 
# ECCLESION

# The Small ChurchWith a Vision

# Dave Mullan

Revised e-edition

2015

**ISBN** **978-1-877357-16-9**

ColCom Press,

28/101 Red Beach Rd, Hibiscus Coast,

AOTEAROA—NEW ZEALAND

Dedication

To all my friends

in small churches

who have helped with these ideas

sometimes without even

knowing about it

# Table of Contents

Roadmap

Introduction

1. Where We Have Come From

2. The Contemporary Church

3. The Ecclesion Congregation

4. What and Where in the Ecclesion Programme

5. Membership of the Ecclesion Community

6. Ordained Ministry and Ecclesion

7. Education for Ecclesion Presbyters

8. The Presbyter Role

9. What, Then, Shall We Do?

Glossary

About the Author

Books on Church and Ministry

Dave's Other Books

# Roadmap

I want this book to grab the attention of people who sit in the pews. I hope some of them will want to act on it. But I have to accept that it may have a few roadblocks along the way.

It has some specialist words in it and you really have to get used to them. If you are going to bake a cake you have to learn the words that are in the recipe book. So this book asks you to learn a few words that are important for the church, its mission and ministry. There's a glossary at the back to help you.

A second problem is not so much a roadblock as a detour that you can't actually see. I have a great pile of footnotes that I wanted to add but putting them into an E-Book is a bit beyond me at present. This lack of citation may make some statements seem a bit simplistic but I have tried to make the book speak for itself.

The major problem with any journey is where are you and how do you get going. There's a lot of stuff here that might or might not be important for any one reader. So I suggest you start at the beginning in which I set out where I think we have come from and where we have got to as a church. I personally found it very helpful to do this little exploration but you might see it as another detour. OK, that's fine, just leave it.

Then have a look at chapters three to six. Here are my central themes about the Ecclesion congregation. This is the major part of what I really want to say to you. If this gets you going you could go straight to my suggestions for what to do next in the rest of the book.

Chapters seven and eight arise out of everything else but were primarily addressed to the NZ Methodist Connexion and its stipendiary presbyters rather than to you members who hold together the work of the local congregation. A lot of what I wrote here has been overtaken by some very significant changes in the church. So don't feel obliged to wade all through them if they turn out to be heavy going for you. They inevitably have some technical terms and you might be quite happy just to browse a little.

But make sure you round off your journey by asking yourself what you might do from the suggestions in chapter nine.

Good travelling!

# Introduction

Heather and George are keen Methodists in their fifties. They have been at St Mary's for almost all of their married life and cannot really imagine themselves being a part of any other congregation.

But they are not very happy. The community around their church has grown up and most of the younger generation, along with their own kids, have moved out. Those who are still in the region do not show much interest in what is going on. But what worries George and Heather more is that many of their contemporaries of their earlier years are also no longer interested in the church.

Membership and attendances at St Mary's have continued to decline over the last couple of decades. The empty seats in what used to be a fairly full church are rather discouraging. Members of the congregation feel embarrassed sometimes when the numbers are really down, especially if there's a visiting preacher as sometimes has to happen because they share their minister with another congregation.

They've had some ups and downs with ministerial appointments, too. They had one year-long vacancy which was pretty hard to cope with as the "supply" arrangements were not very satisfactory. The new minister, not long out of Theological College, seemed to have a lot of promise but resigned unexpectedly in the middle of the church year. The congregation coped better with that vacancy than with what they understood to be his reasons for leaving the ordained ministry. But it was still very difficult for everyone.

For five years now they have enjoyed a steady and faithful ministry. But the congregation is still not growing and it continues to reflect the older age group. The rising cost of ministry and maintenance on their ageing properties have resulted in some deficit in the accounts. Now the members of the parish council are asking themselves if they can realistically hope to pay their way within a year or two.

About fifteen years ago St Mary's was in a similar financial predicament and on the advice of the District merged with another adjacent parish. To do this a second time does not now seem to be an option. Heather and George and their fellow members are deeply concerned for their church and its mission but are at a loss as to what to do next.

The Question

How did this situation arise? What are the elements in the N.Z. Methodist church that have brought about this situation in church after church around the country? Is there a creative new option for George and Heather and their friends at St Mary's to consider?

In this book I will try to offer a brief analysis of some of the things I sense have been happening in our church in recent decades. I will suggest some elements of a strategy for the future and begin to draw out some of the implications of that strategy for church, ministry and membership.

Much of the thinking set out here arises out of my experience in a series of situations which have demanded theological reflection about non-traditional ways of being the church. The most dramatic experience was a four year "tentmaking" ministry in an "alternative" congregation in Dunedin. My thinking was further pushed along by a 1983 visit to the USA and insights into the vast difference between the Protestant churches in NZ and their counterparts in the USA. Experience in the home-setting ministry education programme with self-supporting presbyters and deacons who are trying to chart new paths for ordained ministry has been a constant stimulus to further thinking and writing. And the publication of Diakonia and the Moa, in 1984, while giving me an opportunity to air some suggestions, stopped frustratingly short of setting out some firm strategies for the future. The need for another book continued to be in my mind.

But there are always other responsibilities and interests and most of the notes that were shaping themselves into this book lay around in files for some time. The enthusiasm to try to get into some kind of writing was finally pressed on me when I read John Bodycomb's A Matter of Death and Life. The scenarios which he saw in the Australian scene seemed to ring true for parts of the NZ setting as well.

Bodycomb's Gericon scenario pictured an ageing church that is gradually and inevitably getting smaller. The Tenestas scenario spoke of a traditional church tenaciously holding onto the status quo. And Imaginex is an impossible dream—that by spending huge sums of money in one Big Effort the church will finally bring in the reign of God.

In Bodycomb's thinking, none of these three scenarios holds much hope for the Australian church of the future. The question that intrigued me when I first considered Bodycomb, was, would the same be true for New Zealand. If not, is there any hope for Heather and George?

So in 1990 at that time I proposed another scenario: Ecclesion, a small gathering of disciples who have seen a special vision and are prepared to work for it in whatever ways seem possible.

The Ecclesion congregation will be a particular style of Christian community. It will probably be not very much like most of our existing churches. It will be small, flexible, lively and vigorous. It will have some characteristics that in this day and age are not so familiar to most Methodist churchgoers. But in "Wesleyan" style it will match the disciplined mind with the warmed heart. And its worship and fellowship will result in deepened service to the community and to the world.

The Bodycomb scenarios will continue to be real options for congregations that are learning how to die. But an Ecclesion approach may have something for the church that is moving beyond death and looking for resurrection.

This book is an attempt to offer some possibilities and to show how they could be practicably attempted at the local level by local people. It is not a report for Conference (God forbid!) nor a formula that some Connexional dignitaries can use to develop new "solutions" to press upon local congregations. It is for George and Heather and their friends in every congregation in the country. If it rings bells for them as it has for me perhaps they can try it.

It is based on the firm conviction that there is hope for mainline churches in this country, that the solutions are within our grasp, and that small congregations will be at the heart of future growth in the church.

