[THO] Sacrament of Ordination?

I really need to do some serious work on the Sacrament of Orders. Everything about hierarchy and orders gets my back up. I was against orders in the restructuring of the Vineyard in Canada (I sat on the Writing Task Force as one of two Ontario reps). Our thought was that we shouldn't assume someone will serve the same function when they move to another congregation, we want to take seriously the congregations recognition of gifts and calling. I'm sure this would sound quite alien to strongly hierarchical movements, but really it is rooted in our sense of functional leadership. This is a notion that a person will function in their role long before the congregation names that roll. So you don't get hired as the youth pastor, you fall into the roll and someone comes along and recognizes it.

The problem with our paradigm is that it isn't the norm for Christianity. Far from it actually. There is a long historical trend towards the elevation of the clergy which we have inherited. So for our paradign to work it takes a lot of deliberation and explaination. I think of it as a challenge. The challenge is to get the congregation to recognize that this is not the pastor's church, but it is their church and they have a roll in shaping what it looks like.

This sounds a bit more congregationalist than it actually is in practice. The Vineyard has a strong sense of pastoral leadership, especially in church planting. And indeed our issues have been with pastoral abuse not congregational abuse. So in a sense we do have some commonality with a hierarchical model - at least in terms of governance. But when this is working right the pastoral role is more invitational than bounds oriented. In fact at the core of our values is a center set sociological model (a great book on this is Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness by Jerry Cook). So the pastor is pointing towards a shared vision and literally shepherding the vision. Helping people know if and where they fit, always inviting them into more participation. As folks become more attuned to the vision they are invited into roles as their gifts/callings become apparent. And here is where we differ from most movements - these roles need not always be named as offices.

The philosophy of a sacrament of orders does two things that bother me. First it assumes a lifelong calling in a particular way. My own history of ministry has been one of falling into different roles in different settings: worship leader, assistant pastor, helper, prayer coordinator, team leader, participant, congregant, dish washer, chair set up specialist, bulletin maker, youth leader, youth pastor (a particularily bad one), co-leader of college and careers, guitarist, keyboardist, greeter, teacher, church planter. All of these were significant and unique, but the progression was not linear (hierarchical climbing) nor was it permanent. Just because I am a church planter right now does not mean that this is what I will always be. Because of the way that the sacrament of orders is structured you couldn't go back, you would always be the office you were last installed into, at least from that time forward. And we wondered at why it was so hard for the Roman Catholics to deal with their priests who couldn't keep their cassocks done up? When orders are supposed to ontologically change your nature then you have a problem when the Peter principle kicks in. Which is my second problem with the sacrament of orders. There must be a way back. I know at different times in my own walk I needed to step back from ministry to work on my own life. Sure you can do that within orders but when I read the third chapter of Lumen Gentium the standard for ordained ministry is so high that we are setting up the ordained for failure.

This is part of the problem with such strong separation of clergy and laity. The clergy are expected not only to perform all the functions of Church and Christian life. But God forbid they should fall. Yet the reality is that we are all likely to fall into sin - sorry if that is a shocker. Anyone who was a Pentecostal during the Jimmy Swagger days knows the pain of seeing your heroes fall. Before you think me callous, my heart goes out to the priests who have fallen into sin. My frustration is directed towards an unhealthy ecclesiology that keeps our leaders in bondage to ideals that are humanly unattainable. Sure there are shining examples, but if you think that those lives were easy you have bought into a myth. We are all in this together and that is why this is so troublesome - our best resource for dealing with our human frailty is real open and honest community. And the hierarchy doesn't promote that, it hinders that.

I love that if I'm having a hard time, fighting with Sharon or frustrated with parenting, I can show up at church and say 'I need prayer'. I love that I am one of them, not the one they all look to as a perfect example of Christian living. We point each other to the only real example of that: Jesus. I love that my congregation isn't scandalized but gathers around me and prays. I love that they feel they can do the same. That is beautiful ecclesiology. That is how we serve each other in love. To me that is Church.