wfn.org | Hundreds attend "Living the Covenant" consultation

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

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99-094

Consultation presses for recognition of ministry by all baptized

by James Solheim

(ENS) Hundreds of people descended on a college campus in 
southern Minnesota June 9 to press the church for a broader 
recognition of the ministry of all baptized Christians, based on 
the Baptismal Covenant.

Part rally, part reunion, part political strategy 
consultation, participants in the "Living the Covenant" 
consultation at St. Olaf College in Northfield were welcomed by 
Fred Putnam, the retired bishop of Minnesota, who expressed 
incredulity that the planners' hopes for 200 had swelled to over 
450 and many had to be turned away.

The consultation was the "long-held dream" of the Rev. Boone 
Porter, said the Rev. Juan Oliver of Associated Parishes, one of 
the sponsors. Porter, who chaired the planning committee, died 
days before the meeting convened but his spirit clearly infused 
the proceedings, largely because of his conviction that "how you 
worship profoundly determines how you do mission," said Oliver.

In his keynote address on the renewal of ministry, Prof. 
Timothy Sedgwick of Virginia Seminary said that Porter was "a 
central character" in the development of the concept of "total 
ministry," one of the "visionaries and collaborators" who 
passionately believed that those qualities "remain essential to 
the deepening of our faith and the development of ministry."

In offering an "aerial view" of the developing concept of 
total or collaborative ministry in the last 25 years, Sedgwick 
quoted the late bishop of Nevada, Wes Frensdorff, who described 
an "emerging church" as one "where there is no clerical status of 
Christians and no classes of Christians" but a church where "all 
together know themselves to be part of the laos--the holy people 
of God."

That church, Frensdorff and others believed, would be "a 
ministering community rather than a community gathered around a 
minister" Clergy would be present "for the sake of ordering and 
signing the church's life and mission, not as signs of authority 
or dependency, nor of spiritual or intellectual superiority." 
Clergy, including bishops, would support a pattern of "ministry 
supporting church," building a servant church that would be "so 
salty and so yeasty that it really would be missed if no longer 
around," in Frensdorff's vision.

Congregation core of ministry

The vision seeks to "draw us back from a clericalized, 
institutionalized church seeking its own self-preservation," 
Sedgwick added. And baptism is the crucial initiation into that 
community of faith. "Ministry is then not something the ordained 
do or that which is done for the sake of the church," he said. 
"Ministry is the life of faith lived out in the world." The 
development of ministry must therefore deal with what is needed 
to "make this understanding a reality--what needs to be changed 
in the governance and canons, in liturgy and worship, in 
opportunities for service, in education and formation, in the 
role of the ordained, and in spirituality so that the connections 
are made and life in relationship with God is deepened," Sedgwick 
said.

He used the development of ministry in Alaska as a case 
study where Bishop Bill Gordon became "increasingly aware of 
paternalism and the need for truly indigenous leadership," taking 
steps that created a new system in the church, one where local 
faith communities "bore their own life in faith, where leaders 
from the community were raised and supported to serve the common 
life of the community." The direct result was the ordination of 
32 persons identified by their own communities as leaders. "The 
dramatic character of the change was marked by the increasing 
sense and claim that the church in its life and ministry was the 
congregation," Sedgwick said.

Gordon's vision of what is now called total ministry 
developed and spread to other dioceses because "systemic changes 
in the church were made of a sufficiently large scale that the 
organization, structure and vision of the church was itself 
changed," Sedgwick observed. It broadened the church's 
understanding of authority and leadership, education and training 
and the understanding of the role of the congregation and it 
spread as a movement.

An originating vision

While on a trip to southeast Asia, Boone Porter was 
introduced to the writings of Roland Allen, who offered "a 
theology of the Holy Spirit and the church which challenged as it 
inspired critical and constructive thinking and action about the 
church and ministry," as Sedgwick described his impact. Central 
to Allen's missionary strategy was a church that is "self-
extending, self-governing and self-supporting because these 
characteristics arise from the nature of Christian faith." Allen 
supplies what Sedgwick called "an originating vision for the 
development of ministry" as it emerged in Alaska and elsewhere.

That vision was substantially supported by the liturgical 
renewal movement because "the understanding of Christian faith, 
the church and ministry at the heart of the liturgical movement 
provided the vision and language central to developments of total 
ministry," especially the importance of baptism and its place "at 
the center of the Christian life while the Eucharist was 
understood as expressing what was central to that life."

The liturgical movement provided "the language of baptismal 
covenant and the subsequent framework for developing 
understandings of ministry and holy orders that critically 
enlarged and extended the development of the movement of total 
ministry from its beginnings in Alaska with the originating 
vision of Roland Allen."

A channel of fire and wind?

Expanding on Sedgwick's observations, the Rev. Charles 
Wilson pointedly asked in his keynote on The Order and Exercise 
of Authority in the Church, "Can we come up with a vision of the 
church as a truly awesome channel of the fire and wind of God's 
authority?"

In exploring the concepts of leadership, authority and 
structure and how they function in the church, he began by 
contending that "there are too many people who equate leadership 
with control." But this is "very nearly the opposite of true 
leadership," because a leader is "one who inspires and unites the 
corporate effort with a powerful vision and then keeps the people 
free to pursue that vision in their own God-given creativity. In 
other words, the leader gets out of the way, fully expecting to 
be surprised and delighted in what happens," he said.

