Ordination Process: One more round
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Dr. Rebekah Miles has published her op-ed piece in the United Methodist Reporter, calling for changes to the ordination process in the UMC. I initially told you about Dr. Miles' interest in this subject in this post back in mid-August.
You can find her op-ed here.
She makes a challenging, lucid case that the church needs to wake up and smell the ordination coffee. In the article, Dr. Miles writes:
"We have put into place a long, bureaucratic process with loads of paperwork, saying all the while that we want to attract more young adults to ordained ministry. Yet young adults (between 21 and 35) are members of two generations that tend to share several things in common: their deep dislike of bureaucracy and red tape, their suspicion of large, centralized institutions, and their frustration with hierarchical systems based on seniority and not merit.
"If we were to set out to design a system that was unattractive to Generations X and Y, we would have a hard time coming up with anything worse than the system we have now."
I only offer two observations:
1) After my posts dealing with this subject last month, I had a couple of people respond that the ordination process didn't need to be easy. If folks are really called, they said, a little red tape wouldn't dissuade them. To this, I would say that it isn't the difficulty of the process that is the problem. It is the needless difficulty. There is nothing wrong with having a rigorous ordination process, where a person's call is genuinely explored and tested. But I also think you can make a strong argument that the process we currently have in place does not do a good job of this at all. It has bureaucratic processes set up that make it look rigorous, when they are really just a series of almost-useless hurdles designed to give the whole thing a veneer of professionalism.
2) I've read the letters of Ignatius of Antioch in the past week. In them, Ignatius talks incessantly about the churches of Antioch, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Rome, etc. And it is clear that all these churches are connected to one another, communicate with one another, and send missionaries to one another. But you also get the idea that there is very little bureaucratic red tape traded between them. They didn't seem to have a problem forming people in the faith. In fact, they did such a good job of it that Ignatius and scores of others were willing to be martyred for the faith they received. So what, do you think, they had that we are lacking? Hmmm?
You can find her op-ed here.
She makes a challenging, lucid case that the church needs to wake up and smell the ordination coffee. In the article, Dr. Miles writes:
"We have put into place a long, bureaucratic process with loads of paperwork, saying all the while that we want to attract more young adults to ordained ministry. Yet young adults (between 21 and 35) are members of two generations that tend to share several things in common: their deep dislike of bureaucracy and red tape, their suspicion of large, centralized institutions, and their frustration with hierarchical systems based on seniority and not merit.
"If we were to set out to design a system that was unattractive to Generations X and Y, we would have a hard time coming up with anything worse than the system we have now."
I only offer two observations:
1) After my posts dealing with this subject last month, I had a couple of people respond that the ordination process didn't need to be easy. If folks are really called, they said, a little red tape wouldn't dissuade them. To this, I would say that it isn't the difficulty of the process that is the problem. It is the needless difficulty. There is nothing wrong with having a rigorous ordination process, where a person's call is genuinely explored and tested. But I also think you can make a strong argument that the process we currently have in place does not do a good job of this at all. It has bureaucratic processes set up that make it look rigorous, when they are really just a series of almost-useless hurdles designed to give the whole thing a veneer of professionalism.
2) I've read the letters of Ignatius of Antioch in the past week. In them, Ignatius talks incessantly about the churches of Antioch, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Rome, etc. And it is clear that all these churches are connected to one another, communicate with one another, and send missionaries to one another. But you also get the idea that there is very little bureaucratic red tape traded between them. They didn't seem to have a problem forming people in the faith. In fact, they did such a good job of it that Ignatius and scores of others were willing to be martyred for the faith they received. So what, do you think, they had that we are lacking? Hmmm?
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 11:58 PM
8 Comments:
I am in agreement with you. And, I think we often find things that have been useful to some of us, and decide they should be necessary for everyone. This makes too many requirements that become hurdles and hoops.
