Demon discouragement

Discouragement in Christian ministry, as with most forms of 'work', can come in many guises. As can encouragement. Generally speaking I spend more time encouraged than discouraged. Is this because I've only been in the 'job' three years? Maybe. Is it because generally I'm a positive person? Perhaps. Or because I'm 'part time' and spend quite a lot of my life doing other things, apart from 'ministry'? Or because I came into it midway through life, having done other things before? Possibly.

Discouragement does sometimes loom though; with the state of Christianity in the West, it can feel like you are walking along a tightrope and as long as you look straight ahead at your destination, you are okay; but if for a moment you look down, at the steep gorge and the swirling rapids hundreds of feet below, you are certain to come a cropper.


In September 2006, during the time I was filling in initial forms for the Diocesan Director of Ordinands (itself a test of how easily you can get discouraged), an article was published in the Saturday Times which I wish I hadn't read. Entitled 'Juggling the impossible in a long stone building with pews and a steeple', it was a sad personal account of one Anglican priest's battle with discouragement, which led to him leaving the ministry after 13 years, along with, as he claimed, at least a quarter of his ordained colleagues. 

He describes their initial hopes and dreams and the deeply significant Ordination service, during which they were charged with going out into their communities in the name of Jesus himself 'to serve as part of the great and benevolent machinery of the English state' (his phrase). But it was all eroded by the reality of daily ministry, trying to keep ancient church buildings going in the face of dwindling congregations and resources,

whilst still being available to carry out occasional offices for people who 'mock the church' by expecting services (marriage, Christening) which in their mind are entirely unconnected with any ongoing expression of corporate church life.

It made for grim reading, and was overly harsh in places. Logically perhaps I should have given up there and then...But I didn't. I consoled myself thinking of all the reasons this particular person had allowed himself to fall into discouragement so badly there was no way back. There must be a name for the psychological phenomenon whereby you are fully conscious of huge potential pitfalls in a given situation, yet you remain convinced that in your particular case, everything will be okay. Blind optimism. Or self delusion, perhaps?

But think about this: if all women, able to use their vivid imaginations to the full, decided that, say, childbirth was too undignified/uncomfortable (not to mention painful) an experience ever to consider going through; that the various pitfalls and outcomes might eventually overwhelm them, therefore it would be best to avoid it altogether; if we all took this quite logical stance, the whole human race would literally, eventually, die out. So clearly, the phenomenon of knowing about the potential dangers/risks associated with a course of action and doing it anyway, is fundamental to human survival. 


So I got ordained. And here I am, still going. Generally encouraged. But aware that the most fundamental safeguard against discouragement is to keep going deeper into God, because if the Church in this country dwindles much more, it's going to be like the Dark Ages, where the monks and nuns kept the Christian faith alive in worship and contemplation for 600 years before something was reborn nationally and culturally. And keeping the faith alive with tiny groups of deeply committed people is quite a good description of how ministry feels in small semi-rural churches sometimes (though, I'm very happy to say, without the Black Death).

Having said that, there are admittedly certain things, even just words, I'd rather not hear too frequently. I'm only human. No matter how much you tell yourself that it doesn't matter too much and it's not likely to destabilise everything, not immediately anyway, there are some frequent, constant drips......No doubt you'll have some of your own...

We're away this weekend.
Oh, was it my turn?
We can't find the key.
The heating hasn't come on.
The milk's off.
The boiler's broken.
Please fill in the attached forms ASAP.
The projector won't talk to the laptop.
We weren't expecting you this morning.
We were expecting you yesterday morning.
You're supposed to sign twice on the certificate.
We tried that 6 years ago.
We tried that 26 years ago.
What do you mean, we can't have a kerbstone?

Car Boot Sale.
I never got that email.

Road closed due to Triathlon.
They've voted No.

Fire hazard.
Vandalism.
Slipping tile.
Faculty application.
Share increase.
Damp.
Corrosion.
Mould.
Rust.
Leak.
Ingress.
Bats.

Pondering Priesthood

Two priests outside Church House on day of Synod vote on women bishops

I had two main problems with the call to ordination in the Church of England. Well, actually there were multiple problems - the course of vocation never did run smooth - but two main intellectual ones. And they were big. They kept me thrashing around in the bible and Christian tradition for about six months before I dared talk to anyone official.

The first was some formative church experience where women as teachers and leaders were at best absent and at worst disallowed. This reflected a conservative theological reading of St Paul where Eve's deception in the garden of Eden, and the perceived creation hierarchy, were cited as reasons women cannot hold authority over men. I needed to know if I shared this view or rejected it. With something of a tussle, I rejected it.

Second, and more pressing, was the problem of priesthood. If you are ordained in the C of E, after a preliminary year you will be a priest. What did this mean? Was it legitimate in terms of the New Testament's 'priesthood of all believers'? Could I come to an understanding of 'ordination' that felt, not  so much comfortably numb, but comfortably mine?

