Towards Ordained Ministry: Session Six

This post details my experience of Session Six of the Towards Ordained Ministry course. See my previous posts about session one, two, four and five to find out what the TOM course is.

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Mission - Will you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place?

It was our final session, and although this was a great course, I was looking forward to having my Monday nights back! The odd thing about this last session was it was run by none other than Bishop Pete Broadbent! So having met the man for an all important interview the previous Wednesday, there he is again at the front of the lecture room. A bizarre amount of times to see a bishop in the space of a week, especially in the wake of my rector Lucy also doing a session! I half expected my DDO to walk through the door, to complete the set of priests involved in my discernment.

Pete was talking about mission. He said it was appropriate for a bishop, as "leading the church in mission" is one of the things for which we have bishops.

He started by describing the sort of context that we're working in for mission, which is one of non-traditional sacredness, "believing without belonging"; and also of course "more pluralist" within a diversity of faiths, especially in London. Our inheritance as future priests in the church is a trajectory of secular pluralism. At the local level, the common good can benefit from contributions from all faiths, but how it will go in the UK as a whole, what the future of the pluralism will look like, we can't know.

The rest of the session was based on Capital Vision 2020, which is the London Diocese's mission statement/strategy/idea/movement/premise...thing which is trying to innovate, create and support mission in the diocese but without reinventing the wheel so to speak.

A lot of my notes you can get from just browsing through the material available online about CV2020 itself, so here are few choice thoughts from +Pete as he went through.

• He quipped that church planting was "not just HTB clones!"
• He posed the question "are we a post-Christian society?" 
• 'Growth' is not just numbers but the growth of individuals' discipleship, and community impact
• The parochial system is odd but it still works; different in London of course
• 'Church' = "baptism, Bible, Eucharist, prayer, fellowship" but community might not be called to be 'church'
• London isn't very good at ecumenism
• CofE isn't very good at lay ministries such as evangelism, healing and teaching
• "The DNA of believing that God is going to make thing happen is crucial"
• He posed the question "is 'mega-church' good for us and is it working?"

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The previous sessions were:

- Authority - Do you accept the discipline of this Church and give due respect to those in authority?

- The Bible - Do you accept the holy Scriptures as revealing all things necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?

- Doctrine - [I missed this one] Do you believe the doctrine of the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it, and in your ministry will you expound and teach it?

- Ministry - Will you be a faithful servant in the household of God, after the example of Christ, who came not to be served but to serve?

- Spirituality - Will you be diligent in prayer, in reading holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith, and fit you to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel?

Video: Fourth chat with the curate, plus being like the Trinity

In the video, I said the curate asked me to write about the nature of God being the Trinity being mirrored in the human experience of relationship. Below is my attempt to expand this.

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So in a nutshell, I said that I find it reassuring that the Trinity resolves the tension of unity and individuality in God's very being; that what seems like a paradox of relationship vs self is actually a fundamental part of God and therefore a fundamental part of us as made in God's image - it's not something for us to overcome but to embrace about ourselves and our lives. God is the epitome of cohesive relationship without the loss of separate distinctions, and therefore God is the example we can follow to try to resolve the tension in our lives.

I am reassured that I follow a God whose being is one of simultaneous one-ness and three-ness, because however hard it looks when I'm struggling to find compatibility between being myself - having a unique combination of characteristics, temperament, needs, and desires - and being part of so many relationships - and groups, and the responsibilities towards convergence and consensus that those entail - it is possible find harmony in being both simultaneously.

See if you recognise these scenarios from your own life:

Sometimes I feel totally isolated; I prioritise only my own needs, and do things on only my terms. And that leads to problems. Friends and groups in my life feel abandoned or ignored; I as an extrovert get grumpy, and sometimes a bit melancholic. Days start to feel monotonous, and as if I've unplugged from life, and I wonder where my life is going. I feel like I've forgotten something but all my obvious needs are seen to, and doing anything beyond basic requirements seems like a chore.

Sometimes I lose all sense of self; I priotise only the needs of others, and make decisions without factoring in the consequences of my actions on myself. And that leads to problems. I over-extend myself, running out of mental, physical, and emotional resources. I become exhausted but have promised to do something else so keep going, sometimes feeling like crying just because I feel so terrible. I want to resent people and situations draining my resources, and find it difficult to enjoy all the activities I'm doing because they have now become chores.

These are extremes, but I know I've been in both scenarios multiple times, and I think it comes down to this difficult balancing act. My identity as an individual can sometimes feel at odds with my identity as part of relationships. My sense of difference and distance from 'others' doesn't gel with my sense of belonging and being part of 'us'.

This comes up in the context of talking with the curate because I am foreseeing the tension in my future. I look ahead, look at the impending discernment process, and I get double vision, because there are two paths going at the same time (which I've said before) - one journey with God, and one journey with the Church. Now the former feels more 'real', it's the personal journey where I know I can be entirely genuine and trust completely in it. And that clashes with the latter, which I'm scared will feel contrived, because it involves other fallible people and I don't trust myself or them enough to feel confident we'll get it right.

Desmond Tutu quotes the concept of ubuntu, which officially means "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity" and Tutu explains as: "My humanity is caught up, inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. We say a person is a person through other persons." which is a bit like what the curate got out of my analogy with the Trinity. I was looking at that the discernment process has this fundamental dual nature of 'ultimately' being an attempt at following God's calling, but also 'ultimately' being a series of relationships with a very human element. He went further and looked at it as an opportunity for us to experience, see and recognise our faith and ourselves through others.

I think that's what he was saying. We were a tad at cross purposes I fear. But it is true that we aren't often naturally inclined to approach faith through others. It always feels like 'faith' is this internal thing totally separate from outside, just between you and God. And yeah, there is a personal connection, but just like the Trinity, there is a communal connection at the same time as the separate one and they intertwine and inform each other! So my discernment journey with God is simultaneously distinct and intimately connected with my discernment journey with the Church, a constant dance of unity and separation, just like the Trinity. We are both connected in unity and also defined as individuals by our humanity. My relationships with the people on the discernment process will inform my relationship with God as well as vice versa. And its helps to know that God is also in a similar dance of relationship as well, so I have a chance of striking a balance. Just as God could not be God without being Trinity, I cannot live my personal truth in the light of God without the feedback loop of faith and identity from relationships with others.

Or something like that.