A groundbreaking course from Church Mission Society in partnership with the Oxford Ministry Course at Ripon College Cuddesdon has received official approval as a training pathway for Ordained Pioneer Ministry in the Church of England.
For the first time, candidates for ordained pioneer ministry in the Church of England will be able to train on a course that has been designed entirely for pioneer leaders by Church Mission Society, one of the country’s leading mission agencies, in partnership with Cuddesdon.
The Church of England’s ministry division has given the CMS Pioneer Mission Leadership Training course its official seal of approval as a training pathway. C of E mission leaders and pioneers alike have expressed delight at the news.
OK. But can some of you folks out there tell me what these pioneer ministers will be doing? What is their role? How are they supported? What are the limits of their ministry, what is new and ground-breaking? This poor report tells us nothing about this; and as an RC priest I have no idea what it means.
I am vaguely intrigued that CMS would choose Cuddesdon to be their partner in this. On the other hand, pioneer ethical views? Sure, it’s the place.
Hmm Terry, this Anglican doesn’t have any idea what its all about either. Driver8 aren’t you in England? Or Pageantmaster? Can you tell us what this is all about?
Liberal Catholic Cuddesdon is a completely unsuitable linkup, completely at odds with CMS’s evangelical history and character. CMS’s pioneer leaders [has rather a Soviet sound to it, doesn’t it?] are likely to emerge wearing signature AffCaff black shirts and spouting Rowanbollocks.
Looks like the Swami and his friends have been busy undermining yet another CofE mission agency.
Moreover, with CMS now based around Oxford, how extraordinary to be sending everyone hundreds of miles away up to the wilds of Yorkshire to be trained when there are theological colleges on the doorstep: Wycliff in Oxford with the full resources of the many institutions of the University and mission organisations; access to YWAM and their excellent programs in Harpenden, Trinity not so far away in Bristol; and in London, all the resources and experience of mission, evangelism, and international connections of Oak Hill in Southgate, the London Centre for Contemporary Christianity and the Langham Partnership, not to mention the St Paul’s Theological Centre/St Mellitus.
But no – off to Yorkshire, they must go – to have their conviction drained, their assurance dispelled, and their heads filled with strange and erroneous doctrine.
Not to mention the removal of their faith, along probably with the will to live.
driver8 (#2),
Are you referring obliquely to the subversion of the venerable old (U)SPG? Alas, if so, my impression is similar, i.e., that the USPG is now severely compromised and corrupted by having been apparently taken over by the “Affirming Catholic” crowd (who really aren’t Catholic at all).
Can anyone tell us if this curious link between the CMS and Cuddesdon was hatched (or planned) before the last head of CMS was promoted to a bishopric? Just wondering.
OTOH, I’m delighted to hear that a formal program for training ministers who will engage in pioneer mission work, such as in church planting, is finally being launched in the stodgy old CoE. That is entirely commendable, and long overdue. There is all the difference in the world between being a chaplain to a supposedly Christian populace and being a missionary.
I hope PM and driver8 will pardon me, if I opine that contemporary England seems to this American to be virtually a neo-pagan land. But then, so is America. The English are just a generation or two ahead of us here in the US in terms of the de-Christianization of the mainstream culture.
“[i]The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers[/i] (especially the missionary laborers) [i]are few[/i].”
David Handy+
What is a “pioneer leader”?
#5 I missed anything about Yorkshire. Cuddesdon itself is just outside Oxford, with the college being set in a beautiful Oxfordshire village. The choice of a rural location for this training is a little odd but perhaps road links were an issue. However the prevailing commitment to modernist catholicism at Cuddesdon makes it a weird choice of partner for CMS.
For those of us in TEC, we may get a vague feel for the theological perspective of Ripon College, Cuddesdon once you know they have a student exchange with CDSP.
#7 Rev Handy – I am afraid the story here is the odd link with Cuddesdon rather than mission. CMS has, like other mission agencies reduced funds, but how effective will trainees coming out of Cuddesdon with the compromises they will be asked to make? CMS with compromised views will be less likely to be acceptable in parts of Africa and the Global South, although no doubt this is all part of the Swami’s machinations for undermining the Global South’s resolve, much as we have seen with USPG, but that is another story. This must have started under Tim Dakin.
I would say that the fields here are ripe, but of course we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot with decisions like this.
#10 Thanks Driver 8 for the correction – I was beguiled by the Ripon tag – I have less knowledge of where it comes from than of what comes from it.
Yes but what do they actually do once they are in post? And in what way are they different from an ordinary vicar?
Father Tee’s question is also my own. My apologies if this is a really basic question to you in CofE (and I note David Handy’s interpretation, which I expect is correct, but I just wanted to get some more info). :o)
Re Cuddeson, yes its a very sad case. As an evangelical I wouldn’t have agreed with its emphasis back in its glory days, but there was no doubt about its orthodoxy. That changed when Robert Runcie became Dean. He transformed it from a bastion of orthodox anglo-catholicism into a bastion of modernist liberalism. Very, very sad.