This book is dedicated to George and Heather and their real-life counterparts in small congregations up and down Aotearoa. Many of these people have shared their problems with me and every such conversation has contributed to some part of the thinking that is set out here. If this little volume becomes a sort of manual to help some of them take new responsibility for themselves and their life and gain confidence in their mission it will have served its purpose.

# 1

# Where we have come from

The first thing we need to do is reflect at some depth on our heritage, on what used to happen to us and those who have gone before us that has made us what we are. "The times they are a-changing" and we have changed to meet them. But it may be that we have failed to make appropriate changes. One major reason for this can be a lack of knowledge of where we have come from.

The Hebrew people were always very clear about this. It was fundamental to their life and religion that they could recite the story of their nation and its religious pilgrimage. On ceremonial occasions the children would ask the formal question "Why do we do this....?" and the response would be a recital of God's saving acts for the people and a reaffirmation that God was with them in the current trials as well.

The old-time Methodist testimony had something of this flavour. It was brought into disrepute because it often became highly personal and turned in upon the individual. It dealt far too much with "experience" as how one "felt" and not enough with God's grace "on every sinner showed". And it became downright repetitive and predictable. But the recalling of God's gracious actions in the life of the church is a vital part of building up the fellowship. And reviewing the problems of the past need not be a morbid exercise of futility but may be a creative step of insight into what should be happening now.

So we will have a look at our church and consider some of the characteristics it has shown in recent decades.

The Distinctive Church

One of the most interesting things about NZ Methodism is that it has developed a distinctiveness that does not fit easily with the wider Methodist family. We cannot simply point to what Wesley did and say "That is the Methodist Church of Aotearoa-NZ".

Nor is the British Methodist Church, in which most of us can trace our denominational heritage, a precise model for our churchship. The Methodist Church in this country has made its own way rather than merely duplicate what existed in the countries from which it came. Often it has done this with imagination and flair. But sometimes in its very innovativeness it has lost some of the traditions from which it sprang. Sometimes it has too easily set aside typically Methodist beliefs and practices and has lost some of the purposefulness which used to be a feature of its life. There is a price to be paid for overmuch flexibility and freedom.

Most of the Methodist Churches in the Pacific correspond much more closely to the Methodism of 50—100 years ago than we do. Our church has been open to change in the most fundamental ways in the last 30 years but this very openness has been its undoing. It has come close to losing its basic reason for being as a denomination. In being open it has lost some of its sense of direction. In adapting to its situation it has failed to retain the central driving purposes which characterised early Methodism.

The Sunday School Church

The theological position of Methodists in Aotearoa is not very clear. They are not sure what they believe and do not find a strong lead from the denomination. The blend of Wesleyan, Primitive and Bible Christian backgrounds that brought forth a united Methodist Church in this country in 1913 has always been uneasy. People do not have to be able to trace their own personal heritage in one of Methodism's branches to know that differences exist.

The variations are more persistent and pervasive than we often admit. Fifty years after Methodist Union the Thames Circuit had sold a piece off one property and a piece off another and wound up with its church on one section, its hall on another and its parsonage on a third. Each was a residue of the three elements of the 1913 Union.

But the pre-1913 branches of Methodism fostered distinctive thinking in each. The amalgam of a united Methodist vision in the early years of this century has been slowly disintegrating ever since.

It was a puzzle to me to go to my first parish and find so many good keen members of the church whose position on interpretation of the bible was decidedly literalist. I had never encountered that in my home church and the few students who held those views in Trinity College learned to play them down. The "official" view was never thrust on anyone but it was clearly commended.

From its beginnings around the time of Methodist Union Trinity College was, according to Principal Eric Hames in a 1958 promotional audiovisual programme made by the College "founded on a tradition of exact biblical scholarship". But in fact fifty years earlier, when the "fundamentalists" were swinging in to defend the faith against the perceived threat of Darwin and his apparently provocative theory of evolution a Methodist leader wrote an article in the Connexional paper stating the Wesleyan "position" for the benefit of church members. The Wesleyan Church did not take a literalist view of scripture and did not encourage its members to do so.

It would be a refreshingbut unlikely experience to see a statement on the subject put so forthrightly by a Connexional leader in this country in these days. The contemporary church in Australia has done it: When I was first drafting this book in 1989 Ian Tanner and David Merritt had just published a book of answers to questions lay people ask and their statement on biblical interpretation leaves no room for doubt. Once wonders if such a forthright statement would be welcomed by most people in the pews a quarter century later.

Certainly all the clear leadership that might have come "down" from the "top" and from the College in the first fifty years of this century did not result in a church with well defined understanding of its theology. No doubt there were plenty of outgoing students who did not toe the party line in all periods. But one would have thought that the general trend would have been clear and, over a period, would have filtered out to the membership in a growing body of commonly held beliefs and doctrines.

But it seemed to me in the 1960s that what was taught and accepted in the College had failed to commend itself in the pew. The bulk of the graduates of the College were presumably comfortable with the so-called "liberal" perspective but they did not make much impression upon their congregations over the years. Perhaps ministers soft-pedalled doctrines that might challenge and discomfort their people, figuring that it might be better to leave them where they were than unsettle them. Or perhaps our clergy simply did not realise the need for ongoing careful education in the very disciplines that had moulded them. But from where I sat at the beginning of my first parish appointment it seemed as if there had been an unwritten conspiracy to avoid bothering the congregation with anything that might cause them to think.

It was not that we lacked a zeal for education. The Sunday School movement had passed its peak but nobody told us and we poured enormous energy into trying to win the children. Very sophisticated curriculum materials, methods and programmes were devised to spread the word. But doing it with the children was a soft option—as many found out when they attempted to restore adult education to a place in the sun with the "family church school" movement of the 1960s. Virtually all the children left us before the age when they could be expected to know the meaning of myth and capture for themselves the essence of mature faith for living.

The upshot has been the development of a society with a Sunday School mentality about all things religious. And we have inherited a church that has become soft in its theology and lazy in its thinking, a church in which doctrine can be evaluated by democratic debate rather than careful scholarship and the so-called warmed heart can easily be given priority over the trained mind.

Wesley would not have had it so. The theological leadership of our church in past decades would not have had it so. We need to regain a sense of our theology and to work at this in the context of Aotearoa and to own it as people who are not ashamed of what they believe as well as in whom they believe.

The Tennis Court Church.

Scratch a Methodist Church carpark in NZ today and you will probably find a tennis court. It symbolised the social life of a church which recognised the role that fellowship could play in evangelism and mission as they were understood in the early 1950s.

In the suburban congregation where I grew up there were tennis, badminton, youth club, choir, men's and women's groups of several kinds and a continual diet of "church socials" which were got up for no particular agenda except to do something and perhaps raise a few pounds along the way. We sent competitive groups of all ages to the District Methodist Choir and Drama Festival. And in the local church we had fetes, garden parties, camps, missions, missionary evenings, deputations, debates, picnics, Girls and Boys' Brigades for all ages, school holiday programmes, and once, I kid you not, a Kinderspiel. Now that was a rare one. And that was a sign of success—being able to produce something that nobody else had done.

