I had another discussion on ordination with a minister this afternoon. It was interesting, after my previous discussion, to have what seems to be a continuation of the point I picked out of the prior discussion.
The minister commented that when he was in my position, ordination was seen as the end of a long path, but that his view developed as he lived in the position. He was keen to point out that the act of ordination is an act of "setting apart", not of a change of nature, but the key point for him was the acceptance of responsibility of leadership on a permanent basis. He also emphasised the responsibilities taken in order to preserve the church and represent the church in a place.
He expressed this both in the discussions on the nature of ordination and of the vows, and placed a high emphasis on the fact that (although lay people may take particular authority) the ordained have a lifelong commitment to the mission of Christ. The phrases often used were along the lines of 'backstop' or 'the buck stops here', so I naturally had to throw in my 'divine polyfiller' aversion. He replied that the minister takes accountability for the areas the minister sees as vital (particularly those expressed in the vows of ordination and induction) and leaves room for congregational participation before making decisions. His question back to me was "How to you handle failure?" as it is necessary for initiatives to be tried and allowed to fall over.
One area that this person was strong on was on the commitments made by ministers to participate in the life of the wider church, and the part ministers play in the councils of the church. One element he particularly sees in the vows is the articulation of the particularity of ordained ministry, and he sees the continued development of this articulation to be part of the task ahead for the ordained within the church. He also charged me to always consider that a minister's accountability is to the presbytery, not the congregation.
The final part I would like to reflect on was an analogy for the ordained within the body of Christ. He described the ordained as being the skeleton and the non-ordained the flesh. Neither can be effective without the other, but the act of ordination (with its historical precedence) provides stability and strength to the church. This, to me, naturally places a high emphasis on training, support and continual formation of those who are ordained. This has strongly interacted with the thoughts I have been having about the reformation period and the part that the loss of focus of the clergy played in those events.
In the final reflection though, what part does the church (and the gathered congregation) play in ordination? Does the church merely allow people to take these oaths of high responsibility and receive witness to the faithfulness of Christ, or is there something more? I certainly hope so, I can't do this on my own strength!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
On Ordination as admission to a community
The post-field group at college shared a discussion on ordination with a minister yesterday. The minister we spoke to designated two key significances of ordination, the way in which ordination is one of many occasions in which the church affirms the calls of individuals, and the way in which this affirmation places the ordinand within a community of tradition that goes back 2000 years. He sees the key feature of that community is that of function: the call to be attentive to God, and to call communities to be attentive to God.
This lead on to a discussion on the vows of ordination, as the vows move from the generalities of reliance on Christ to the specific functions of ministers in the UCA. The continuing theme was that of spiritual leadership within different contexts, and we were reminded of the many ways that communities can tempt ministers away from the focus.
Yet, when we got to the end, the question in mind for me was "What is the difference between ordination and commissioning?" The response was immediate, "Ordination is for life, but commissioning is for a specific purpose or context." This was said with passion, this was important. This is more than just a job, it is a membership in a community of those who have agreed, and the church has agreed, to set their lives apart for the purpose of spiritual leadership.
So, in this case, the rite of ordination is a rite of admission. The vows serve to remind the minister and the church of the roles and responsibilities, and the minister serves this out in a life of spiritual leadership. Once again, I am struck by the honour which I have been called to, and to which the church is affirming at the moment.
Do you confess anew Jesus Christ as Lord? That one's easy, it is only through the grace and call of Christ that I may understand myself with such company.
This lead on to a discussion on the vows of ordination, as the vows move from the generalities of reliance on Christ to the specific functions of ministers in the UCA. The continuing theme was that of spiritual leadership within different contexts, and we were reminded of the many ways that communities can tempt ministers away from the focus.
Yet, when we got to the end, the question in mind for me was "What is the difference between ordination and commissioning?" The response was immediate, "Ordination is for life, but commissioning is for a specific purpose or context." This was said with passion, this was important. This is more than just a job, it is a membership in a community of those who have agreed, and the church has agreed, to set their lives apart for the purpose of spiritual leadership.
