Ordinands: Age, Sex and Ethnicity

The number of young people (under the age of 30) has risen such that 'the young' now account for around a quarter of those in training and the figues for 2013 (113) shows rise of 145% from the 2003 figures. This has to be a positive trend and the reality of younger vocations, as with any and all vocations, is most certainly a joy.

Part of this increase undoubtedly comes through the settings of goals and targets and the delivery of weekends and training days where the focus is on the younger end of the Church and this is, for me at least a bit of a Curate's egg in that as much as I rejoice I am also just a little  . . . . And that's the problem - I don't know what the word is!

As the person next to me is waxing lyrical about 'effective ministry' and quoting views that clergy are only effective in ministry to those living within plus or minus ten years  (±10) of their own age the person the other side, nodding their agreement, adds cost-effective (the longer the ministry the cheaper the per capita training costs) to the conversation. A third voice joins in extolling the need to recruit more BME and a fourth voice adds, almost soto voce, "And many more women."

All stop talking to smile and nod and then, regaining their stride, continue as to which group we need to be most proactively recruiting. It is then that I throw a spanner in the works and take upon myself the role of token Ephebiphobic Mysogynistic Racist as I put forward the view that we need to be encouraging everyone to discern and respond to the calling upon their lives regardless of the labels we might affix to them!

The response was a complete stilling of conversation and the assembled gathering looking at me like I've just reenacted Peter Seller's amazing 'fart in a lift' scene (from one of the Pink Panther films). I am obviously a cleric who has forgotten their place and the prevailing attitudes of the church of which I am a part - so much so that it appears that I might actually be apart!

The problem with the CofE is that for many years we have compartmentalised and recruited only people of a certain kind. The old standards that were de rigeur in those days where the first son inherited the title and the estate, the second son joined the military and the third either became a gentleman farmer or entered the Church. Sad as it seems, then we looked less at calling and more about those we ordained fitting the bill and thus preserved that which was considered to be fitting for the clergy, now of course we don't do that - do we?

Today, having learned nothing we seek to redress the balance and recruit more young people, those who can lay claim to be from some ethnic group or are women, in the hope that by emphasising difference and including 'the excluded and marginalised' (their words - not mine) we might win others (who might otherwise not come) over to belonging to Church.

The problem is emphasised with a little example in that were I to enter a room where all but one of the people present were male, my greeting them with, "Good morning lady and gentlemen," would in fact be acting against sexual equality rules because I have drawn attention to them being female and isolated them from the rest of those present. The remedy to this is for me to say, "Good morning all," thereby offering an inclusive start to the proceedings and removing the potential for any one person to have any difference highlighted.

What, in my humble and limited capacity (and capability), we need to be doing is to assist ALL who are part of the Church to explore what calling God might have on their lives and to help them develop and follow whatever means is necessary to help them achieve it.

In a congregation where there is a mix of backgrounds I would hope that we would be seeing a mix of those coming forward for ministry - ordained and lay; evangelistic, pastoral, youth, prayer, musical and (heaven help us) administrative. Where there is a congregation with young people I would hope that we would be finding young people coming forward - I reckon you get the idea so let's stop the bus here.

We don't need to be engaging in more tokenism or the act of trying to stick people in the boxes (for I recall a friend who came from an Afro-Carribean background who upon exploring ordination was snapped up because of the 'dearth of black clergy' - they didn't seem to see him or his calling as much as they saw the opportunity to engage in tokenism of the very worst kind! He eventually gave up the ordination bit and left the Church too so disillusioned was he! A real lose/lose situation :-(  ).

So I am confused because my colleagues are all championing the going out and making a point of recruiting those people who are from the lesser populations within the cleric mass, something that I see as a wrong move in the way they present it.

If we are saying that God's calling is for all people of all ages, colours, ethnic origins (after all, how many Dutch are there I wonder - am I part of an ethnic minority myself?) and sex then I am all for it - but that's not what I'm hearing and if what I'm hearing is voiced by others I haven't met then I have to say that I think they might just be wrong!

A quick postscript for the lovely people who have told me that the time has come for the Church to engage in positive discrimination and 'enhanced' career paths for people of minority groups:

First and foremost, we don't have a 'career path' - we have a calling and a ministry and:

If it has the word 'discrimination' attached to it then it is wrong (especially if you're the group being positively discriminated for) - it is hypocritical to speak against bias and then engage in it under the guise of being open-handed: And if you happen to be seeking to support bias for a group you are not part of then beware that you are neither engaging in tokenism or, worse still, engaging in being condescending.

Younger Clergy - are they the solution?

I have had some exceedingly interesting (and perhaps just a little frightening) conversations today regarding the age of clergy. One of the main thrusts was the belief that we needed to select younger ordinands; the reasons people gave for this was many and varied but they included:

1. Younger clergy have much more energy and enthusiasm than their older counterparts,

2. Younger clergy can reach the younger unchurched population and so will build a Church that is like them,

3. Clergy can most effectively reach those ± 10yrs of their own age, younger clergy are the only way to reintroduce those aged between  18 - 40 and so we need to lower the age of ordinands drastically from the current age (which was stated as being c.45),

4. If we recruit clergy at a younger age the cost of training will become lowered with regard to the number of years of ordained service received (simple maths as £10k for 15 years of ministry is dearer than £10k for 35 years), and

5. We need to recruit younger clergy so that they can become the next generation of senior clergy at a younger age - the theory being that preferment comes, at the quickest, after some seventeen years of ordination and so an ordinand of twenty-eight would be looking towards becoming bishop around their mid-forties if their career (a word at which I made my negative feelings known) matched their prospects and ambitions (the second word I struggled with).