Nobody who was in the church in the 1950s can be unmoved by recollection of these events. They built fellowship among churched and unchurched. They cemented the relationship of many with each other and with the congregation. They built bridges into the wider community. And, without doubt, in the age before television and easy mobility they ministered to people's direct and personal needs for companionship and understanding.

The district gatherings were especially important for younger people. The Bible Class movement and its successor, the CYMM and the District Fellowships all made a significant impression on we who were in our teens. Here we first learned to dance—as long as the event was called a formal social and not a dance—and to carry out the rituals of courtship within some kind of protective umbrella of respectability provided by the church.

Nobody should disparage those practices as merely "social" activities. But they belong to another age. The world of Aotearoa has changed.

By contrast, what seems remarkable about the very diverse American Methodist church today is that in many places it has overtones of NZ Methodism of the fifties. In many a suburban church one can still find a plethora of social programmes designed to get people onto the church premises. And they come. It's as if there's no TV, no private cars, no community entertainment. It's as if the church is the only body that offers social life. Their churches press the old social buttons and many people still spring to them. It was an extraordinary experience to discover this kind of congregation and my comments on it created enough interest to be picked up and published by Alban Institute of Washington DC in Action Information in 1984.

In Methodism in Aotearoa we don't have that sort of success. Perhaps the cycling years and sheer boredom may take us back there again. Some congregations are certainly still trying to revive that style. But they are probably doomed to be no more than moderately successful. There is no golden key to the future down that particular road.

Our problem is not that we cannot return to that style of programme. We are in difficulty because we can't seem to find anything else that will work in our situation. Caught with our traditional strategies wanting we don't know what else to do. We have no "Plan B".

So our church advances into territory more perilous and more complex than ever before and we have lost the roadmap. We know—now—that a simplistic evangelicalism will take us only so far and will not satisfy most of the people for whom our denomination used to be a natural home. And we are learning—slowly—that preoccupation with social justice issues may stimulate the ecclesiastical adrenalin for fight or flight but does not build up the fellowship and consolidate the internal life of the congregation. But we have no new magic password to open the door to our new situation. Reinstating the tennis court will not do it for us.

The Social Justice Church

We are told that Methodism was born in song. In this country you could be forgiven if you thought it had been born in social justice issues. To a large degree it was; Wesley's insistence that conversion of soul meant conversion to the world resulted in social reform on a vast scale on the other side of the world. The vigorous breed of pioneer Methodists who arrived in this country were not slow to take up the cause. They had crossed the world to get away from personal oppression, religious persecution, and discouraging economic circumstances and were determined to carve out a better life for themselves. Their sensitivity to issues such as temperance, pacifism and the right to vote was finely tuned, but largely from a personal perspective. They were motivated to try to change what affected them personally.

It was comparatively easy to do this in a society that was struggling to be more egalitarian. It was a kind of social reform that paralleled the Tolpuddle martyrs rather than the less involved but no less concerned anti-slavery passion of an Earl of Shaftesbury.

The Church has always fostered social justice concerns but it has done it from a third viewpoint. It has been a distant, detached religious institution and has had less public credibility than in either of the other two situations.

Persons may campaign for their own rights, it seems, and altruistic people in positions of political power may take up issues on behalf of others. But when the "church" does it there arise questions of "mixing religion with politics" as though something immoral is taking place. In spite of this reserve about its actions the Methodist church has continued to be in the forefront of public utterance on issues of social importance.

The bicultural journey that was begun at the Conference of 1983 illustrates this kind of dilemma. It was formally adopted in typical fashion: nobody back home in the congregations had really heard of the proposal. Indeed representatives at Conference knew little of it until the actual recommendations were presented in Conference itself. People at the flaxroots were understandably puzzled when their representatives arrived back from Conference with the news that the Connexion was now on a bicultural journey.

Most denominations have some kind of legislation that prevents new measures from being taken through the national assembly without some means of sensing the temperature of the local people first. Such niceties, although provided for in Methodist Law if the rights of members are affected, do not usually trouble this church on issues of social conscience.

Decisions taken in this high-handed manner do not always commend themselves to the membership. In this case what is actually an issue of very great importance to church and society and has been a matter of Methodist social concern for decades has still not become widely accepted as a legitimate concern for every local congregation and every member.

At the Connexional level, however, it has become more than an issue of social concern. It is now a touchstone on which every Connexional decision must be tested. Its influence is pervasive and profound and it has already achieved a remarkable shift of power in the structural life of the church. There is potential for trouble there, of course, but by and large the care that is taken over bicultural sensitivity is commendable and maturing.

The interesting point for our purposes is that the N Z Conference could so readily adopt such a far-reaching measure with so little communication with its membership. One reason may be that concern for social issues is actually still very high in the national church.

In decades past when these issues were under discussion there was usually a moderating influence offering amendments to modify the force of the recommendation and give support to those who held opposing points of view. This not so apparent today. Indeed, on some issues it is entirely absent. It seems a little ironic that the current move towards a gentler style of decision-making and the gradual movement away from formal structuring of recommendations and their consideration have actually made it harder to arrive at decisions that satisfy most of the people.

So our church has been profoundly shaped by its position on social justice issues. Some people have certainly espoused the Methodist cause because they felt it knew where it stood. But others have found its uncompromising position uncomfortable and have felt less accepted and loved. It has become easy for them to move towards more conservative and evangelical churches where what they see to be the real issues of the Gospel are more enthusiastically celebrated. The losses from Methodism may have been quite substantial.

The Commitment Church

Methodism in Aotearoa has regarded itself as a church that is committed. It has an expectation that its people are serious in their dedication and involvement. That it has survived as well as it has in the climate of the last fifty years is perhaps a testimony to that commitment.

Certainly as the enthusiasm of its members has waned the Church has continued to call for more and greater commitment. New programmes are dreamed up by Connexional visionaries and approved by a sometimes bemused Conference. The decision then has come "down" to the local parish not so much as an invitation to a new commitment to mission but a demand to do something else because someone has decided it will be good for us all.

We've been very good at laying this sort of stuff on each other. Ministers and preachers are expected to "challenge" us to commitment. The leadership of the local church is expected to make their financial pledging in a way that "challenges" the rest of the congregation. There is sometimes quite a sharp edge to much of our communication.

But what a church fellowship needs, according to Kennon Callahan, is compassion and a sense of building up of the fellowship. In Auckland he shared with us that challenge and commitment are at the opposite ends of a spectrum he has identified. Too often the wrong elements have been the primary emphasis of our church.

Even our Education Division's "Building Community" programme of the 1970s was presented as a Connexional challenge, a project which needed considerable commitment of the time and energies of the participants. Certainly our commitment to social concerns has resulted in oft-repeated calls to our people to respond, to give, to pray, to work, to act and so on.

A church is not actually sustained on this kind of diet. We have learned that a church cannot live on a continual diet of calling sinners to repentance via the penitent rail. We have failed to pay attention to the possibility that much of the impact of the "Connexion" upon the local church is of exactly the same quality. It is repetitious, negative and discouraging. It fails to motivate people to move in the very directions it commends. It makes them feel they are failures. It breaks down morale. It threatens the very existence of the local fellowship and especially that of the very small congregation.

