A short while ago, I had a conversation with a friend who is going through \u201d\u02dcContinuing Ministerial Education\u2019 \u201d\u201dwhat use to be called Post-Ordination Training, or \u201d\u02dcPotty\u2019 by some wit. He had phoned me to express his concern at what seemed to be the message coming from diocesan management about the future of Anglican ministry, which envisaged significant changes in the nature and deployment of clergy.<\/p>\n
That conversation has left me musing on what the church might look like in a decade or two, but also on the whole approach of the church\u2019s \u201d\u02dcmanagers\u2019 \u201d\u201dits leaders and policy makers \u201d\u201dto issues which affect ministry at the \u201d\u02dcgrass roots\u2019.<\/p>\n
Behind this current thinking is a recent diocesan report which confronts the declining numbers of stipendiary clergy with proposals for a decreasing deployment of full-time clergy in the parishes. (This, of course, is not being driven by money \u201d\u201dit is simply a lack of people coming forward, let the reader understand.)<\/p>\n
The clergyperson of the future will thus need to be, above all, a team leader, since he or she will be in no position to do personally the work that used to be presumed of clergy in the past. Only such team players will be affordable as stipendiary clergy. The individual \u201d\u02dcspecialists\u2019, apparently, will have to work on a self-supporting basis.<\/p>\n