Commission on Ministry lays out challenges for the future
Proposing the report of the Commission on Ministry to the General Synod today, the Revd Canon Alan Abernethy (Down) said that the Church urgently needs to become more flexible in its approach to ministry. “The connection between the message we seek to proclaim and the culture and context are critical and we need to find ways of doing this creatively”, he said. “The message may have a changelessness about it but we need to change how we engage with the culture of each parish context.”
Established by the General Synod in 1996, the role of the Commission is to make recommendations concerning the Christian Ministry, both lay and ordained. This year the Commission has considered ways of mobilising lay ministry, the training and deployment of clergy as well as a more collaborative approach to ministry throughout the Church.
Mr Paul Gilmore (Down) told Synod that it was time for the funding of full-time stipendiary curacies to be centralised. Training, he said, is not just a benefit for the parish but for the church as a whole and should be recognised as such. He put three questions to members: What sort of ministry does the Church require? How will it train for that ministry? And how will it resource this training?
Regarding the issue of in-service training, the report recommends that the rector becomes the main trainer of a new curate. However, Mr Brian Brown (Dublin) suggested that this system be reviewed as oftentimes a rector might not have the skills to be able to undertake such training.
Closing his speech, Canon Abernethy spoke of the challenging times ahead. “This is a very exciting time for the Church because we have to face difficult questions but we have some very important things to say and do,” he said. “We will need to think outside the box and have the courage to be innovative.”