Such commitment does not build up congregations. There is a basic conflict between beating the members over the head with misunderstood Conference resolutions and offering them compassion and pastoring caring. A denomination that becomes provocative in resolutions demanding this, that or the other from the Government or its own people runs the risk of losing the support of its constituency. All too often the cry is, "They don't speak for me when they pass those resolutions in Conference".

Ministers and officials who tone down Conference statements and avoid preaching on divisive themes usually experience less stress in holding the pastoral life of the congregation together than those who take a more forthright stand. The sharp point of challenge is blunted and inaction results.

But then the instigators of the resolution go back to Conference and point out what it has already decided and often gain a further resolution of support. In this way the gulf between the Conference and the local church has often widened. Pastoral and fellowship links need to be rebuilt.

Ever firmer challenges and ever more imaginative calls to commitment will not do it.

The Middle Class Church

A fascinating glimpse into the "class" aspirations of Victorian Methodism in New Zealand was displayed in Pitt St Church in early 1990. It was a letter to the Editor of the Herald last century and it deplored what the writer saw to be the colonial practice of finding high-sounding names for everything and everyone in the new land. Among them "church" for "chapel" was specifically mentioned in relationship to Pitt St Church, "parsonage" was noted as being used for a minister's house and "clergy" was being used of Noncomformist ministers. The desire of members of colonial society to somehow raise themselves above class restrictions in the "old country" was clearly recognised.

Methodism has always been a smallish minority in this country. It has never sought much status nor coveted the approbation that society at large sometimes chooses to confer on its religious organisations. If anything, a kind of inverted snobbery would have made many Methodists scornful of such patronage.

However, the Wesleyans had undeniably gained some status by being active in the country from well before the first organised European settlement. The egalitarian pioneering society came to acknowledge their contribution to the life of the colony alongside that of Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Towards the end of last century Methodist ministers in smaller communities were normally accorded much the same privileges as their counterparts in the other major denominations. If this acceptance was not so marked in large towns and cities the Methodist minister or layperson would gain status by sheer personal charm, skills or leadership as much as simply being a Methodist.

In the early part of this century Methodism generally recognised itself as a "church" and emulated the lifestyle and structure of its neighbours. In Dunedin, for instance, the traditional circuit strategy of Methodism was almost entirely non-existent. The circuit of 1870 had covered thousands of square miles from the city to Central Otago but by the 1920s almost every congregation in town was a one-church circuit modelled on Presbyterian lines. When Dunedin came to do its major strategy exercise in 1977 this was the first reality with which it had to come to terms and the solution chosen was to bring them all together into one circuit.

This was not an isolated example of the way in which the traditional British Methodist pattern had been set aside in this country. True, there were great extended circuits with several congregations. As recently as the 1950s the Lower Hutt circuit planned two Local Preachers for every ordained minister Sunday by Sunday throughout the year. And Auckland East sprawled across a vast slice of the metropolitan area and included more than a dozen churches and several staff.

But the trend was setting in even in the 1950s and Lay Preachers in this country began to have difficulty finding a significant ministry. People who had been "Chapel" folks and comfortable enough with a local preacher in their homely little building now aspired to be "church" and to have a "proper" minister. The standards for ministerial training were being raised and, rather later, the standards for housing and stipends. Methodism, it seemed, was on the way up.

In Victorian times many Methodists had been relegated to the understanding expressed by the W S Gilbert character in The Gondoliers who became "...a Wesleyan Methodist of the most bigoted and persecuting kind". Methodist ministers were easily characterised by the preacher who was supposed to have been heard by Calvin C Coolidge. The latter's wife, unable to go to church on this occasion, quizzed her husband as to what the preacher had spoken about. "About sin", was the grudging reply. "Well," she persisted, "What did he say about it?" "He was against it"" That summed it all up.

Respected for their efforts in social and community service and especially with the children and young people, Methodists were popular with many but not generally taken seriously as part of the fabric of society. In the army they were usually lumped together with OPD's—"Other Protestant Denominations"—and in "civvy street" they were ubiquitous but not to be taken too seriously. They were zealous and honest but not likely to enjoy a really good time in company other than their own. Just recently a friend used the term "Lemonade Methodists" to describe to me the descendants of that style of Methodism.

At least they knew where they stood in those times. But today's Methodists have the greatest difficulty in even defining themselves. Many buildings obviously aspire to the model of the "parish church" or even the "town square church" but some of their members are actually "backblocks church" in their theology and polity. The clash is often evident. There was a time when stationing used to make appointments that seemed deliberately designed to inhibit if not prevent altogether the development of a particular style for any church or congregation. (Hey, That's our Church by Lyle Schaller offers fascinating descriptions of the "characters " shown by different congregations). By the 1990s the Methodist Stationing Committee was making more effort to match clergy and congregations with similar aspirations. Yet in many congregations there persevered a profound sense of uncertainty as to their local theology and objectives. And in 2015 the sheer shortage of trained, ordained people available for congregations provide very little opportunity for careful and imaginative matching.

In 1991 I stated that most members seemed to be less comfortable to live with ambiguity on those basic issues and practices that defined their congregation. They seemed to be less loyal to the denomination than they had been. They seemed to want to know where their own congregation and the church stood on issues and style of fellowship. But, as I suggested at the time, the answers had become less readily forthcoming and the confusion was making the crisis of commitment that much worse. As people's reasons for belonging to a particular church or congregation diminished other options began to appear that much more attractive. Many, I claimed, were already voting with their feet.

That trend has continued. The dramatic erosion of membership and participation among mainline church people has not slowed. Coupled with the ageing of these particular communities, it's all most of them can do to hang together. In today's context, it is too risky to explore any differences. "Diversity" is prized above all else in small congregations that, in fact, are becoming increasingly bland. Questions about belief and conviction are not allowed to be explored lest there be further defections. The boat must not be rocked.

The Clericalised Church

Another significant characteristic of Methodism in Aotearoa is that we have given enormous power and status to our clergy.

This might have come about as an inevitable by-product of raising the standard of education of our ordained ministry. Our aspirations in this regard have been as high as those of any other similar denomination and we have achieved much. But a maturing approach to the best possible preparation of our candidates for ordination has been paralleled by increasing expectations as to their performance. Are they not the ones who are properly trained? Should they not then do the work? Is not any involvement by an unordained person just a substitute for the real thing? These questions are hard to counter when the challenged is actually on the payroll of the challengers. It is easier for the presbyter to do what is expected—or give up and resign—than to attempt to come to some understanding over respective roles and expectations.

It is possible that many clergy actually like being expected to do most of the work and have real personal problems themselves in giving up what they see to be "their" work. Acknowledging that they are well trained and equipped to do certain things they find it easy to accept responsibility for much more than is needful. The problem may be just a matter of definition, of knowing exactly what is (and is not) the role of the stipendiary presbyter. To this we will return.

The Ecumenical Church

Methodism in this country united early.

