An Obvious Implication

After a conversation with a friend about all things Anglican the other day (well, some things Anglican), I made a connection that I hadn't made before - despite the fact that it's pretty obvious. So, forgive me if this something that everyone else realised ages ago... sometimes I'm a bit slow...

I realised that if an Anglican diocese chooses to ordain women into teaching and oversight and roles, then they can never again have bishops who are conservative on this issue (notwithstanding a synod- or province-level about face on the issue).

That is, as Anglicans worldwide battle over the question of whether the biblical prohibitions on women leading men in churches are culturally or circumstantially specific on the one hand, or universal on the other, they're actually deciding who they will allow into church leadership roles in more than one way. If a diocese comes down on the egalitarian side of the debate and chooses to welcome women into the priesthood, then they're also saying that they will no longer welcome any bishops who won't ordain women to that office.

Again, it's all kinda obvious, but I do wonder if every diocese that's gone down this path has consciously realised that in doing so they've ruled out many otherwise eligible candidates for future episcopal roles. I suppose that a gracious egalitarian archbishop who was genuinely committed to including and representing the breadth of views in their diocese could appoint a conservative suffragan / coadjutor bishop and give them a special dispensation to abstain from the ordinations of women to the priesthood. But really...

Anyways, as a conservative myself (though hopefully not a redneck conservative!), I've often felt that the fear-mongering among fellow conservatives on this issue has been a bit overplayed. But this simple connection has made me realise that the squeeze is on us perhaps a little more than I'd previously thought. At the moment, the egalitarian dioceses that I know best are still willing to ordain and welcome the ministry of people who are conservative on this issue, but now I guess it's those conservatives who will have a glass ceiling over their heads! Again, perhaps it's only my slowness that thinks the ceiling has the transparency of glass. At any rate, that's quite a turnaround.

Oh well, I guess we can at least relax happy in the knowledge that gospel ministry is about service and not about titles and power and institutional advancement. I'm pretty sure that Jesus isn't going to line us up by our worldly ranks on the last day!

Ten Reasons to be Anglican

Over a decade ago, when I was debating whether or not to sign myself up for the Anglican Church, I was presented with some pretty crummy reasons in favour. Among the least inspiring was the suggestion that the Anglican Church was just the 'best boat to fish from'. That is, while there's not really a whole lot that comes to mind in favour of it, it's probably better than the alternatives. Another equally bland attraction was that the Anglican Church had good job security. Whereas baptist congregations can sack their ministers at the drop of a hat, you're safer in the Anglican system, so the argument went. Well, I joined up anyway...

In recent times, I've been encouraged to think about some non-Anglican jobs and this has given me fresh pause to think about why I really want to stay an Anglican. Is there anything more positive that makes me - and might make others - want to be a flag-flying, card-carrying, unashamed Anglican follower of Jesus?

Of course, I know that at one level, this is a marginal issue. On the last day, Jesus isn't going to line up everyone by denomination. Far less is he going to embrace any denominational construct for its own sake. (Although I suspect that there may be denominational sins for which members of denominations will be held to account.) At another level though, it's a practical reality for lots of people who are thinking about church life. And it's certainly an essential question for anyone who wants to consider, and be considered for, church leadership.

So then, here are ten things that I think Anglican Church has got going for it and that make me really want to invest in it. Maybe others will think of more.

1. Solid theological foundation. Starting with the basics, the authoritative, foundational documents of the church are deep, clear and helpfully nuanced. The position on key points of doctrine are not only well defined, but also even artfully embodied into the well-balanced liturgies. The focus is squarely on Jesus Christ and his gospel as revealed through the historic Scriptures.

2. Breadth in secondary matters. The flip side of the first point is that Anglicans are permissive on non-core matters. There are many different traditions and styles within the Anglican Church and that's completely fine. With the essentials pinned down, there's plenty of freedom for different expressions of the faith and even for different views on some doctrinal questions. (For those who think that the liturgies are too inflexible, my own experience is that wooden services are more often the result of services leaders who don't embrace all the freedoms that the liturgies give them and then put proper time and effort into planning their services well.)

3. High value on scholarship. Anglicans are thinkers (sometimes to a fault) and have never been satisfied with Sunday-school theology (except in our Sunday schools!) Anglicans have always been deeply engaged with matters of philosophy, history, ethics, science and any other area of human exploration and there's no sign that this is going to end in a hurry.

