard Wazir Chand and I am 50 years of age. I was born a Christian and my father is also a priest, but I came closer to the Lord Jesus Christ in I had a spiritual experience when a curate from the Parish of Cowley prayed for me over some problems I had. I felt the Lord lift my burdens from me and I felt a totally different person. At the time I was working for the Post Office as a postal officer and studying accountancy in the evenings. It was also at this time that I met Rebecca, and we married in In 1991, we were blessed with a daughter whom we named Elisabeth, and in 1994 with a son whom we named Daniel. In 1992, I felt a very strong call to be a priest. Rebecca supported and encouraged my call to be God s servant in some capacity. After discussions with my Rector and the Diocesan Director of Ordinands, I began a series of short theological courses which led to my becoming a Licensed Lay Minister in 1998, shortly after I qualified as an accountant. By now Rebecca and I were living in Barton in the parish of St Mary s, Headington. I had started a Bible Club which later evolved into a weekly Asian house group prayer meeting. Its members were welcome in the...cont d 9

12 church, while church members were welcome to the Bible Group s meetings, trips to the seaside and pilgrimages to Walsingham and Glastonbury. We also enjoyed combined barbeques, pancake parties, Ash Wednesday services, and Christmas carol services. I introduced many Asian families to the parish church and many became members of it. I still felt a calling in my heart to become an ordained priest, so I started a distance learning degree in theological studies. In the meantime our Asian ministry was establishing itself and growing at St Mary s and throughout the deanery, and indeed the diocese. I was also nominated to be a member of the Diocesan Racial Justice Committee. In 2000, the Parish Priest at St Mary s sent me to the DDO (Diocesan Director of Ordinands) again after I shared the calling I had to be a priest, and shortly afterwards I was accepted for training. I completed my training in 2005 and returned to the Parish of St Mary s Headington to serve my curacy. In a special service in 2005, I was commissioned by the Bishop of Oxford for Asian ministry in the Cowley deanery and to become leader of the Anglican Asian Living Church. In 2009, I became an associate priest with a house for duty in the Cowley team ministry. I had successfully joined my father s Asian ministry with mine into one project and Asian Church. That year, I also moved to working part time at the Post Office, to free up one day a week for parish ministry and one day for work with the Asian Church. It is now three years since my family and I moved to the parish of Cowley to work with the Cowley Team Ministry in the churches of St James and St Francis. The Anglican Asian Living Fellowship is still going strong and is gradually becoming more integrated with the parish churches of Cowley and the deanery. I feel privileged and blessed to be serving God and God s people in this way. 10

13 THE STORIES: THE CALL STORIES AND TRAINING THE STORIES: DEPLOYED INTO PARISH MINISTRY

14 ANDREW PARRY: BALANCING WORK, MINISTRY AND FAMILY LIFE It took me many years to respond to my calling. I d first heard the call to ministry while in my final year at school but managed to keep interposing things between me and it. Also, I had a vague feeling that it was wrong somehow, if I had a call, to test it through such a formal process as a panel. If God was calling me, then a panel should be irrelevant! My mind was changed when a friend went through the selection process. He has for some time now been a wonderful minister of God s word. So I followed my calling. Now, seven years later, where do I find myself? I am a husband and father, HR manager for various global functions in a large multinational, and curate in my local parish. One of the challenges of this situation is that of maintaining boundaries. It has been essential to my ministry to develop prayerfullyconsidered, well thoughtthrough and clearly-stated arrangements with colleagues, and to apply them. Once clear boundaries are established, one can make the exceptions that are inevitably required. For instance, I might make a quick change to a meeting at work to allow me to slip out mid-afternoon to visit the local hospital where a member of the congregation has just been admitted. I keep in touch with people by , text message and the phone, until we can meet in person. I have been known to conduct a funeral at the nearby crematorium during my lunch hour. I constantly feel pulled to do more, but the pull comes from within myself 12

15 rather than from the congregation, who are very considerate of my other commitments. Apart from this, how different is ministry as an SSM from ministry as a stipendiary minister? I count myself very blessed to be in a demanding job which I love and which challenges me in many ways. I love the growing realisation among people at work that I am a minister and the increasing number of conversations I have which appear quite conventional and end up talking about God. But I also love ministry in the parish. It is such a privilege, and it is such fun! It can sometimes feel that ministry as an SSM is a more restricted version of stipendiary ministry. We do a lot of the same things and a lot of things in the same way, but what we do always seems to be a subset of the full role of ministry. We have less time to devote to it and we therefore miss out on some aspects, such as funerals (which can be difficult to get to), and having people knocking on our door (because we don t live in a clearly identified clergy house). This is clearly part of the truth, but there is more to ministry as an SSM. Because much of our working life is spent outside the parish, most of the people we meet appear to have no interest at all in Christ. We have the luxury of being able to immerse ourselves in the world outside the Church and to be a Christian presence where, sometimes, people least expect there to be one. We can talk, more readily than our stipendiary brothers and sisters, of the daily experiences of the workplace, of the fear people have of losing their jobs, of being bullied. I think the Church is still working through the longerterm implications of having increasing numbers of SSMs. And I look forward to working through those too, God willing, in the decades to come. 13