In Christianity in N Z, Davidson and Lineham suggest that "the transplanted divisions amongst Presbyterians and Methodists were healed more quickly (here) than in Britain". Certainly 1913 was an early date for the final union of the branches of Methodism that took root in this country.

But there was a powerful movement towards a much wider union even before this. As early as 1903 the NZ Wesleyan Conference received an overture from the Presbyterian Assembly and agreed to invite constituents of both denominations to consider union. The proposal was defeated at the local level, but the will was there and the ecumenical vision remained in Methodism and grew.

From 1939 the Methodist commitment to wider union was firm and in the vote in 1957 well over 90% of our members were in favour of union with Presbyterians, Congregationalists and the Churches of Christ. The first Union Parishes had been formed in the decade previous to that and the failure of the denominations to consummate a union at that time was the first of many rebuffs that such parishes were to experience over the next four decades.

Throughout these protracted negotiations Methodists provided more than their share of energy and leadership. By the mid 1960s, when the Anglican Church joined the negotiations as a full partner, the Conference was prepared to go even further than the "Lund" principle—to do nothing independently that could not possibly be done ecumenically: it was prepared to do nothing at all that might be seen to be in the least anti-ecumenical. A massive commitment was made to Union and Co-operating Parishes and the development of constitutions and procedures to establish and govern them.

There were a couple of problems with all this. When we moved into co-operative enterprises we were not thinking in the long term. But hindsight now demonstrates to us that the minority partner in any co-operative enterprise tends to become more of a minority with the passage of time. One of the first union parishes was constituted on a membership ratio of one Methodist to three Presbyterians and a parish council ratio of approximately one to one. After 22 years the membership ratio had moved to 1:9 and the parish council ratio was 1:16. Certainly, the exigencies of stationing had resulted in only one Methodist appointment for most of the period but it was always a forlorn hope that Methodists could match Presbyterians appointment for appointment when their constituency ratios were so unbalanced. The co-operative causes begun in the 1950s and 1960s were not equipped for the unexpectedly long haul.

The other problem for Methodism's ongoing work was that consideration of any new initiative was always countered by the feeling that we shouldn't do anything until our negotiating partners were prepared to come along with us. A policy of "wait and see" killed many a creative proposition that came to the Conference. Many good dreams were sacrificed to the vision of a united church as the ecumenical commitment of two generations seemed so close to fulfillment. It seemed wrong to start anything new without our partners' participation. Consequently much development within Methodism was held back throughout the 1960s and early 1970s because of her commitment to ecumenism. One example was our withdrawal from World Methodist links and programmes in favour of local ecumenism.

The Small Church

In the decades of World War II and after, the drift to the larger centres of population began to accelerate. Small country churches had been the backbone of colonial Methodism, and these were being closed as their members moved to town. Movements of population within the cities also caused drastic re-arrangement of circuit and church priorities.

As inner suburban congregations experienced difficulties with numbers and budgets and the population moved out with the growing cities the official strategy was to merge adjacent causes to provide "viable" units. If burgeoning housing areas required massive financial assistance to develop properties and establish stipendiary ministry it made more sense to do this in conjunction with our partners than by ourselves. We simply did not have all the resources.

Thus it was that some 100 union and co-operating causes were established within a period of a few short years to the end of the 1960s. But there was also vast re-arrangement of circuit boundaries and churches within the circuits. Most of the changed circuits were quite successful at doing what they set out to do. And only two or three of the union and co-operating parishes have decided to re-divide their membership and resources and resume denominational identity; that is a noteworthy record.

There is, however, another side to all this movement and adjustment. Every re-arrangement of a congregation creates some casualties, perhaps as many as one in three active members or adherents being completely lost to any Christian community. In Diakonia and the Moa I suggested that when any congregation decides to merge with another only one third of the members do what is expected. Another third go to the nearest church of another denomination and the final third end up going nowhere. Methodism may have closed or drastically re-located as many as 150 small congregations during the last thirty years. If even one-quarter of the membership of these congregations was lost to any church fellowship that was a very high price to pay.

The issue is not one of members but congregations. One Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas actually boasts more members than the entire Methodist Church of New Zealand but that does not give any possible basis for comparison of the two organisations. The number and distribution of communities of the committed is a better index of denominational strength and it is in this specific area that NZ Methodism has become vulnerable.

On the one hand the outright number of Methodist causes has become markedly reduced in the last thirty years. And on the other, the compensating presence of union and co-operating parishes does not provide an appropriate measure of Methodist strength. About half of our membership is now in such parishes. But their commitment to the denomination is, naturally enough, much less firm than it was and the Methodist Church is the loser.

Conclusion

This lengthy but very sketchy summary is designed to illustrate the very distinctive nature of The Methodist Church of New Zealand. Our Church is not like other denominations within Aotearoa and it is even more unlike most of its Methodist counterparts in other countries.

This distinctiveness is both strength and weakness. In recent years it has resulted in a church that has become lost and unsure of itself and subject to the buffeting of every wind that blows. Not all are of the Spirit.

But the unique qualities of Methodism are what give it more flexibility, more vision, more willingness to try something new than many other denominations. Uniquely, also, it already has within its present regulations the structures of mission and ministry that could enable it to find some new ways into the future.

# 2

# The Contemporary Church

It is a bold writer who attempts to describe the sesquicentennial Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa in a paragraph or two. However, we need to try.

We will commence with Bodycomb's analysis. His work is carefully based in a disciplined science, lit up with theological insights, and penetrating in its description of the Australian scene. It was not written for Aotearoa but this New Zealander finds it rings some bells.

Bodycomb considers that congregations in his country are functioning out of what he calls scenarios. Let's look at them.

Gericon

The Gericon scenario has been with us for years. It is the "geriatric, contracting" church. Methodism's frustrating failure of recent years has shown itself especially in the dearth of members in the younger years. Inevitably the face of our congregations has aged. The flower of our strength of the 1950s is, in fact, still with us—but they are now 40 years older!

It is not necessarily appropriate to describe them as "geriatric", a term that is quite specific in its proper place. But it is true that the face of the average congregation is ageing and that most of our members are beyond middle age.

Sadly, these people often seem to be made to feel responsible for this stage of affairs. Some who upbraid the church for her "failure" address most of their criticism to those who have actually "kept the faith" and borne the heat and burden of the day. It's not necessarily appropriate to blame those who have stayed in the church both for those who have left and those who have never joined. There may be other explanations for the phenomenon that what they are willing to continue to do does not now attract others.

But the reality must be accepted. Members of most of our congregations are becoming increasingly mature in years and our overall numbers are declining. A caretaker ministry of another decade or two may see many of our congregations still with us. But it seems likely that they will not refresh themselves with younger members but will continue to attract only people who "fit" their particular style and image. Some of them are clearly terminal and will probably die within a decade or two.

Tenestas

Congregations who have a tenacious grip on the status quo are also alive and well—if that is the right metaphor—in this country. They have lost a rational belief in their own existence as part of the Body of Christ and the fellowship of the people called Methodists and have retained only a mindless commitment to the local setting and, usually, the local buildings. In respect of their belief that the buildings they have offer the only setting in which they can possibly worship Colin Williams once called them Morphological Fundamentalists; in respect of their commitment to their present styles of congregational life I once described them as Ecclesiological Fundamentalists.