So much hangs on language. If you are brought up non Conformist it's hard to even say 'priest' with any real meaning. To my ears 'priest' sounded male and it sounded Roman Catholic. It also sounded Old Testament. The female equivalent was worse - cult-ish - in a bad way - priestess of the cult of Diana or Astarte or something. My meetings with those that prepared me for selection were all around this problem. 'What do you understand by priesthood?' To which I would mumble something about 'the priesthood of all believers' and the patient response would come: 'yeeees, but what do you understand by priesthood?'

And so I was stuck, grappling with something that was fundamental, and yet excessively difficult to pin down theologically, which has furthermore been the cause of so many divisions within the church. Only men can be priests. Only the priest can 'celebrate'.The priest is representative. The priest is one of the people. The church can do without priests. The church can't exist without priests. Anglican orders are null and void. There were no priests in the the early church  There were priests in the early church. Ordination is indelible. It's just setting you aside for a function. Only the Bishops' hands. 'Tainted' hands.

So, reeling and tripping like an amateur ice skater, I came to the night before Ordination. We were holed up in a small chapel for the final Eucharist. I must admit I found that last Eucharist as a 'lay person' very hard. It had an awesome sense of the Holy. In fact I had taken my shoes off. It's the only time I've ever taken the bread and wine in bare feet. It felt like the final ascent of a high mountain. The lower slopes had been manageable but I feared failing at the last few metres. I desired yet drew back from the summit. It was like when you can see the bank on the other side of the water and you really need to get over there but there's a huge jump.

Three years in and I am no closer to defining priesthood. It grows to encompass many things, but with an expanding breadth of meaning it tends to get diffuse. President, intercessor, conductor, enabler, sign, presence, shepherd, witness, leader, visionary? 

I felt decidedly weird on the day of

'Ontological instability'?

Ordination, but this had a lot to do with getting up too early, being nervous, being hot, being photographed a lot, being told what to do by multiple Church of England officials and being first in the alphabet. At the end of the day a friend wondered facetiously if I was suffering from 'ontological instability'. I thought 'how clever, it must be that'. But was anything ontological really happening, or was it more a rite of passage, with all the attendant  feelings of liminality, uncertainty and unique spiritual opportunity? 

Recently I was challenged by reading a former Bishop in Australia reflect on the phrase 'ordained ministry':  'The notion of the ordained ministry suggests an ontologically distinct order within the ecclesia into which certain persons are inducted. This generates the entirely fictitious idea that those whom the church calls to the office of deacon, priest and bishop, are, in the first instance, being relocated to a different metaphysical realm, that is the ordained ministry.'* 

So I don't know...My gender and background keep me from identifying wholly with a position which makes me 'Christ's representative'. Yet it has to be more than just the 'charism' of leadership taken to its logical conclusion. Maybe its

meaning will always elude me. Maybe it doesn't matter day to day. Maybe the more you focus on priesthood the less you remember you are still just an ordinary Christian trying to be obedient.

I suppose the bottom line is this is where I seem to have come, this is where I am now, and this is where, with God's grace, I'm going.

*Stephen Pickard, Theological Foundations for Collaborative Ministry, p. 21, my italics. 

40. Phoebe - are you being served?

I'm trying to be fair here...yesterday I wrote about the conundrum facing some Evangelical women who recognise a vocation to teach the bible but who have faced, if not actual restrictions in this, at least demotivating suspicion and a lack of actual role models in the pulpit.

Today, this last day of the Fabulous Forty through Lent (sniff) I'm thinking about the suspicion and restrictions that come from other quarters regarding a vocation to be a priest and 'rightly and duly administer the sacraments.'

Can any fabulous female step forward?

Enter Phoebe.

As well as having a desirable girls' name (like Lydia, Hannah, Eve...it makes me broody........for a nano second) she is introduced by Paul thus: 'I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea (...) for she has been a great help to many people, including me' (Romans 16: 1).

Here's the thing: 'servant', 'minister' and 'deacon' (as in ordained deacon) are all English words that derive from this word rendered 'servant.' So an equally good translation would read 'our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church', a designation which suggest a recognised public church role, usually ordained, which in the C of E at least, is now tied up with ordination, first to the diaconate, then to the priesthood and presiding at Holy Communion.

Ecclesiology is contested within Christendom and all our words are a jumbled mess in people's minds: I've given up trying to explain why I was first ordained deacon and couldn't preside at Holy Communion even though I was a Rev and wore a dog collar, and why I had to be ordained again (as priest) but didn't stop being a Curate at this point...and why I can be known as a Minister but not a Vicar yet...(but always a deacon in spirit...) 

Enough!!

I'm just glad that it would appear, in essence at least, that women's public ministry roles in the Christian church didn't start in 1994 with the C of E finally getting round to ordaining women, but perhaps a little bit earlier....