Wilson said that authority is "power that is recognized and 
accepted by the organization... power blessed or found acceptable 
or right to the community, as distinct from coercive power or the 
naked force of the bully." Using the Gospel of Matthew to express 
his concept of authority, he said that "all true authority is 
God's authority. It has nothing to do with status, corner office, 
orders, titles or vestments." And we must recognize that "there 
is a gracious abundance of authority blossoming all over the 
place, in ways that often surprise and delight us." A good 
theology of authority will "encourage such freedom and the 
enjoyment of seeing the freedom of others, as gifted people of 
faith, shining forth with God's power."

Structures, Wilson concluded, should "keep people free so 
they can take up their ministries according to their gifts and 
the call of the Spirit."

How are ministers formed?

In the third keynote, Deacon Susanne Watson of Iowa said 
that her excitement about the consultation revolved around the 
questions, "What if all the organizations that have 'ministry' 
somehow as their focus all came together in one place? What if 
there were an opportunity for all the ministers of the church to 
gather and talk about how it is that we're redefining,. how we're 
reclaiming the meaning of ministry?"

As a member of the board for the North American Association 
for the Diaconate (NAAD) and the planning committee for the 
consultation, Watson explored her concern for how the church 
forms people "to move into ministry and orders, particularly 
through worship, spiritual development, education and training."

The true value of the meeting, she argued, was in the 
individuals with different perspectives, "bringing different 
eccentricities and gifts, all concerned about what we do with the 
rest of our lives after rising from the waters of baptism." And 
yet all share an interest in "moving away from a consumer-
provider approach to being the church, moving away from being 
communities gathered around a minister to ministering 
communities."

Workshops express range of interests

Dozens of workshops catered to the interests of 
participants, addressing a wide range of theological and 
practical issues.

In a forum sponsored by Associated Parishes, for example, 
Bishop Mark MacDonald of Alaska picked up on the missionary 
vision of Roland Allen, suggesting that it stemmed from his 
frustration with the meager results of mission efforts in light 
of the promise. Allen concluded that something was terribly 
wrong--that missionaries themselves were prevented from hearing 
their own Gospel because of "hidden assumptions and cultural 
barriers." Unfortunately, MacDonald, asserted, "It hasn't changed 
a bit."

As evidence he pointed out that the "number and 
participation of ethnic minorities is going down and the overall 
picture has been bleak," largely because "the hidden assumption 
is superiority of those who bring the message." He concluded, 
"The Gospel is greater than what we intend... and the one who 
thinks he brings the Gospel turns out to be the one who needs 
it."

The church is back

"The church is back but most people don't know it yet," said 
Arianna Williams, a young woman from Nebraska. For her the 
conference was a hopeful sign. Others were encouraged by the 
return of what they called "heart-based theology." Another said 
it was about time the church addressed "clericalism as 
oppression" and an obstacle to total ministry.

Several observed that the consultation represented "a series 
of movements joining hands" to build a more open and responsive 
church. What they share is a determination to claim the role and 
identity of lay people and to "dismantle some of the tyrannies of 
ordination."

Bishop Tom Ray of Northern Michigan said in his sermon at 
the Eucharist that the church is in trouble if it expects 
"exaggerated saintly witness" from the one percent of its 
ordained membership and "zip" from the other 99 percent. "Is it 
any wonder the Episcopal Church is experiencing a deep malaise, 
paralysis?" he asked.

Ray said that "all the baptized find it difficult, if not 
impossible, to see deep significance in the lives of all and each 
of us. We really believe that the seminary-trained and ordained 
are the real serious Christians, even though we do know better." 
Too often "low self-esteem" among lay church members interferes 
with ministry. "Is it any wonder the church turns many people 
off, turns many away?"

He stressed that "servant ministry is not the domain, the 
territory, of the ordained. Servant ministry is how we care for 
our family. It reaches out and deeply into being a public 
servant...." A shift in understanding of ministry, what Ray called 
an "antidote to the paralysis of clericalism and anti-clericalism 
infecting the body of Christ," is called Mutual Ministry in his 
diocese but "would better be called the recovery or the 
revelation of mutual baptismal ministry."

Glimpse of the future

The Rev. Melford Holland, whose Office for Ministry 
Development also supported the consultation, described it as a 
"wonderful new meeting group" that brought together a variety of 
perspectives. "It is a bit like tossing seeds on the ground--no 
one knows what will grow," he said. And yet he sensed tremendous 
power in the stories that were shared and the enduring 
connections that were forged.

"We got a glimpse of the future," Holland said, "people 
coming together from different perspectives around the issue of 
the ministry of the baptized and how we live out the Baptismal 
Covenant in our daily lives."

The Rev. Ben Helmer, director of the church's Ministry with 
Small Churches said that "this consultation demonstrated how much 
energy there is around collaborative ministry development in 
churches of every size." He said that the meeting also 
demonstrated "a pressing need for information about collaborative 
ministry and how to go about it."

In a closing session, participants were clearly looking for 
ways to extend the connections, to "build on the commonality of 
what we are doing." One person said that the meeting "brought the 
fires together." One suggested that participants look for ways to 
meet on a regional or diocesan level. In a flash of reality, 
someone else wondered "where are the other groups committed to 
total ministry, like the conservatives and charismatics? There 
are more friends out there."

--James Solheim is director of the Episcopal Church's Office of 
News and Information.