16 PHILIP DAVIES: HOUSE FOR DUTY Why would anyone choose self-supporting ministry instead of a vicarage and stipend? I enjoyed a full stipend for eleven years, and called a vicarage home for fifteen years, but now, by my own choice, I have neither. I became a Christian and first felt called to ordained ministry at university. After graduating I spent two years as a full-time lay assistant, experiencing what my Rector termed the intestines of the Church of England. Then I went to an ordination selection conference... and was turned down. This was a shock and bitter disappointment, and I resolved that if the Church didn t want me, I would go and earn a fortune in the world instead. I spent five years working and a year travelling round Australia, both of which were formative experiences. But the call to ordination was still there, and God didn t let me go. I offered for ordination again, and this time I was accepted. My curacy and first incumbency were in Lichfield Diocese. I was a rural Team Vicar, then Team Rector in six village parishes in north Shropshire. When our first child was born, it became difficult to be at a different church every Sunday, so for 14

17 family reasons we moved to the Oxford Diocese, and the single parish market town of Olney, North Bucks. After eleven years, though, I had questions about the model of full-time stipendiary parish ministry. While we teach about every member ministry, our normal Anglican pattern is to have full-time stipendiary clergy in charge, which can lead to too much of the work of mission and ministry being left to them. My wife and I therefore chose to move to Banbury, where she works part-time in a local hospice and I became a housefor-duty priest in charge of a town parish of 7,000 people and seven schools. It was impossible to look after this on my own on three days a week, so the laity took responsibility for the building and finances, fund-raising and social events, leaving me to lead worship, preach and teach, spend time in pastoral care and take the occasional offices. Although I didn t go part-time with this intention, once I had more time and space I began creative writing: first short stories for my children and then a full-length novel. I now live and work flexibly as a writer, with permission to officiate. I help out where needed around the deanery, and explore a wider ministry as a Christian freelance writer. What is the aim and focus of my Christian writing ministry? It has long been a concern of mine that the Church is not very good at keeping or attracting older children, teenagers and young adults. If they won t darken our doors, then we need to go to them. They might not sit through a service or sermon, but they do read books, and they watch films. To my mind, much of what they might read or watch offers a negative portrayal of faith, God or the Church. But they are open, spiritual and questioning, if the issues with which they grapple can be addressed without preaching. There is great power in stories, to make us laugh or cry, to move us... and to make us think. I hope to offer some new stories to the young people of today. I feel this is something to which God has called me. After all, storytelling was the means by which Jesus got His most powerful and memorable messages across. 15

18 THE STORIES: THE CALL STORIES AND TRAINING THE STORIES: BEYOND THE PARISH

19 ANNE HOLMES: CHAPLAINCY I have been ordained for ten years and would describe myself as a Minister in Secular Employment. I earn my living now as a psychotherapist, working with individuals, couples and groups. In the past I have combined secular work with sector ministry alongside serving my title in a parish. My life journey has been complicated and I shall summarise it very briefly as I do not believe that anything is wasted by God as we seek to discern our present calling. I grew up in a Midlands vicarage and read history at Birmingham University, then completed a postgraduate diploma in education. I have taught in both state and private schools. I married a soldier over 40 years ago and have had two children. My ministry then was a lay one, albeit as a Franciscan Tertiary for the last twenty-five years. After the breakdown of my marriage, I trained first as a counsellor, then as a group analytic psychotherapist or group analyst. I also pursued an earlier calling to ministry and was licensed as an LLM in I was very happy with this combination of teaching,...cont d 17

