Disclaimer: If you’re not interested in the workings of the Church of England, you might find this post dull.

The Church of England faces a number of problems in how clergy are depolyed.  In particular, there are more clergy retiring than new, full time stipendiary (i.e. paid) clergy starting.  Even if that weren’t true, money is more scarce, and clergy are better paid than in the past, so we possibly couldn’t afford to have as many anyway.

Over the last few years that has led to most dioceses merging parishes so that the number of clergy they had was broadly in line with a target set centrally which reflected the shrinking numbers of clergy available.  In most cases that process has met the targets set for 2012.

The central Church has now decided that it won’t set targets for the future.  Dioceses may have as many full time stipendiary ministers as they want, can attract and can pay for. (I’m sure there is more nuance than that, but this is effectively the case).  As the targets ran to 2012, many dioceses are setting out their deployment strategy for the next few years.  I guess many will be doing what Southwell and Nottingham are doing (the diocese I serve in) and setting a strategy to 2020, because 2020 sounds cool.

Indeed, we have a new deployment strategy for 2020.  You can read the document approved by the diocesan synod here.  What it says is that our diocese will keep the number of key leadership posts (essentially a church leader) roughly the same as it is now.  We are unlikely to be able to keep as many clergy though, so we will pursue a strategy of lay incumbents with sacramental support from retired or self supporting clergy.

I have to admit to being slightly confused about this.  If someone is the key leader in a church and licensed to that place to that role by the Bishop, they have pastoral resposibility  and provide a focal point for ministry in that place, then they are a priest by definition whether they have been ordained or not.

Secondly to have a lay person as leader with “sacramental support” from a priest is a severely reductionist view of priesthood.  The Church considered lay presidency in 1994.  The reason it gave for not allowing it is that presidency at communion is a function of the pastoral responsibility of the priest in that congregation.  To deliberately split those roles seems a strange choice.

The strategy requires deaneries to consider what kind of ministry is appropriate for a particular place.  I can’t imagine many circumstances where the answer would be a lay incumbent.  I have been to an Anglican church where the senior leader was a lay person (they are currently in the process of getting ordained), but it was a church plant and one of the earliest appointments was a full-time stipendiary priest who essentially had day to day pastoral responsibility.

What I’m not really sure of is whether this is a national picture, or whether my diocese is doing something “innovative”?  Any thoughts?

So in my study time this week I’ve left the Atonement, because my spiritual director has given me a book to read.  In general I’m very against spiritual directors giving me books to read because I rarely read them and then have yet another thing to feel guilty about.

The book is The Inner Life by Thomas à Kempis.  He warned me it was deep, and it is, but also quite refreshing!  It’s a very quote worthy text, for example ‘I would far rather feel contrition than be able to define it’ (p1). (Amen to that!

The theme (and so far I’ve only read the first few pages) is that what point is there in knowing everything about God if I remain an obnoxious person.  It’s not a call back to simplicity and the idea that ignorance is bliss, in fact ‘true learning is good in itself and ordained by God’ (p5).  Instead my growing knowledge of God must be reflected in a life that is ever more holy and good. The challenge is that ‘If each year we would root out one fault, we should soon become perfect’ (p12).  Whilst I doubt that I would soon become perfect, I guess it might be possible before I die!

I find the horticultural language instructive.  My experience tells me that fruit has roots.  If we are producing good fruit, it comes from healthy roots.  If we produce bad fruit (like sin) it’s usually pointless trying to just cut the fruit off or nip things in the bud.  To be free you need to uproot it, find the cause and cut it out.

Many of us (myself included) often think that we are the problem.  Our lives (as it were) are inherently weedy patches of ground.  But I think just as often (if not most of the time) the weeds are planted by other people.  By the way we have been treated and by the things people have said.  This is not a get out clause (It’s not my fault, so why worry), rather an explanation of the truth.  Why will power alone often won’t solve the problem.

Over the last few years God has helped me to do a fair bit of uprooting and I’m a better person for it.  The challenge is not to assume that this process is now finished and perfection beckons, rather to look at the next area that needs resolving and asking God to graciously show me what is at the root of that problem.  And to keep asking until he shows me!

So, despite my strong desire to rebel, I’ll persevere with the book and see what further light it can shed on my very human condition!

So, I think it’s important for a minister to have something to say.  That they are persons of the Word, and not just repeating what other people have said.  For that reason I am trying to institute an hour a week of study time to read a chapter of a book and then blog on it.  The idea being that thinking about other people’s ideas helps to settle your own.

Mostly, I think I’ll be reading about the atonement.  The work of Christ on the cross.  I’m a little bit obsessed with it (I wrote my BA dissertation on it) because it is so central to a Christian faith and yet while theories are put forward, none of them seem entirely satisfactory.

So, today I thought I’d start my study by reading some of one of those classic introduction to theology textbooks. The book I started with was Faith Seeking Understanding, by Daniel Migliore.

Migliore’s writing on atonement theories comes as part of a wider chapter on ‘The Person and Work of Jesus’. It is important to recognise that  Jesus’ work of salvation is wider than the events of Good Friday, but we’ll come back to that another time.

One of the conclusions of my dissertation was that although there are a number of metaphors in the New Testament that give meaning to the Cross, the currently popular theories of the atonement tend to take just one and use it as the lens through which the others must be seen (this, I would argue, is not a good idea).  Similarly, Migliore begins his brief exploration by talking about the different metaphors available, financial, legal, military and sacrificial amongst others.

In an approach I am certain we will come across again and again, he sets out three theories which appear to be the most popular at the moment.

Christus Victor (Jesus wins in a cosmic battle against evil), Satisfaction (Jesus dies on our behalf to placate God) and Moral Influence (We are so wowed by God’s demonstration of love that we have no choice but to follow him).

Migliore’s analysis is brief (it is a wide ranging introductory text after all) and pretty objective.  He finds fault with all three theories whilst at the same time acknowledging their good points.  His conclusion that we do well when we try and take a broader rather than a narrower view of the atonement is one which I wholeheartedly endorse.  Yes, there is complexity in having a wider understanding, but there is also much simplicity and less defending of daft propositions.

Lisa Sowle Cahill, writing in the journal Theological Studies in 2007 wrote “That we are saved is clear, how we are saved is not”.  I’m on a journey to try and work out if it is possible to have at least a slightly clearer idea!