So, in this case, the rite of ordination is a rite of admission. The vows serve to remind the minister and the church of the roles and responsibilities, and the minister serves this out in a life of spiritual leadership. Once again, I am struck by the honour which I have been called to, and to which the church is affirming at the moment.
Do you confess anew Jesus Christ as Lord? That one's easy, it is only through the grace and call of Christ that I may understand myself with such company.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Some reflections on worship and church today
Over the last few days I have been observing the extravaganza that is the World Youth Day in Sydney, been reflecting on a potential move into ministry within the context of a cluster, been reflecting on the parable of the sower from both Markan studies and last week’s lectionary reading, attended the funeral of a key member of our congregation, and have attended a lecture by Rev. Dr. Michael Wheelan on Christian Spirituality in the Australian context.
It is apparent to me that inside many congregations the church is seen as those who attend worship services and those who attend related groups (with or without a profession of faith) are seen as associates, rather than core members. As such, participation in worship services is seen as the pinnacle of contribution and (by corollary) participation or leadership within the related groups is seen as a good thing, but not necessarily core business.
As I have watched WYD, I have reflected on the habit of festivals in the traditional European religious context, or even events such as “White Sunday” which I have seen within the Samoan Australian context. These are events which simply would not work without the participation of the whole community. If we are serious about the whole of our community being equipped by the Spirit for the growth of the whole church, I am finding myself wondering why we have structured ourselves so that our most public expressions of faith are so reliant on an elite few (those selected for public participation in worship, plus musicians and clergy).
At the funeral, I had the privilege of having a short discussion with the brother of the deceased, who is a member in a neighbouring congregation. As we shared, he informed me the peak of his faith life is on a Wednesday morning. At that time a group of about 15 gather to work at the church doing cleaning and other associate maintenance, and then share in morning tea afterwards. This is a group with a definite purpose for existence and, while we may bemoan the focus on property that is a key part of our life as a community, this man went on to describe how this group supports each other when times get tough. The little radical within me asked then how this group would be effected if they were challenged once in a while to create something for the worship life of the congregation and also found ways to recruit new members. He was from another congregation, so I kept silent.
At the lecture last night, we were asked by Michael to consider how we can live an authentic life as a spiritual organisation within the Australian context. He argued that the church, when it loses its spirituality, is soulless. He also argued that spirituality is not just about an individualistic relationship with God, but is also about relationships with others and the planet. Wheelan’s argument against individualistic styles of spirituality is that they are deficient in that they do not involve relationships with others and the sacrifices these entail. He also argued that organisation is an essential part of the human condition.
After the lecture we had a bit more discussion, and for me two key and apparently contradictory descriptors seem to have arisen: a yearning for safety (leading to the cult of self-sufficiency), and a yearning for belonging (as seen in the tribalism at times such as ANZAC Day or other common events such as WYD). This has lead me to consider the dinner-table level of polite discussion that seems be our predominant way of communication within the church. If we are to consider ourselves a community that is called to proclaim the gospel within our time, how are we to find ways to communicate the gospel within our current cultural situation.
Postmodernism has been criticised for the way in which it challenges the human mind’s ability to determine ultimate truths. If we consider God, and our salvation through Christ, to be our ultimate truths, this poses an extreme challenge to claims of a provable faith (please note, the words rational faith have been deliberately avoided as the irrational/rational has been set up as a evil/good dichotomy within the modern imagination) and a severe challenge to a faith based on axioms rather than relationships. Is this the next great leap for the church? Just as Israel needed to reform during the exile, and the church (in its different self-understandings) to the “Enlightenment”, Renaissance and the Industrial revolution, do we need to re-interpret what faith has to mean in the “post-truth” world? I believe that we have to realise that postmodernism does not deny truth, but actually embraces a whole variety of things that were dismissed during the Enlightenment and subsequent periods.