4. Well-recognised church. While this isn't everything and mustn't be overly relied upon, it does mean something important to lots of people. Some who encounter church either for the first time or at a significant junction in their life, feel a lot more comfortable hearing "We're Anglicans" than "We made up our own church".

5. Longstanding community connections. Following on from the last point, there are still many parts of the world where Anglican parish churches have significant relational networks that spread through their suburbs and even into other organisations. Add to this the existing reach and impact of the extra-parochial agencies that serve so many in our communities (eg. Anglicare, Brotherhood of St Lawrence, etc) and it's clear that there are lots of ways that Anglicans already have considerable and important social connections.

6. Worldwide fellowship. The connections aren't just local either. The Communion is worldwide (around 80 million people globally) which not only means that there's a good fellowship of Anglicans in lots of places you can visit, but also that Anglican Churches are highly multicultural. In Melbourne, Chinese and Sudanese make up two of the largest sub-groupings within the Anglican Church.

7. Participatory decision-making structures. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury is the worldwide figurehead, his role isn't like the pope's in the Roman Catholic Church. Anglicans are 'episcopally led and synodically governed' which means that the local bishops are charged with setting direction and with hiring and firing clergy to achieve it (see this post on the role of bishops), but the lay people have their voices heard and their questions answered and can hold various offices in their parish and diocese.

8. Focussing on opportunities. Most Anglican dioceses around the world are in agreement that there is great need to keep pioneering new ways of doing church and of ministering to more and more people. The Church of England's Mission-Shaped Church report lays out a very positive agenda for the church and most of the Communion have grasped this sort of thinking and are eager to find ways to make new things happen.

9. Lots of resources. Primarily people and buildings. Now, buildings aren't everything and it's very dangerous to think that just having the keys to some real estate is going to build the Kingdom. But, having a meeting place on the main street of pretty much every town (at least here in Australia) and then also living space for a minster to go with it is a fantastically useful thing.

10. Administrative support. A centralised system for managing banking, payrolls, insurance, superannuation, professional standards and so on is priceless and saves each parish church from having to comply in all of these areas on its own.


As I've been writing, more things have been springing to mind, but I'll leave it there for now.

Anglicanism is far from perfect and it certainly has its fair share of problems, both large and small. But it seems to me that while anyone can easily point out negative things, it would be a great shame to either use those things to characterise the Anglican Church or to sink all of our energies into dealing with them. It's very good to keep remembering some of the reasons that the Anglican Church is a particularly great and faith-filled part of Jesus' church with a huge amount of potential. I'm staying.

Paying for It

In the past, my wife and I have served together as part of a team in church leadership which we felt worked pretty well at lots of levels. Because of that, we're looking to do the same in the future. However, as we've spoken about this with others, one of the issues that's been raised is the fact that most churches can't afford to put on two new staff members at the same time. Now, from our perspective, we've never been that fussed about this as we can happily get by on one income. But we have taken some pause to think more generally about the positives and negatives of working in a church for more hours than the paycheques cover. Here's a bit of a summary.

It's bad to work more hours than you're paid for because

• As Paul reminds us, "The [church] labourer deserves to be paid" (1 Tim 5:17-18, cf. Matt 10:10). This teaching recognises that working in a church is a 'real' job (and one that can require more training, can demand more hours, can have greater responsibility and can draw on a broader set of skills than many other jobs) and as such, it ought to be properly remunerated.

• Paying workers properly protects (somewhat) against their being taken for granted by those in the church.

• If a churchworker is paid for less hours than they actually work and then they move on to another ministry, the church may not be set up to pay replacement staff for enough hours to cover all that the former staffer was doing. That could mean some ministries struggle, falter or even end.

But some reasons that it's good to work more than you're paid are

• Church work should never, never be done for money. Church workers should primarily serve out of love for Jesus, his people and his mission, not remuneration. Traditionally, ministers were paid a 'stipend' rather than a salary. That is, they received an allowance sufficient for them to live on while they gave up their potential earning time to serve in the church. So the focus wasn't on dollars per hour, but on providing the basic needs for those set aside to do vocational church work. (This is a key idea in the Old Testament system of tithes too - eleven tribes gave ten percent to support the one tribe who served them in the Temple and who therefore couldn't work in the fields to raise crops and livestock for themselves.)

• It helps sustain a healthy culture of volunteerism which is critical if a church is to be fully functional in its mission and service. In churches I've worked at in the past, unpaid volunteers have been hugely important to the life and health of the community. If church members develop the attitude that they shouldn't offer themselves in free service because there are 'paid people' to do the work, then the church is in a bad state.