20 therapeutic work and lay ministry, so it was a surprise to find myself called to ordained ministry. At first I wondered whether God was calling me to become a full-time stipendiary priest. It soon became clear, however, that my work as a therapist and tutor in counselling skills was a ministry in its own right, so my ordained ministry has always been carried out in addition to parttime educational and clinical work. In addition I worked as a parttime chaplain first in a school, then in mental health at the two NHS psychiatric hospitals in Oxford. I retired from the NHS three years ago and now work as a volunteer chaplain for the Oxford Ministry Course. Since ordination ten years ago, I first 18 served my title, then continued as an Associate Priest in Old Marston, Oxford. I am also available to assist the Anglican Community of St Clare in Freeland. Three years ago, I completed an MA in Pastoral Theology. For my dissertation, I explored the role of the creative arts in the prevention of clergy burnout and developed the idea of creative repair. As a consequence, I have begun to lead a variety of workshops on creative repair with clergy and ordinands and have published a paper in the journal Practical Theology. I have been encouraged to take my studies further, and have begun a Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology, in which I can integrate my thinking with my work as a psychotherapist. Although past the age of statutory retirement, I continue to earn my living as a psychotherapist in private practice. As a group analyst, I am also contracted to conduct groups of psychotherapy trainees and to facilitate staff support groups within the NHS. Some of my colleagues know that I am ordained and at times choose to discuss spiritual matters with me. They are particularly interested in my concern to prevent clergy burnout and in time I hope to apply what I have discovered to a wider range of professions. As I move further away from obvious, visible ministry, I look forward to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a priest when not obviously attached to a particular parish.

21 CHARLOTTE BANNISTER-PARKER: A CALL TO MISSION It has been an enormous privilege to have worked as an SSM at St Mary the Virgin, the University Church of Oxford, for the last eight years. It has been a varied and challenging time. For the first three years I was a curate. During that time I started our monthly Family Service, which helped to grow a new congregation which is still thriving. I developed the Annual Interfaith Friendship Walk, bringing together Christians, Muslims, Jews and those of other faiths. I also helped establish the annual lecture series One Earth, Many faiths which brings together high profile speakers to discuss issues related to the environment and how different faiths are committed to saving the planet. Together with the Vicar, I started the series Oxford Debates Religion which helps to highlight contemporary religious issues and draw in a wider audience. After three years, I was appointed the Bishop of Oxford s Adviser for Overseas Programmes. Before coming to the priesthood my professional background had been in development and environment issues as an academic and a filmmaker. I had some experience of Africa and Latin America, so when I heard about the Oxford Diocese s link with the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to visit the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman and see if we could...cont d 19

22 establish stronger links with projects there, especially some related to sufferers of HIV/AIDS and orphaned and vulnerable children. For the following four years my work was split between St Mary s, where I was now an Associate Priest, and working on the diocesan overseas link. This meant first going to live for four months in Kimberley with my family to establish projects, and then visiting the diocese once or twice a year to support and follow up the project work. Back in the UK I was a member of the diocesan link committee, and also continued to be a member of Churches Together in central Oxford and the newly established Oxford Council of Faiths. I recently resigned as the 20 Bishop s Adviser for Overseas Programmes and took up a position as UK Chair and President of The Children s Radio Foundation (CRF), which is based in Cape Town, but has small offices here. The blessing of this work is that CRF is supporting radio stations and radio youth training in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman, so although I have changed jobs I will continue to support and work with young people there. Being a self-supporting priest has enabled me to be part-time at St Mary s (which means about two days a week, one evening a week and Sundays during the term time), and to pursue mission work in the areas of interfaith and development. We have a saying at St Mary s which is attributed to St Francis: Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words. I hope that throughout my work I have been able to reach out to a wide range of individuals. Christian ministry has always been extremely moving and challenging for me. Recently I was appointed Head of Social Action and Outreach at St Mary s, and hope that after the extensive building work and redevelopment, we will be able to welcome even more people to hear the Christian message and share our experience. I pray that I shall always continue to learn and grow, developing my ministry and faith in my service to God however and wherever it may be.

23 TERESA MORGAN: MINISTRY IN THE WORK PLACE I was ordained in my early 30s, and always felt called to self-supporting ministry and ministry in secular employment (MSE). My job as a university lecturer means that at the moment I only give a few hours a week to my parish, but I am also a priest at work. MSEs minister in many ways. I have married and buried students and colleagues and baptised their children. Colleagues or students sometimes come to talk about something that is worrying them or to explore questions of faith. Above all, I hope to be someone that people can trust to put God, and them, first. My experience, from seeing other MSEs at work, is that a ministry of faith, hope and love can transform a workplace. When people receive attention and respect for what they do, they work together more happily and effectively. When they know they can trust a colleague, because that person is more committed to God than to their own advancement, they can relax and open up to ideas. Hope is an undervalued quality in many organisations, and one of the ministries of an MSE is to hope all things for their co-workers. The hope I work for is that my university not only survives and thrives, but that it dares to be a place of vision, making the greatest contribution that research and teaching can make to the flourishing of God s creation. Ministering in the workplace, I believe, is about embodying the good news practising love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in such a way that people can see and feel how faith changes situations and lives. I m not saying I m good at it! But I keep trying....cont d 21