Firstly, this involves a different set of appreciations. Instead of asking questions of why people find things beautiful (for example), it appreciates that beauty is something in the eyes of its community at its time and values beauty as a truth in itself (albeit one that is not measurable or provable). This leads to a second and more radical set of questions. Continuing on from the prior example, money is seen by the post-enlightenment (or “modern”) mind as a rational truth in that it can be measured and its behaviour explained while beauty is eminently unmeasurable and thus should be excluded from calculations.
In other words, the world needs to get on with making money as its primary business, and the pursuit of beauty is seen as a luxury (almost a frivolous pursuit, to be limited to that which can be achieved by excess production). In the post-modern mind, this is an aberration as the assumption of measurability is under threat. As soon as people are involved, there are effects that are beyond simple explanation. Money can be critiqued as being a social construct that needs to be in dialogue with other values, and thus needs to be lowered from the exalted status it received in economic rationalism. (Money was made for humanity, and not humanity for money, to blatantly steal a phrase) It is obvious to me that both worldviews exist (and the postmodernist in me says that very few people would fall into either of the caricatures I have presented), but this is a profound cultural change that is changing the mode of the next generation’s thinking from propositional to dialogical, from assumptions of human intellectualism’s certainty to a distrust of ideologies and concretism.
Wheelan’s proposal for the future direction of the church is for us to become more dialogical in the way in which we relate to the broader community, being willing to be converted by Christ, who has preceded us into the world, in our conversations with the other. However, it is my fear that the urge to be accepted (and conversely, and more powerfully, the fear of rejection that often even stops us looking on ourselves truly) is the greatest enemy of such genuine conversations and before this stage we must first create spaces where such conversations may be held. It is only through an understanding of love and the unconditional acceptance due to other children of God that such spaces may be made – and I hope my fear that the church needs to be convinced of this first is not justified by reality.
So, how does this relate to my vision of worship in a postmodern church in clustered congregations? How would it be if a bible study group larger than the group of those preaching was used to generate ideas for the sermons from various preachers (lay and ordained)? How would it be if groups also gathered to create liturgy, settings, music and other aspects of worship? How would the worship life of the congregation look if ways were deliberately sought to use the abilities of the various associated groups in a visible manner on a regular basis? For example, what would it mean to those who bring morning tea if the food was brought forward with the offering or even the communion elements on occasion? In this world, the higher skill may be to creatively seek to see how others may contribute, than to emphasise one’s own contribution. Can we really learn to reach out and include the world without considering how we reach out to each other? Is it possible for us to recreate the sense of community that comes with a festival that incorporates all aspects of the congregation? These are things to consider as we head out into the future.
It is apparent to me that inside many congregations the church is seen as those who attend worship services and those who attend related groups (with or without a profession of faith) are seen as associates, rather than core members. As such, participation in worship services is seen as the pinnacle of contribution and (by corollary) participation or leadership within the related groups is seen as a good thing, but not necessarily core business.
As I have watched WYD, I have reflected on the habit of festivals in the traditional European religious context, or even events such as “White Sunday” which I have seen within the Samoan Australian context. These are events which simply would not work without the participation of the whole community. If we are serious about the whole of our community being equipped by the Spirit for the growth of the whole church, I am finding myself wondering why we have structured ourselves so that our most public expressions of faith are so reliant on an elite few (those selected for public participation in worship, plus musicians and clergy).
At the funeral, I had the privilege of having a short discussion with the brother of the deceased, who is a member in a neighbouring congregation. As we shared, he informed me the peak of his faith life is on a Wednesday morning. At that time a group of about 15 gather to work at the church doing cleaning and other associate maintenance, and then share in morning tea afterwards. This is a group with a definite purpose for existence and, while we may bemoan the focus on property that is a key part of our life as a community, this man went on to describe how this group supports each other when times get tough. The little radical within me asked then how this group would be effected if they were challenged once in a while to create something for the worship life of the congregation and also found ways to recruit new members. He was from another congregation, so I kept silent.
At the lecture last night, we were asked by Michael to consider how we can live an authentic life as a spiritual organisation within the Australian context. He argued that the church, when it loses its spirituality, is soulless. He also argued that spirituality is not just about an individualistic relationship with God, but is also about relationships with others and the planet. Wheelan’s argument against individualistic styles of spirituality is that they are deficient in that they do not involve relationships with others and the sacrifices these entail. He also argued that organisation is an essential part of the human condition.