• Any money saved can be diverted to other good uses - helping the poor, special mission projects, supporting other churches - the possibilities are endless.

• A minister who gets paid less than they might has a great opportunity to champion simpler living to the church which ought to be marked by sacrificial generosity and selflessness.

• At least in Australia, the full remuneration package for Anglican ministers is very generous. I know of several ministers with a bunch of kids who have gotten by on a single Melbourne Diocese salary. I don't know of any who are struggling to put food on the table.

So perhaps the best situation is one where a congregation feels really committed to ensuring that those who serve (in whatever capacity) are adequately provided for, but at the same time, those who serve are equally as keen to lead the way in giving their time sacrificially and not always requiring all the payments they could claim.

Practically, this could mean that the local church pays its workers the full amount, but then those workers choose to return anything above what they need to live on back to the church coffers - or perhaps to another worthy cause. Or, the church could pay an old-fashioned stipend (like some missionary organisations still do today) and then they could set the remainder aside for other purposes. They could even create a fund to cover any gap that may arise when the 'underpaid' minister moves on.

There's nothing final in all this - just a few thoughts I've been kicking around. But however things are done, one thing I'm convinced of is that it mustn't be unusual for people in church to freely serve for free.

Who Does What 5 - Some Others...

A few more at the local church level...

Church wardens - have the legal responsibility for the local church's finances, property and staff. This means it's their role to ensure that the church's bills are paid on time, church buildings are properly maintained, staff remuneration packages comply with employment laws and so on and so on. The great thing about all this is that it serves the whole church by taking so much off the vicar's plate. When people train for ordained ministry through studying at a theological school and serving as curates, their focus tends to be on theology and pastoral studies, not on organisational management. And this is as it should be - pastoring and teaching should be the vicar's priority in the parish. Good wardens, therefore, should complement the vicar's skill set by bringing practical management competencies to the service of the local church.

Nominators - are lay people who are set aside to search out a new vicar / rector when one is required. They often do this in collaboration with an external person assigned by the bishop. Of course, most of the time they do nothing at all, but they must always be in place because no one can ever say for sure how long a vicar will remain at the helm.

Synod representatives - are those members of the local church who have voting rights at the diocesan synod (~parliament). Licensed clergy are usually (although not always) members of synod and then there are a number of elected or appointed lay members too. (There are various extra-parochial people who get onto synod too, but that's a whole other story.)

Umm... I don't really have a great deal of commentary to give on these positions at this stage and there are heaps more that I've left out too - archdeacons, deans, canons, precentors, lay readers, chaplains... But if anyone's especially interested in these (!) they can all be googled. Time for me to wrap this set up and move on I think...

Who Does What 4 - Parish Councils / Vestries

So, this one has been some time coming because it's harder to be clear about the role of a parish council or vestry than it is to be clear about clerical roles. I'm also not sure how much commonality there is between dioceses on the roles they assign to vestries so my reflections here are primarily based on the situation in Melbourne. (And I'm still not sure that I've got majorly insightful things to say... )

The Anglican Church has a strong history of lay leadership. In addition to the three orders of clergy, the Church includes lay leadership at a number of levels. Here in Melbourne, for example, the diocesan synod (~parliament) has more lay than clerical members. And each parish church has a council, or vestry, of lay people who are involved in its oversight.

While some local churches view their vestry as the board of governance, this isn't really right. Unlike boards in the corporate world, the vestry has no power to hire or fire the vicar / rector, who is the CEO equivalent, and the vicar actually has the power to appoint some members of the vestry. Also, the vestry has no real authority to direct the vicar / rector in terms of the ministry activities of the church.

The stated purpose of a vestry is to "consult together on matters of general concern and importance to the parish". Therefore, they are best understood as an advisory group for the vicar.

Such a group can be invaluable if they have all been screened on the basis of their Christian maturity and commitment to the parish church before taking up their roles. They can provide the vicar with lots of valuable insights from a range of perspectives. At the most basic level, just drawing on the exposure, experience and wisdom of a group of trusted congregation members will give the vicar a fuller picture of their church than if they just relied on their own.

But just as with other positions in the church, problems are likely to arise if a vestry assumes roles that they shouldn't. If, for example, they treat the vicar like their employee or want to have the final say in ministry decisions, then they've misunderstood their job. This isn't to say they have no recourse if they really believe their vicar is making a mistake - they can always approach their bishop if necessary. But like all roles in church, the clearer a vestry is about what they're meant to do, the more likely they are to be able to offer the most fruitful service.