The bottom line was that the Church is growing older and the only way to reverse this is to put more into dogcollars and let them loose to revive its (the Church's) failing fortunes.

So here's a marker in the sand, one that I will be returning to over the next few days (along with more on Ministry Development Reviews). I leave you with these five points (you may have more or others I have not considered) to reflect and perhaps comment (or prepare to comment upon).

Enjoy

Appraising Ministry - Part the first

I have always been keen on ways of raising my game and developing new skills and am equally troubled by those who are opposed to the various 'Ministry Development Reviews' (MDR) now on offer within the Church of England and by those who see them as something which enables, nay encourages, a 'train up - train out' mentality.

A recent conversation with someone who has at some stage been on the wrong end of OFSTED (so much so that they are now no longer in education) left me concerned because they not only felt that they could not face the prospect of an MDR but were willing to withdraw rather than endure or engage with the process. Another conversation left me in no doubt that the possession of the freehold was seen as the means by which the drawbridge could be raised and freedom from the whole 'intolerable interference' (their words, not mine) is assured.

Drawing upon my own experience I found the whole process to be extremely time-consuming and yet quite fun and yet, as another colleague has it, the end result appears to be, "A ticked box and nothing positive, enabling or encouraging! We do it to enable someone up the food chain to say they've done the deed. The whole thing is an exercise in futility and dissipation!" The continued by pointing out that having been invited and having effectively declined they were told that this was a mandatory requirement under their 'terms of service' (and they are of course correct as Regulation 18 of the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Regulations 2009 confirms).

What these reviews should be doing is to help the reviewed assess their ministry in terms of:

Success - which might be communicated to other as good practice and used to underpin the oft woeful diocesan provision,

Failure - those areas where stock needs to be taken and training, support, encouragement and resources (only kidding!) can be initiated,

Hopes - The things we'd love to do; the dreams and aspirations we have and, having identified them, offering support (and the means of making them real),

Fears - The things that cause those who minister to become fearful and impotent. Ministry should be about more than Parish Share and BoPs (Bums On Pews) and yet, for many, this is a daily debilitating reality.

Training Needs - What does the focus of the review need to make them a safer person, a more effective minister, a happier and contented person? We need to find this and then work at supplying the means to resolve the need/s we've identified.

Potential - Can the person who is the focus of the review offer more to more who could in turn reach more and make the Church grow? The answer is 'probably' and yet my conversations indicate that the review appears to be an end in itself - it's only goal is to exist (box ticked) rather than enable - how very sad!

So here we are - Communion is twenty minutes away (the church is set up already) and so I'll leave you with this opening shot in the whole 'appraising ministry' discussion.

Hope you're less depressed and confused than me over the whole thing - still there's more to come so don't give up yet!

Interesting Theology

There are times when people come up with 'interesting' bits of theological thinking which result in crowd pleasing acts which, at best, leaves me with some degree of discomfort or uncertainty.

There are times when I struggle with aspects of theology for one of many of the reasons listed below:

Sometimes because I can't quite see how the position was reached without a bit of a twinkle and a wink of the eye because it's so blinking off the wall.

Sometimes because it is obviously designed to be a bit of a wind-up.

Sometime its probably just because I'm a little bit thick!

Sometimes it's a struggle because the construction is just tough to accept because what it (rightly or wrongly) comes up with is difficult to apply to ourselves or others.

'Theology is our attempt to explain, understand and live with the stuff that's in the Bible.' 

Well that's what a man I admired at the time (and still do long after his demise) once told me in a tutorial. He continued, 'It's our attempt to make sense of what's before us and the potential for inspiration and brilliance is tempered by our ability to deliver the absurd as something of value!'

And this is where I often find myself challenged on a daily basis as I encounter brilliance, weirdness, excellence and heresy as we (you, them and me) seek to understand and explain what is before us. 

Sometimes it's the standard fare of the theological student that surfaces as we debate the Virgin birth, the resurrection and all that Bible stuff. Sometimes it's the weird and wonderful esoterica of the Christian faith and explanations that quench the author's disquiet and cause the reader (well this reader anyway) great angst. Finally, we have the discussions relating to how the world (that usually means 'non-Christians') see us and the many ways in which we engage (or perhaps don't engage) with stuff - often billed under the joint labels of 'rights' and 'equality' - and it is here that the most vitriolic and contentious battles are to be found.

The problem is that whilst many of us are rather reluctant to express our personal doubts publicly for  fear of conflict should we express our views, our failure to acknowledge and engage with this in a measured and balanced public arena is where I think we find ourselves falling down and failing those we seek to pastor. If we are to afraid to voice our concerned, the difficulties we have with theology and praxis that emerges then we create a culture of fear that leaves us a goal down before we begin. The problem is (and there's always a problem somewhere) that when those 'difficulties' appear, failing to acknowledge and address them is to puts aside debate and invite something quite unproductive and displeasing below the surface.

A colleague recently took me to task for 'always engaging' with the difficult stuff. As they did they offered my their mantra: "If you don't engage with it it doesn't exist and if it doesn't exist then it isn't a problem."

But if it exists for others, surely we have a duty to consider, understand and be willing to discuss what is real for others and bring some light into their, and our, understanding.

If this is wrong, then I'm confused.