24 Meanwhile, I am licensed to the parish of Littlemore, and help out as needed in neighbouring parishes. Travelling between churches, making new friends and taking part in diverse acts of worship is a hugely enjoyable part of the job and often very thoughtprovoking. Besides taking services and visiting, much of my parish work involves teaching. This includes a Bible study group that meets fortnightly, and some of my research finds its way into parish courses, topical leaflets and popular books. Before I was ordained, I assumed my lecturing experience would inform the way I preached, while ordination training might change the way I related pastorally to colleagues and students. In fact, the opposite happened: my research and teaching became more like my preaching, while my pastoral relationships became more like my relationships with students and colleagues. In both cases, the key was integrity. Academics can play with ideas and arguments for the pleasure of the exercise, but in the pulpit one can only try to speak truth. Somehow, the more I preached, the more concerned I became as a classicist with questions of truth and ultimate value. As a priest, in pastoral encounters, I was sometimes tempted to use traditional words of hope and consolation, whether or not they resonated strongly with my own experience. At work, in contrast, if a colleague wanted to talk, I knew they would want a response out of my lived experience, however limited. The honesty demanded by pastoral encounters at work taught me the value of honesty in the parish too. Experiences like these are part of what make a ministry half within and half outside the Church extraordinarily fulfilling. God is with us everywhere. The challenge of SSM and MSE is to let all the places where we encounter God illuminate and enrich each other in a continual, unpredictable and transformative conversation. 22

25 WANT TO KNOW MORE? Over the last ten years ordained ministry has experienced a revolution with 50 per cent of our ordained clergy now being selfsupporting ministers. This is an exciting time to be in ministry as the Church of God recovers her call to be the sent people of God to our communities. Self-supporting ministers remind us that ministry is a collaboration of all the faithful seeking to further the mission of God in their areas. Discernment of a vocation to ministry is a mutual process, involving the local and national church and the individual concerned. It is not uncommon that a person called to ordained ministry is the last to realise that God might be calling them to serve as an ordained minister. Ordained ministry can be demanding, not just with the obvious things such as balancing your time, but in areas such as relationships, friendships, coping with distressing pastoral situations, being a public representative for a large institution. The Church has careful processes in place to ensure that those recommended for training might flourish in ministry and those who share in their ministry might grow and thrive in their faith and discipleship. THE CRITERIA FOR SELECTION These can be found in detail on the Church of England (Ministry Division) website at They include the following areas that will be explored in depth: 1. VOCATION 2. MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 3. SPIRITUALITY 4. PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER 5. RELATIONSHIPS 6. LEADERSHIP AND COLLABORATION 7. FAITH 8. MISSION AND EVANGELISM 9. QUALITY OF MIND 23

26 If after reading the stories in this booklet you feel that God might be asking you to explore selfsupporting ordained ministry there are some things to do and some things for you to be aware of. TO DO: Pray for God s guidance. Speak to your vicar and to others who know you well and can be objective about your gifts and personality traits. Find out what might be involved. Speak to other self-supporting ministers. Read about what it means to be a priest or deacon. See for reading list. Arrange to meet with your Deanery Vocations Adviser if you would like to explore this further (details at vocations). Participate in some of the Diocesan Learning for Discipleship and Ministry courses. Prayerfully consider, perhaps with others, whether you have the gifts and abilities described in the nine criteria for selection (see page 23 of this booklet). 24 The process of discernment can be a demanding one. All areas of your life are discussed, and it might feel very intrusive. However, don t let that put you off! We aren t looking for perfection. We are looking for potential as much as for track records. TO BE AWARE OF: Candidates for self-supporting ordained ministry are expected to be communicant members of the Church of England who are immersed in their parish and well known. Candidates must expect to work with a Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DD0) for around months before attending a Bishops Advisory Panel. If recommended, the Church currently pays any training fees. Training for self-supporting ministry is likely to be part-time over three years. There are various part-time pathways depending on your circumstances. Training continues post-ordination with the Initial Ministerial Education Programme. Realistically this will require a minimum time commitment of between hours per week.

27 There are no upper age limits for candidates offering for selfsupporting ministry, but in practice we consider very carefully whether to proceed with candidates over the age of 60 years. You will be asked to live within the guidelines contained in Issues in Human Sexuality (1991). It is no longer the case that divorce is an automatic disqualification for ordained ministry. However candidates who are divorced and married again (or married to someone who has been divorced) will need to be prepared to undertake a separate process in order that a faculty may be applied for. Candidates are asked to complete a financial statement. Ordination of self-supporting and stipendiary priests in Photo: Crown reserved with kind permission of RAF Halton Photographic section. 25

28 A priest was always someone else - someone older, someone very learned, someone to respect. It took me a long time to accept that priest could be me.