Functional vs Ontological

Picking up on a question in an earlier post, here are a couple of thoughts on what exactly Anglican ordination is.

Basically, the views fall between two extremes. At the one end is the idea that ordination is purely functional such that getting ordained is a bit like getting, say, your pilot's licence. You need one to fly but it's no more than a mark of recognition that you've proven yourself able to fly, that you choose to be an active pilot and that the authorities are happy to accept you. There's no way in the world that just issuing a licence gives you your flying skills and there's no reason to hold a licence once your active flying career is over.

At the other extreme is the idea that when you're ordained, God affects an ontological change in the very nature of who you are. You become a different kind of person at the point of ordination. This is why when you stop working as a deacon, priest or bishop, you're still recognised as one in title and why some retired ministers still wear their clerical garb. They see themselves as part of a distinct and enduring group of believers even once they no longer have any official roles in the church.

I sit much closer to the first view than the second, however, I think the extreme position does go too far. The reality is that even if there's not an immediate supernatural transformation, there's certainly at least a social transformation that takes place when a person is ordained. There are appropriate whole-of-life expectations for ministers such that they cannot ever switch off from their role in the same way that a pilot can when they're not flying. And even once they've retired from a position, a failure to live up to their ordination vows can have significant impact on those that the clergy have previously ministered to in a way that a pilot's post-flight behaviour doesn't affect their previous passengers.

Like many arguments by extreme, while positions can be clarified by looking at the end-points, the reality can also be distorted by the terms of the analysis. Recognising this, it's also good to clarify the various ways that people use their language on this topic too, because while there are some significantly different views, there are also some that we might assume are more to one extreme than they really are. For comparison, consider the fact that ex-presidents of the US are still referred to as 'President'. This honourary use of the title in no way reflects anyone's beliefs about the reality - the US only has one president at a time - and given that so much is clear, the use of the title doesn't risk transmitting a dangerously distorted understanding of the Constitution. I suspect that some who attribute clerical titles to people who are no longer working for the church have a similar perspective on it.

It is worth noting that even when a retired minister does still carry their title, that doesn't automatically mean they can continue to perform specific ministerial duties. All clergy need a licence from their bishop or archbishop to be active in clerical ministry. So, while they still might be able to wear the collar, they cannot do things like perform weddings, preside at holy communion or ordain lay people (in the case of retired bishops) apart from a current licence. Any ontological change that occurred at ordination still needs permission to be functionally active.

Who Does What 3 - Deacons

Unlike bishops and priests, there are no specific tasks for deacons, although they are often thought of as having ministries that focus on serving the poor and marginalised or those at the fringe of the church. In the Anglican world, deacons can't do the 'ABC' of absolution, blessing and communion and therefore can't be appointed as parish vicars / rectors. While this could be seen as a limitation, it's better thought of as a freedom to stay focussed on other front-line ministries.

The go-to New Testament passages on deacons show us that they were first formally appointed to take on the work of food distribution so that the apostles could focus their energies on word ministries and prayer (Acts 6:1-6). And even though their task was very practical, it was imperative that those chosen had Spirit-shaped character (Acts 6:3, cf. 1 Timothy 3:8-13). But of course, as the story unfolds in Acts, we find that at least two of the deacons become powerful testifiers to the gospel of Jesus (Acts 7-8, 21:8), so there ends up being some significant overlap of their work and the apostles'. This is comparable to the overlap between the work of Anglican deacons and priests.

As I keep thinking about the diaconate, my question is, Why don't Anglicans ordain more people who work in churches as deacons? Here in Melbourne, we have many non-ordained church workers who are licensed by the Archbishop as 'Authorised Lay Ministers'. Why not make them deacons?

Reasons might include that some Anglicans believe that a person needs to be 'called' to ordained ministry and that when they are ordained, they are 'ontologically' changed. Therefore, ordination is more than just functional and more than just a practical recognition of the work someone does in a church. I'm not sure that I find this a particularly convincing argument. On the one hand, there's not much solid biblical evidence for it and on the other, it would seem strange to have lower expectations of an Authorised Lay Minister than a deacon if they were doing the same job.

Recruitment and training have become practical distinctions. That is, while the vicar of a local church can employ anyone they see fit, a deacon needs to have been through a diocese's program of formation. Perhaps this means that a deacon's suitability to their role is more broadly recognised than a lay minister's.

