Local churches want to preserve the traditions they have been used to and get the kind of ministry that supports their spiritual agenda. Increasingly the institutional CofE, due to financial constraints, cannot supply the clergy local churches want.
In the case of churches that are not being faithful to the biblical gospel and are running mission-blocking and in the worst cases downright toxic religious clubs, the fact that they cannot get the clerical brand they want is to be welcomed. But good biblical ministry in and through good gospel churches needs to be cherished and developed, especially when those churches are paying for it through their parish share.
That is fundamentally why the move by the institutional Church of England to standardise pre-ordination theological training and post-ordination ministry training should be setting conservative evangelical alarm bells loudly ringing.
The Phase 2 Report of the Ministry Council Working Party into the CofE's Higher Education (HE) practices as they impact on Initial Ministry Training (IME) is about to go before the General Synod, meeting next month. The report was approved by the House of Bishops last December.
For the uninitiated, which Cranmer's Curate rather was until he was asked to look into this, IME 1-3 is theological training at college or on a course before ordination; IME 4-7 is post-ordination training for curates. When cc was a younger curate than he is now, he seems to remember IME 4-7 was called Post-Ordination Training (known as Potty Training).
The Working Party's stated vision is as follows:
We believe that there are compelling reasons for the Church of England, with our partner institutions, to develop a suite of HE Awards with a single validating HE partnership which would provide the main highway of training and formation for IME 1-3, which would also provide dioceses with an option for IME 4-7 and for Reader training; and would also make provision for independent students pursuing a variety of vocations in discipleship and ministry.
The Working Party recommends that
the Church of England, with our partner churches establish a single suite of HE awards suitable for IME 1-7, Reader training and independent students, with a single HE set of validation arrangements as outlined in this report.
The concern for conservative evangelicals is what impact standardisation would have on the two theological colleges our constituency is (or should be) supporting - Oak Hill and Wycliffe Hall.
Will they have to water down the sound evangelical training they are wanting to give their ordinands? Will they have to water down their commitment to sound biblical studies, including biblical theology, and their passion for expository preaching, biblical evangelism and apologetics?
Which raises the wider issue about the standard of preaching and biblical knowledge in the Church of England.
Our conservative evangelical churches are Bible teaching churches. They are often net-givers to dioceses in terms of parish share. They are generally churches that want to encourage gifted men and women to go forward into full-time gospel ministry. They are generally churches that are reaching young people and pro-actively arguing for Christianity.
Our churches require well-trained evangelical ministers - will the institutional Church of England be able to deliver them?
It won't if residential theological training is cut back in favour of cheaper part-time courses and standardised education syllabi are imposed that squeeze out our distinctive evangelical emphases.
So this issue of theological training really does impact on the future of conservative evangelical ministry in the institutional Church of England.
Oh, but your churches are too middle-class and dominated by book culture people.
Maybe, but the answer to that is not to lower the standards of theological education and ministerial training. It is actually to raise those standards and encourage the gospel workers our constituency is nurturing to fan out more widely and be prepared to serve in a range of socio-economic and regional contexts.
Our conservative evangelical churches - which should be springboards for church planting and pioneer evangelism - need the best-trained gospel ministers our constituency can provide. We have a responsibility to plan for the future.
'Middle-of-the-road' theological education and ministry training means mediocrity. And that is not good enough for the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This piece on the mission benefit of the agreed biblical agenda in Jos appeared in Friday's Church of England Newspaper.
Also cc's letter in Friday's CEN:
Sir, Just in case it appears that on the Cranmer’s Curate blog (What The Blogs Say – 20 January) I was conceding Dr Peter Head’s contention that the Apostle Paul did not forbid the appointment of women presbyters, may I please include the complete
paragraph? - "Sure there is an issue as to the ways in which ecclesiastical terms in general usage correspond to the NT terminology. But if ‘presbyter’ means a person with biblical teaching responsibility over God’s church, then Paul clearly did forbid the appointment of women in that role."