After the lecture we had a bit more discussion, and for me two key and apparently contradictory descriptors seem to have arisen: a yearning for safety (leading to the cult of self-sufficiency), and a yearning for belonging (as seen in the tribalism at times such as ANZAC Day or other common events such as WYD). This has lead me to consider the dinner-table level of polite discussion that seems be our predominant way of communication within the church. If we are to consider ourselves a community that is called to proclaim the gospel within our time, how are we to find ways to communicate the gospel within our current cultural situation.
Postmodernism has been criticised for the way in which it challenges the human mind’s ability to determine ultimate truths. If we consider God, and our salvation through Christ, to be our ultimate truths, this poses an extreme challenge to claims of a provable faith (please note, the words rational faith have been deliberately avoided as the irrational/rational has been set up as a evil/good dichotomy within the modern imagination) and a severe challenge to a faith based on axioms rather than relationships. Is this the next great leap for the church? Just as Israel needed to reform during the exile, and the church (in its different self-understandings) to the “Enlightenment”, Renaissance and the Industrial revolution, do we need to re-interpret what faith has to mean in the “post-truth” world? I believe that we have to realise that postmodernism does not deny truth, but actually embraces a whole variety of things that were dismissed during the Enlightenment and subsequent periods.
Firstly, this involves a different set of appreciations. Instead of asking questions of why people find things beautiful (for example), it appreciates that beauty is something in the eyes of its community at its time and values beauty as a truth in itself (albeit one that is not measurable or provable). This leads to a second and more radical set of questions. Continuing on from the prior example, money is seen by the post-enlightenment (or “modern”) mind as a rational truth in that it can be measured and its behaviour explained while beauty is eminently unmeasurable and thus should be excluded from calculations.
In other words, the world needs to get on with making money as its primary business, and the pursuit of beauty is seen as a luxury (almost a frivolous pursuit, to be limited to that which can be achieved by excess production). In the post-modern mind, this is an aberration as the assumption of measurability is under threat. As soon as people are involved, there are effects that are beyond simple explanation. Money can be critiqued as being a social construct that needs to be in dialogue with other values, and thus needs to be lowered from the exalted status it received in economic rationalism. (Money was made for humanity, and not humanity for money, to blatantly steal a phrase) It is obvious to me that both worldviews exist (and the postmodernist in me says that very few people would fall into either of the caricatures I have presented), but this is a profound cultural change that is changing the mode of the next generation’s thinking from propositional to dialogical, from assumptions of human intellectualism’s certainty to a distrust of ideologies and concretism.
Wheelan’s proposal for the future direction of the church is for us to become more dialogical in the way in which we relate to the broader community, being willing to be converted by Christ, who has preceded us into the world, in our conversations with the other. However, it is my fear that the urge to be accepted (and conversely, and more powerfully, the fear of rejection that often even stops us looking on ourselves truly) is the greatest enemy of such genuine conversations and before this stage we must first create spaces where such conversations may be held. It is only through an understanding of love and the unconditional acceptance due to other children of God that such spaces may be made – and I hope my fear that the church needs to be convinced of this first is not justified by reality.
So, how does this relate to my vision of worship in a postmodern church in clustered congregations? How would it be if a bible study group larger than the group of those preaching was used to generate ideas for the sermons from various preachers (lay and ordained)? How would it be if groups also gathered to create liturgy, settings, music and other aspects of worship? How would the worship life of the congregation look if ways were deliberately sought to use the abilities of the various associated groups in a visible manner on a regular basis? For example, what would it mean to those who bring morning tea if the food was brought forward with the offering or even the communion elements on occasion? In this world, the higher skill may be to creatively seek to see how others may contribute, than to emphasise one’s own contribution. Can we really learn to reach out and include the world without considering how we reach out to each other? Is it possible for us to recreate the sense of community that comes with a festival that incorporates all aspects of the congregation? These are things to consider as we head out into the future.
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