The labels are unkind. But they are both part of the scenario of the future that means holding onto whatever you have got at all costs because there isn't any other possibility that works. Tenestas congregations believe they have the right medicine and in the face of all the evidence that it is actually killing the patient they continue to administer it. But they are the patient and the disease is terminal.

A difficulty with this scenario is that it is a temptation to confuse good and evil. Tenestas, as simply hoping that all will be well, is easily confused with Christian faith and hope. It can be like trusting God and then holding onto that trust at all costs and refusing to consider any other possibilities but the one sure foundation in which one is grounded. There is a perilously fine margin between continuing a congregation because it serves a legitimate need of an ageing community and refusing to change the style of worship and church life in a congregation which consists of aged people who do not, in fact, reflect the age groups and interests of the community in which they live.

This latter is the Tenestas congregation at its worst. It has closed its mind to the needs and the possibilities and hardened its heart and may have little place in any significant recovery of mission and ministry to a needy world.

What is wrong with the Tenestas congregation is not that it is dying but that it continues to act as if it were not when all the evidence is that a new scenario might get some kind of results. It is the avoiding of opportunities to make meaningful change that characterises these communities. This is a sad and desperate scenario because it is capable of change. All too many of our congregations have the potential to move but do not do so. There are still new areas of housing redevelopment, growing suburbs, new interest in a style of religion that invites the discipline of thought rather than unthinking obedience to a certain kind of "simple faith". All these factors will, in the 1990s, produce new growth opportunities for many local churches with a "Methodist" style. But a Tenestas scenario will not be able to respond to these opportunities.

Imaginex

Bodycomb's third scenario is of a church which has put all its resources into one imaginative but expensive final fling. It's aimed for the Big Solution. Overseas the electronic church is a typical example. In this country we have one or two dramatic models of vast investment in both institutional churches and communications programmes. Radio Rhema and Christian Broadcasting Association are current examples from the world of radio communications. The excellent giveaway magazine Grapevine is another Imaginex scenario as is the 1990 Rise Up programme

These solutions typically style themselves as non-denominational. The sheer cost of the Imaginex model is usually beyond one mainline denomination and certainly one as small as Methodism. But we still sometimes cherish ambitions of this kind. The New Zealand Methodist newspaper of 1966 was "sold" to the church on just such a scenario and a substantial sum was taken by the Conference from the surpluses in the Fire Insurance Fund to get it started. Its failure to become self-supporting and to win total support within the church itself should not detract from a really imaginative strategy.

This kind of scenario always needs money. Ironically enough the Methodist Church now has the ability to fund a very large Imaginex scenario but it probably lacks the decision-making ability to decide to do it. And even if a firm project obtains the whole hearted support of the denomination and attracts suitable funding there is no reason to believe that it will necessarily get results.

A prior question is the Gospel one: is the Big Solution actually the way that the Man of Nazareth would have us move? Does this scenario bring credit upon the church or might it invite enough criticism to outweigh the conceivable benefits?

Another Scenario?

In respect of "Bodycomb's work I wrote in 1990: We have to add a fourth scenario to do justice to Aotearoa. In this country we have some congregations that are holding their ground reasonably well or even very well. The picture is not one of unadulterated gloom. Some large congregations are maintaining a significant community and successfully exploit the strengths of larger churches. And experience with some small churches reminds us that there is nothing quite as spirited as the congregation that will not be put down no matter how many "consultations" are called by outsiders who plan for it a sort of ecclesiastical euthanasia.

At the suggestion of Graham Brazendale we will designate a new scenario: Tradevange. It describes the congregations which are continuing to be reasonably successful in a fairly traditional evangelical style. They can take several forms.

St Wesley's in the Suburbs

Some Tradevange congregations are large and well established and are able to do very well in the 1980s what used to work well in the 1960s. They have good plant, outstanding people resources, usually very vigorous and enthusiastic ministers, and a supportive community which still includes balanced numbers of children, youth and adults of all ages. They have been able to retain the interest and commitment of many. They may have to make an effort to see that "younger minds" are included in their decision-making bodies. And they may have some momentary regret that most of the youth prefer the rather laid-back evening service to Sunday morning's formality. But they can nevertheless be encouraged that they even have the opportunity to be concerned over such issues.

The point about these congregations is that they are continuing to meet a need and doing it in a way that is appropriate for their communities. Some plan realistically and act with vigour and the evidence seems to be that they are doing the right thing for their situation and it would be crazy to attempt anything else. Of course, at any time they can fall into the Tenestas condition but they have not done so up to now.

Aldersgate Fellowship

Although a number of congregations split from NZ Methodist over social issues and interpretation of scripture, there are still some congregations whose commitment to a conservative model of Christian behaviour characterises their shape and life. Most of the congregations who align themselves with Methodist Affirm, for instance, are comfortable with their style of Christian life and witness. They have no desire to change it, certainly not in the direction of something more traditionally Methodist.

And who would say that they should? With them also the rule must be "If it works for you—run with it." Their people are "at home" in the congregational lifestyle of their choice. They understand the routines, the rituals and the language and choose to remain where they are because they believe it is right for them.

" **Ekalesia Pasifika"**

Another typically New Zealand congregational style was not available to Bodycomb in Australia. It is found especially in Auckland where there are more Methodist Tongans or Samoans at worship on any Sunday morning than Methodists of other races.

To this largest centre of Polynesian population in the world they have brought the religious and church style of their Pacific homelands. They have brought it fresh and unadulterated, virtually in the form in which it developed as a result of the influence of the Victorian missionaries from Australia, England and New Zealand.

It remains to be seen how this congregational style will enable its people to relate to the complex world of life in suburban Auckland as time passes. But its remarkable strength in terms of numbers cannot be ignored. Many of the leaders of these churches are aware of what will come to be critical issues—their ministry students used to write incessantly of the problems of bridging the cultural gaps. For the moment, however, it is plain that what sustains them in their everyday life in this country is the same as at home in the islands of the Pacific: disciplined traditional church-going as the basis of all life.

This style of life may break down among them as it has among papalagi (European) Methodists but nobody ought to even predict such a happening lest it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as this style of church life works for them it should be encouraged. If this means that papalagi suffer some disparaging comments about their kind of Christian lifestyle that might be the least sacrifice that will be called out of them in the face of the reproach of this Methodist success story.

Institutional Future

Since this book was first issued the institutional decline has become as marked as that of congregations. Dr Keith Suter has in 2014 circulated a fascinating dissertation on the future of the Uniting Church in Australia. He proposes four scenarios for the future of a denomination and congregations that are not much different from those in New Zealand. This is his summary of the future possibilities for the Uniting Church:

> 1. —"Word and Deed" This Uniting Church is composed of a small number of large parishes, each of which provides both Christian worship services and an array of community services. Each parish contains specific congregations to cater for the needs of the members. Each parish makes maximum use of its plant and equipment in multi-purpose buildings.

