Self-supporting ministers (SSMs) feel “ignored, overlooked, and under-used” in their ministry, new research unveiled in the Church Times this week suggests.
A survey of about 900 SSMs across the UK, undertaken by the Revd Dr Teresa Morgan, a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, who is an SSM in the parish of Littlemore, paints a picture of stagnation after ordination for SSMs, who make up 27 per cent of clergy in England.
Almighty God, who hast restored our human nature to heavenly glory through the perfect obedience of our Savior Jesus Christ: Keep alive in thy Church, we beseech thee, a passion for justice and truth; that we, like thy servant Federick Denison Maurice, may work and pray for the triumph of the kingdom of thy Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Enable us, O heavenly Father, to walk with thee this day and every day in sure and simple trust; ever remembering that our little things are all big to thy love, and our big things are all small to thy power; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
–Romans 6:1-4
”˜It’s the pearl of great price,’ says Jonathan Ruffer. Like the merchant in the Gospel, he is selling all that he hath. With the proceeds, he is buying the 12 Zurbaran paintings of Jacob and his Brothers at Auckland Castle, the palace of the Bishop of Durham. And when he has bought them from the Church of England, he will give them back, keeping them in the castle, thus bestowing them upon the people of the north-east in perpetuity. The price is £15 million. He believes in the Big Society and is taking a big punt on it.
Ruffer, who is 59, is a very successful private client fund manager. He is famous for having foreseen the credit crunch, largely by careful study of past crises. ”˜I know more about the history of economics than anyone I know,’ he boasts, though, on the subject of his benefaction he is so unboastful as to be almost abject. The credit crunch was the moment when people suddenly stopped trusting their bank deposits. The next big crunch, which he sees as ”˜certain’, and which could happen in Britain first, is that trust in the value of the currency will collapse, leading to hyperinflation: ”˜It is an airless valley from which there is no escape.’
At least 40 Libyan civilians have been killed as a consequence of airstrikes carried out by the United States and other Western powers, the leading church official in Libya said.
“The so-called humanitarian raids have caused dozens of victims among civilians in some areas of Tripoli,” the Libyan capital, Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the apostolic vicar of Tripoli, told the Vatican’s missionary news agency Fides March 31.
“I gathered testimony from trustworthy people. In particular, in the neighborhood of Buslim, the bombardments caused the collapse of a civilian residence building, resulting in the deaths of 40 people,” Bishop Martinelli said.
It really couldn’t be clearer. “The Congress shall have power ”¦ to declare war.” Yet these are probably the most egregiously ignored words in the Constitution. You would think that Republicans, especially, with their showy fondness for “originalism” and “plain meaning” in interpreting the Constitution, would have no problem interpreting the meaning of these words: If a president wants to go to war, he must get the approval of Congress.
Presidents of both parties traditionally ignore the congressional war power when they feel like it. Or they wait until the troops are poised for battle ”” putting Congress in an impossible position ”” before asking permission.
When Ronnie writes of prisoners who “have given up,” who “are waiting to die” or who “just want to die,” he knows well of whom he is speaking. With equal confidence, the inmate of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution writes, “The good news is that Jesus doesn’t give up on any of these people. Nor should we.”
Ronnie’s brief reflection on John 17, including his personal journey of more than 40 years to discover “Jesus is love; Jesus is real,” is part of the 2011 Lenten Devotional published by Christ United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tenn. Fifteen current and former inmates of the maximum-security prison wrote more than half of the entries in the booklet. The rest came from church staff members and other sources.
Karen Vander Molen, a church member active in prison ministry, and the Rev. Mark Price, minister of spiritual formation, coordinated the project. It began as Price was considering who might write the Lenten devotional.