If we want clergy who can respond to the variety of communities in our time, it seems like it would be good to do fewer things that require everyone to come out with similar skills, and more to encourage and empower different ways of thinking about and approaching things.
On bad days, it feels like our system succeeds in empowering people with a high threshold for long processes...
Or, perhaps, I could be wrong...
:)
I would like to know specifically what changes you would like to see us make. I am on my conference board of ordained ministry, and I am chair of the theology committee that reads papers and interviews candidates about their understanding and practice of United Methodist theology and doctrine. (BTW, I am 38 years old). The questions that our candidates must write about and be able to discuss in person include questions on the understanding of God derived from biblical, historical and theological sources; the Lordship of Christ; the work of the Holy Spirit; the relationship between Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience; the sacraments; the nature and mission of the church; the human need for divine grace; the meaning and significance of justification, sanctification, repentance, regeneration; and several others (they are all listed in the Discipline). Precisely which one of these Disciplinary questions should candidates for ministry not have to answer in writing or in personal interview? I don't hesitate to tell people "you're not ready to be ordained or commissioned" if you cannot give solid answers to these type of questions in writing and in person. Sometimes, people whine about how difficult it is, but I frankly don't care. You're impacting people's lives and the church's life if you're a pastor in the UMC, and you better durn well know your theology.
I would like to know what part of the difficulty in answering these questions you might consider "needless."
Jonathan -
Thanks for those comments. I don't think any of the Disciplinary questions are needless. They are an essential test in determining whether a potential pastor is theologically prepared for ministry.
The steps I am talking about have more to do with the structure of the process itself: Approval by a local charge conference in order to become "declared," approval by a DCOM in order to become "certified," two years minimum as a certified candidate, approval by a BOM in order to be "commissioned," three (or is it two now?) years as a probationer, and then ordination.
In addition, of course, every annual conference sets different guidelines for the various steps that have to be taken during the certified candidate and probationary stages.
I do not object at all to rigor in our ordination process. It is, as I have written in previous posts, the impersonal and bureaucratic way what we express that rigor. It becomes a lot more about forms and tests and stages and time periods than it does about spiritual formation and mentoring for ministry. Part of this is the hands-off approach of bishops, part of it is the lack of understanding by candidacy mentors, and part of it is the inertia of the process itself.
Perhaps the best way to get a sense of what I am talking about is just to get a copy of the Candidacy Guidebook and thumb through it. It is almost unbelievable that we expect candidates for ministry to take our process seriously when we give them somthing like that.
We are in agreement.
It is just frustrating to me, when I pour my heart and soul into examining candidates' theological preparedness for ministry, to hear an insulting and sweeping statement like, "we would have a hard time coming up with anything worse than the sytem we have now." Believe me, I can imagine plenty of systems worse than what we have now.
But I agree that the Candidacy Guidebook is too cumbersome.
Hey man, didn't mean to cut off this discussion; I would welcome some reform in the candidacy process and would love to hear anyone's specific proposals for how to make it better.
Not at all. Your comments were great. This was my third post on this issue, which may have been why there weren't as many comments this time around. But a friend of mine at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary e-mailed me earlier today telling me about a lively discussion she and some classmates were having over ordination issues (specifically over Dr. Miles' op-ed), so it seems the discussion is still ongoing in different forums.
My biggest beef about the whole process is the small number of seminaries approved by GBHEM. In South Carolina I think we're down to one approved seminary now that Erskine is no longer approved. Gordon-Conwell in Charlotte, NC is right over the border (and I pass it every day on the way to work) but it is no longer approved, either.
I can see another side, too. If you're not willing to go through significant sacrifice, perhaps you're not being called. But each four hour round-trip to Columbia, SC steals four hours from my family and my church family.
Is it an ordination process or a boy's club? Is the issue being called by God or if you don't attend a Methodist Seminary you're screwed? I do not see God in the process, I see a political process that is not open to God's discernment but human discernment that is prejudice and does not practice the UM motto of Open Arms, Open Hearts and Open Doors.
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