> **2.—"Secular Welfare":**

> **3.—"Return to the Early Church":**

> **4.—"Recessional":**

NZ Methodist has for many decades been practising the first of these scenarios; it has combined and recombined congregations again and again. But the sum total of involvement of members after every re-arrangement has tended to be less than before. It is certainly not an option for the small congregations being considered in this volume. The second scenario—a church without parishes or congregations—is similarly trending away from the directions taken here. The fourth is a commendable facing up to a recognised reality that institutional Christianity's days may well be numbered.

However, it is the third scenario that is of particular interest. Recently Suter was kind enough to comment that he wished he had seen the original edition of this book when he was drafting his thesis. We both recognise the similarity of ideas in his Return to the Early Church and the Ecclesion strategy. The light structure and strategy suggested in this combination of insights may have some real possibilities for the future. Such congregations could cater for the instinctive need that many people have for exploring and exercising their spirituality in some kind of community without all the encumbrances of a major ecclesiastical organisation.

Ekalesia Pasifika remains a completely unknown quanity. It is rapidly becoming the major element in the entire Methodist Church of New Zealand and will no doubt be able to sustain the national institutional for some time. But for the small congregations of mainstream Papalagi some new strategy has to be found.

Summary

The Bodycomb scenarios are not optimistic about the church's capacity to respond to a challenging future. Gericon is, literally, a dead end. Sooner or later this scenario will extinguish both itself and the churches that espouse it. Tenestas has failed to react appropriately to present realities and has no capacity to react to a changing future. Imaginex demands resources which we do not wish to commit in that particular way.

Maintenance of structures dedicated to these strategies distract the institutional church from seeing a wider vision and making broader plans. Increasingly Methodism seems to find its ability to identify the really important issues obscured by the urgent demands of the present situation. Too often the church's capacity to make wide-ranging decisions is diminished by the host of minor housekeeping details of a declining organisation. And if the denomination is tempted to have Imaginex dreams, economic as well as Gospel realities will soon cut them down to size.

At the parish level, just distinguishing between a legitimate Tradevange congregation and a terminal Tenestas congregation becomes a bigger issue than some people even want to explore. Many a congregation has not carried out a perceptive analysis of its style and character for decades. The demands of meeting the needs just to keep the show on the road militate against trying to discern where the journey is supposed to lead.

We try to apply the old strategies but it is hard to do this with confidence when we see the traditional structures crumbling all around us. We offer a modest amount of financial assistance to a new cause for a building or the annual salary of a presbyter but there is not a lot of encouraging evidence that the cost-benefit ratio for either actually justifies the investment. We continue to encourage smaller parishes to share stipendiary presbyters but we do not actually have the evidence that the ministry so offered necessarily builds up the church.

The old strategies have failed or are failing and we are losing. But we have no new moves to bring onto the board. We don't even know the rules of the game.

# 3

# The Ecclesion Congregation

The foregoing scenarios are bad news for Heather and George and St Mary's Church.

They lack the comfort of size and anonymity of a group of a few dozen or a hundred or more. They often lack specific necessary resources of leadership so that their dependence upon paid clergy is actually greater than is that of some of the larger congregations. They certainly do not have the resources to go for the Big Solution.

Experiencing only the negative side of trying to cling to past traditions or the status quo it is the smaller congregations who are particularly vulnerable to being overwhelmed by this kind of diagnosis. If the national church is seen to be lacking confidence, how can the local people be expected to look to the future with confidence. If things are so bad, they may reason, why not just turn your face to the wall and die without fuss?

We need to find some strategies that will enable small churches to feel less apologetic about what the scenarios may suggest are their failures. What they discern as weakness may well turn out to be their strength. Small churches are, by definition, more able to act in specific ways that may provide us with the outline of a new scenario.

We need one. The rather pessimistic scenarios offered by Bodycomb may be an accurate analysis of our situation but they cannot be a prescription for a cure. No matter how honest and factual is the diagnosis it describes the symptoms rather than the disease. And even if the disease that is striking the church is terminal that is not the end of the Christian faith. Many believe that the day of the institutional church as we know it is over and that even the Tradevange kinds of congregations simply haven't heard about it yet. Whether this is true or not, it is of the nature of the Gospel that we are never left without hope. And the Christian tradition is quite explicit that it is in dying that we are born again. Perhaps there is no other way. Hope is vital.

It is not enough, however, just to hope. The Christian call is not merely to hope that the worst will not happen but to take steps that will help to bring about the best that can be achieved from the situation. We need to find a coherent strategy for the local congregation, not in merely staying alive a little longer but in growing and reaching out. The church has found itself on the back foot too long. It now needs to have some confidence in taking some new steps into the future.

If the denomination takes the membership statistics seriously—and it is actually arguable whether they have any significant "Gospel" meaning—it should not be enough merely to arrest the downhill slide. It should seek for a way of reversing the trend. Numbers of members who will stand up to be counted in each local church do mean something. If their gradual decrease over the last 30 years may not be all that discouraging the fresh engagement of every new member in any congregation should be a cause for rejoicing and satisfaction. We need to learn both to be less terrorised by the losses and much more intentional about our strategy to make the gains.

It will be the main function of this work, therefore, to try to offer some concrete strategies that might enable local churches—particularly small ones—to move ahead with more confidence. The thesis will be that we will not find our way out of the present situation without becoming very deliberate in identifying objectives, planning how to achieve them and then going out and doing it.

This will call for new policies. It will invite new effort from the people in every local church who can see something of the possibilities. It will demand specific and sacrificial commitment in a number of ways. But it will seek to be practicable at every level. It will be a formula that is essentially related to the modest style of the small church.

Where failure has been the flavour of the month this programme will offer the possibility of some success. Where the lack of large financial resources has seemed a hindrance this concept will offer a real chance for every local congregation to become intentional about its life. At the end of an age of rigid structures and predictable gatherings and in the midst of a time of uncertainty and indecisiveness we are going to explore some new ways for the small congregation.

The name I have coined for the new concept of the local congregation is Ecclesion. The word comes from the New Testament word for the local church—ecclesia—and the word vision.

Ecclesion describes a small vital congregation which has got caught up in a radical new vision of its mission and ministry. Let's now look at these two elements of this very special congregation:

A small congregation ....

In almost every situation the early church was a very small group of people. They gathered on the first day of the week to worship God, to share their faith and to freshen their commitment together as they prepared for their mission in the workaday world. The size of these groups is very important for our understanding of this scenario.

In many cases they were probably smaller than we would recognise as being a congregation. They were more like the size of the old-time Methodist class-meeting which was one of the keys to the success of the early Methodist movement, primarily because of its small size. It was recovering, in a way, one of the strengths of the "primitive" church of New Testament times. Neither the early church nor the early Methodist class-meeting had much need to form a committee to do business or to meet special needs.

Modern understanding of what constitutes an appropriate size for Christians to gather for worship and nurture has moved a long way from these models. But it would be ill-advised as well as entirely impracticable simply to reduce all our congregations to units of 35.

