What is our theology?
by Roland Allen
1912 “Missionary Methods; St Paul’s or Ours?”
After David Paton. Interviewed by Gerald Davis, 1983, Published in Davis, Gerald Setting Free the Ministry of the People of God, Cincinnati, Forward Movement, 1984.
Every congregation:
- Has within its own membership sufficient gifts for its life and mission.
- To be trusted with the Bible, Creeds, Ministry and Sacraments.
- To be responsible for recognising the spiritual gifts and needs of its members, and calling forth those ministries.
- Will share its message and life with neighbouring communities not yet evangelised.
- The Holy Spirit working on the human endowments of the community leaders is sufficient for its life. Don’t over train. Don’t import leaders.
- Any Christian Community that can’t do these things is not a church but a mission field.
A Guiding Principle for Mission
- Allen reflected on the dependency of the China mission on its imported clergy, overseas funds, both of which conspired to put the native church into dependencies, which militated against growth.
- He counselled a reversal of mission policy in favour of what he termed to be the methods of St Paul as seen in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles.
- Paul founded churches, which had local leadership.
- Allen concluded that there was an essential theological difference, which determined mission strategy.
In the New Testament, ministry is seen as belonging to the baptised community which has many gifts. The images Paul employed are one body, many parts, one Spirit, many gifts. Peter wrote of believers being built into a spiritual temple. Both apostles used therefore corporate imagery to focus discussion and practice on ministry. We should take seriously our ecclesiology and ministry practice and critique them in the light of this understanding.
Our habit by contrast has been to focus on individuals. To define the church by clerical order, and to locate ministry in that sphere of the church. Most theology on ministry (especially that in the tradition of Gore and Moberley has supported this, even to authors such as Urban T Holmes and Henri Nouwen).
This has meant that sacraments and stipend have often, indeed typically gone together. That ministry has been viewed as the province of a few, that it is a scarce commodity, which only those communities with sufficient money can afford to avail themselves of. Most of the Church members have been viewed, and view themselves, not as ministers, gifted by God, but consumers, dependent, child or sheep-like, needing fatherly direction, or pastoring. Do we seriously mean to imply that only congregations which can afford a stipended minister, are truly church? (John Calvin: the church is present when the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are celebrated).
Roland Allen’s thought has been a catalyst in reworking a vision for ministry which is based upon the baptised community, in a local place, which is a community discerned process.
Baptism provides the basis for
- incorporation into Christ
- witness and ministry in the world
- significant roles in ministry and church government
- Many people, many gifts of the Holy Spirit.
It is apparent from Allen’s book Missionary Methods, that once the local community is trusted with the sacraments, mission, ministry, that the community begins to find ways of expanding beyond its present understandings of God and ministry and will expand. Many examples in Nevada and in New Zealand confirm that this trust in God the Holy Spirit in the community of faith brings new life.
We have moved past Roland’s understandings (about non stipendiary priests) which were limited in their way, but the experiences of the Church in Alaska, Nevada, North Michigan, Qu’Appelle Canada, and South Africa, and New Zealand principally, have formed responses to the problem of helping local communities to be the church all the time, not just when an itinerant priest could be present. His theology and ecclesiology remain an inspiration.
As Ministry Enablers our task is:
- to be effective supporters of local faith communities
- to be able to affirm and support the return to a model of ministry more clearly located in New Testament understandings of the placement of ministry as a function of the whole Body of Christ as does Leonardo Boff in his discussions of base communities, and as Edward Schillebeeckx does in his book Ministry, 1981.
KEYS TO MAKING A THEOLOGICAL SHIFT ABOUT MINISTRY
- Pay attention to the theology which makes the community the unit for ministry, not the individual, trust the local congregation. God has placed the necessary gifts there.
- Ask the question, how tied to the availability of money for a stipend is the sacramental ministry of the church, in your diocese.
- When the ministry of “good vicars” is not arresting the decline in church numbers or the decline in money available for stipendiary ministry, look closely at the ministry delivery model. Consider other options than packing up your tents and despairing. Inability to sustain an expensive ministry model does not necessarily imply the death of the Church, it might be the first pangs of new birth.
- Assess the maturity of the congregation. What existing ministries of the laity in worship and in daily life in the world, are being affirmed and developed by the leaders of the congregation, now.
Respond to Roland Allen’s six points.
- What surprised you?
- What gives you hope?
- What examples from scripture can you see applying to Roland Allen’s principles?
- What changes to current ways of being church might this imply?
Stewart Zabriskie Total Ministry, Alban Institute, 1995
Borgeson & Wilson Reshaping Ministry, Essays in Memory of Wesley Frensdorff, Jethro Publications, 1990