In the Diocese of Melbourne, there are very few distinctive deacons (as opposed to 'transitional' deacons who are moving towards becoming priests). By comparison, Sydney Diocese, with its more functional view of ministry, has been proactively reviving its diaconate over the past few years and so has a few more. Interestingly, these dioceses also have different stances on the ordination of women to the priesthood and this may affect their relative numbers of deacons. Melbourne accepts female priests and Sydney doesn't so in Sydney, all ordained women are deacons.

This leads to another good point to make when thinking about deacons which is that all clergy are deacons. That is to say that when a deacon is ordained priest, they don't stop being a deacon. I think this is great because it reminds the clergy that no matter how high up the organisational chart they might climb, they must always remain servants of others. Right in line with Jesus' teaching in Mark 10:35-45.

Who Does What 2 - Priests

Lots of Christians don't really like using the term 'priest' for church leaders anymore. This is because of the Old Testament connotations where the priesthood can appear largely ritualistic, the fact that the New Testament talks about the 'priesthood of all believers' (cf. 1 Peter 2:9 - although I am aware that the common interpretation of the phrase 'royal priesthood' is far from universally accepted) and just because of the current connotations of the word 'priest' - we tend to think of an old man who is either exceedingly soft and cuddly or else quite rigid and grumpy. The Anglican Diocese of Sydney has even begun using the non-translation 'presbyter' instead of 'priest' which is fine at one level, although if the aim was to avoid confusion, I'm not sure it's achieved all that much.

In the Anglican Church, ordained 'priests' are those people given authority to preach and administer the sacraments and whose general duties include leading and pastorally caring for a local church. I say 'general' duties, because there are actually lots of other ways that priests can be deployed. For example, they can be assistants to the head priest in a parish (the vicar or rector), chaplains in a wide range of contexts or workers in parachurch organisations. But even when a priest isn't a vicar / rector, it's still expected that they have all the qualifications and have met all the requirements for that 'standard' priestly role. This goes back in part to the idea of equivalence of ordination throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion.

One thing that I find really disappointing is that many priests give only a small amount of energy to their bread-and-butter work of preaching, presiding and pastoring. It would be easy to just highlight the five minute sermonettes that are offered in some liberal parishes or the infrequency of (and sometimes near-irreverent attitude towards) communion in some evangelical parishes, but the problem goes beyond these. So many parish priests these days find themselves so tied up in governance, management and administration tasks that time for sermon preparation and pastoral meetings seems to just get squeezed out. In many cases, this is genuinely grieved as priests long to get free of their ever-growing list of additional duties and to get on with the work they entered the priesthood to do. But there are others who I fear have forgotten their first charge and embraced an altogether different model of priestly leadership that isn't centred on pulpit and parishioners.

So what to do? The first thing is just to recognise the different roles that different members of the church are meant to fulfil and then to ensure that each person is focussing on the right thing. John Stott addressed exactly this issue in his chapter 'Ministry: The Twelve and the Seven' in one of his final books, 'The Living Church' (which is very worthwhile reading).

After this, priests then just need to employ the disciplines necessary for them to prioritise the priorities. A great example for me is a priest I know who simply set a firm time-limit on how much administration he would do during the week. Once the time was up, it was up and if some things didn't get done, they didn't get done. He had made a decision that he wasn't going to let management tasks impinge on the time that he committed to preparing sermons. He was an Anglican priest practically committed to doing the work of a priest.

Who Does What 1 - Bishops

Spinning off from the earlier posts on competence, I thought it would be worth putting up a couple of posts considering how the Anglican Church understands the roles of different people within it. No doubt, this will be far from exhaustive and there will be lots of alternative perspectives out there, but let's see how we go...

So, bishops.

The Anglican Church believes the Bible teaches that there are three layers of church leadership: bishops, priests and deacons (= episkopoi, presbyteroi, diakonoi in the original Greek of the New Testament). This is disputed by some who think that that episkopoi and presbyteroi are two words for people in the same roles.

Bishops then sit at the top of the hierarchy of ordained people and have oversight of the parish churches and clergy of a given region called a diocese, which itself has a central diocesan church - the cathedral. Large dioceses can have several bishops although the archbishop is the one who holds final authority while the others are his assistant (or, depending on the particular diocese, coadjutor or suffragan) bishops.

Bishops' functions are mostly ceremonial and administrative. Although some take on the 'pastor of pastors' role, many clergy now have mentors who are not part of the formal structure of the church. And because bishops don't have direct congregational oversight or hold a regular pulpit, I've heard it suggested (by someone who I think holds more to the idea of a two-fold order of leadership) that Anglican bishops should really be re-designated as deacons.

Getting beyond structures and definitions however, the most important parts of a bishop's role are the making, hiring and firing of clergy and the upholding of doctrinal standards. In the Anglican Church, a lay person cannot be made a deacon, nor a deacon a priest, apart from a bishop's ordination. Three bishops are required to consecrate a priest as a bishop. No clergyperson can have an active Anglican ministry in a diocese without being granted a licence by its bishop or archbishop. So, while the average punter may not ever receive much teaching or pastoral care from their diocesan bishop (they could actually probably go along happily for quite a long time without ever seeing them or even knowing their name!), nonetheless, their bishop has an enormously large impact on the local church through the clergy that they licence to serve there.

Biblically, we might say that Titus is an example of someone with this bishop's role of appointing leaders for a region and guarding doctrine. He was instructed by Paul to "appoint leaders in every town" (Titus 1:5) and to choose people who would, among other things, "be able to both preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it" (Titus 1:9). Unlike most Anglican bishops though, we see as we read through Paul's letter that Titus also seems to have had an active pastoral ministry of his own.

Competence, Part 1

When the Book of Common Prayer and the Homilies were first mandated for use in English parish churches, they served several functions. Perhaps they're most famously known for aiding in the establishment of uniformity in corporate worship and therefore in public belief. But in addition, they also helped to overcome the problem of widespread clerical incompetence.

Although largely financially motivated, the dissolution of the monasteries through the 1530s and the abolition of chantries in the 1540s effectively changed the job descriptions of a large number of English clergy. Those whose roles had mostly been the saying of private masses now found themselves unemployed and re-designated as preachers and congregational leaders. But then even if they were able to secure a new post in a parish church, many would arrive without any of the skills required for their position. Therefore one great benefit of the BCP and the Homilies was that they allowed a minister in this situation to effectively 'paint by numbers'. If they could read, they could lead. With two books they could feed their flocks a steady diet of Protestant doctrine, administer the sacraments and conduct corporate worship and it would all be as sound as their congregations would have gotten from any other local church in the country.

What's the modern equivalent? Is there any way to bridge the competence gaps for today's church leaders?

First of all, we need to note that church leaders today need a much broader set of competences than their early-modern English predecessors. While running good services and preaching good sermons is absolutely critical, more is needed at a time when there are far more options for church and spirituality and when our culture has high expectations of quality. So our generation of church leaders also need to be competent at things that are potentially as diverse as management and governance, advertising, leading teams, training, recruiting lay leaders, property development and much more too. Clearly, for all this, there is no quick, one-size-fits-all solution. There is no pair of books that a diocese can distribute that will allow incompetent ministers to pull it all off. So what to do? I think two things are critical.

First is theological formation. The years that are spent in ministry traineeships, Bible college courses and curacies provide the major opportunities for key competencies to be developed. Fortunately, lots of ministry training programs, theological schools and diocesan administrations are already well aware of this. In fact, I think it would probably be quite hard these days to find an organisation involved in ministry formation that hadn't already thought a lot about how to ensure a wide spread of key competencies are being taught.

But the second thing is to actually set some real standards for those competencies because the fact is that not everyone who undergoes training will have the capacity to develop them all. We mustn't make the all-too-common mistake of thinking that just because someone has done a course on something, they're now gifted in that area. This is like the mistake of thinking that just because someone had a certain job for a number of years that they were necessarily good at it. If that were the case, you could think that any minister who ran a church for 20 years was competent even if they oversaw a decline in attendance, were repeatedly unable to meet budget or never baptised anyone into the faith. Time spent shouldn't trump results achieved.

This might sound tough, but anyone who's worked in church ministry knows how much more there is to it than just preaching sermons and leading Sunday services. And the reality is that not everyone who shows interest, does a theology degree or even feels called to the ministry will actually be gifted with all the competencies necessary for the task. There must be proper evaluation.

I'm very conscious that this line of thinking could go very sour if pushed too hard. We don't want the church to become coldly performance based. We don't want a wholesale import of marketplace ideas into our recruitment processes. We certainly don't want to overlook questions of character and integrity while focussing on skill sets. But nonetheless, we do have a mission and we do want to see tangible results. Ensuring that we don't put people into jobs beyond their competencies is one important factor.

There's more to say on this. I might add to it in a future post...