In 1990, I stressed that the church must offer much more encouragement to our existing small congregations. Nothing much has changed. Most are often imbued with a sense of failure because they are not big enough to afford a stipendiary presbyter. In 2014 the absurd requirements for earthquake-proofing church buildings have already caused the complete annihilation of local congregations. The opportunity is being lost to remind them that they are closer to the early church model than the affluent suburban neighbour which seems to have so much more going for it.

In the mid-1970s the Development Division, with commendable insight into the need and a clear view into the future, produced an excellent leaflet describing the strengths of the small congregations. There was even a list of possible ministerial appointment strategies to relate to them effectively but the recipe wasn't picked up very seriously in most districts.

For the purposes of this book our definition of the small church is a gathering of no more than 40 people. It has been shown that when a group extends beyond this number different congregational dynamics come into play. There is little chance of all members making effective one-to-one interactions with most of the membership. The larger church has to divide into "cells" of interest-groups within its membership to give them an intimate primary loyalty.

The small church does not have to do this. Everyone is a part of the single-cell organisation up to about 40 or so. Such a congregation may be as few as ten people. Indeed, the strategy proposed here could help many groups of that size to identify themselves as congregations rather than "Oh, we're just a group of people who meet...."

Why shouldn't a house church group that meets regularly in a remote area be called a "church"? Why shouldn't a small Sunday evening congregation that worships faithfully in a different stream from those who meet in the morning not be dignified with the title "church"? Why shouldn't Heather and George gather up a few like-minded friends and constitute a new congregation at a different time and place if they continue to feel frustrated with the existing one?

A local fellowship

The early church congregation was usually a local group. There were not many large central models of the kind of church community that we have been familiar with over the last few hundred years. The gatherings of the early church consisted of people who were familiar with each other's households, who traded with each other in the marketplaces, and who became familiar with each other's stories. Indeed, some of the criticisms made of them in the epistles were that they enjoyed being together altogether too much and tended to forget the purposes which called them out of the "world".

Such a sense of belonging is part and parcel of the small church. The identity of the members as a community is an absolutely vital part of their being together. Usually, members of a small church forge good links with the community in which they are placed and are deeply conscious of the life and death issues around them. Events in either setting can sometimes have an immediate effect upon the other; certainly what happens in the community has invariable implications for the worshipping community.

Part of a Wider Whole

The New Testament ecclesia was not entirely on its own. It had a sense of responsibility to other such congregations so it sent gifts and support. It felt distinct links of responsibility to both "parent" churches such as Jerusalem and also to "daughter" churches that had grown up in missionary areas further away. The sense of being part of a wider fellowship is vital to any Christian congregation.

Nevertheless, many small churches do not have that sense of belonging within a wider church fellowship. The emphasis—especially in these ecumenical days—is often on the local church at the expense of the wider church family. "congregationism" does not sit well with connexionalism and people usually decide which kind of polity or government they are happy with and belong to a kind of congregation that expresses their choice.

Methodists began in the "societies" but were firmly "connected" with Wesley's wider purposes for the movement. They had to abide by quite rigid rules to maintain their place within Methodism. To give priority to the local over the connexional was unthinkable.

While an absolute yielding of all local initiative to the wider church has not become a rampant disease among NZ Methodism it is nevertheless true that many small churches have lost confidence in themselves at both levels. They do not see themselves as able to "pull their weight" in the total scene. They also picture themselves as not being able to "support their own minister" or "meet the budget". They apologise for not having the proper committee structure or appointees to perform this or that function: "We just don't seem to be able to run a Sunday School for the children, of course." Sometimes even while they are dependent on "grants-in-aid" in order to survive they remain resentful of the benefactor when she looks to them for some loyalty.

Yet one of the reasons that some small congregations stay together is that they know they are part of a wider church community. Some members have come from other places where they have enjoyed experiences they cherish. Keeping faith with the present little group is part of their commitment to that memory.

It is well known that a disproportionately large number of our candidates for the Connexion's ordained ministry have come from some of our smallest congregations. The locals remember the details well forty years later. Two of our national stewardship directors came from one small congregation in rural Northland, now sadly closed. Congregations of this kind had a powerful sense of contributing to the winder church. Their smallness added to their sense of importance rather than detracting from it.

We need more small congregations who have that kind of feeling about themselves. They will only strengthen the whole church.

With a Vision

What makes a small church into an Ecclesion congregation is that they have caught a vision of a different kind of church. They can see some of the benefits in their smallness and they no longer seek to become big. Nor do they fall into the trap of pretending that they are really not that small at all: "Oh, well, when everybody comes we actually have quite a crowd here..."

Some of our boldest initiatives in new styles of church life and worship have come from groups which were so small that the traditional form of worship was simply no longer practical. Even then some did not ask the question "With whom shall we now amalgamate because we can no longer struggle through the Sunday morning four-hymn sandwich?" They looked for an alternative.

Such congregations have a dream that seems impossible and wild-eyed. They have an irrational air about them when asked to explain themselves and their ambitions. When all the ecclesiastical advisors are telling them that it's now time to close the doors they are sitting firmly in position and refusing to budge because they can see some better possibilities. They want to be able to follow the vision.

There are few of them because there is a shortage of visionaries in the land. Part of the purpose of this little book is to encourage some congregations to keep looking and hoping and praying for a vision that will be as a breath of fresh air in their situation. Many of them are familiar with the symptoms. Some know of the disease. All too few can actually lift their eyes beyond the immediate situation to see the bright cloud on the horizon. If this book can encourage some just to do that it will have achieved much of the hope of the writer.

And what is being offered is not some new or dramatically unorthodox vision. It is simply a return to an old, old vision for communities of God's people acting out of the eternal grace, telling the stories of faith, and finding strength together for the daily road. The vision is rooted in biblical models of such people through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. It is found in every part of history where the church has been a power for good among its people and in the world. It is based on theological affirmations about personal spirituality and the community of faith, affirmations that transcend the issues of whether the building is "proper" or the "budget will be met."

The Ecclesion scenario is of a group of people who are committed to God and to each other and are determined to work out that commitment in ecclesial fellowship and to allow it to affect their daily life and work.

Start Where You Are

Any congregation can decide to follow the Ecclesion model. The strategy may demand some shift of theology and practice as a necessary first step. This is at once too easy and too hard. Certainly some Ecclesion congregations will actually be born out of radical change forced upon them or willingly undertaken after proper consideration and planning. And it is true that elsewhere I have offered the rule that a re-born congregation can arise only out of a quite radical shift equivalent to death of its former self. But the luxury of being able to make a completely new start with, say, new buildings and new leadership at every level is not given to many congregations who are reaching forward for the vision. It is appropriate that they start where they are.

An ongoing church community of any kind will be an easier starting point than a vacuum. If it has any kind of health and validity it will remain and should not be cajoled into making changes for change's sake. Of course it can settle into a Tenestas mode and become rigid and obstructive about any kind of change. This would be a loss and would cause its members to lose the vision; Ecclesion and Tenestas have little in common with each other. And a congregation with a terminal case of Gericon and no viable prospects for change or development may have a very real agenda for continuing as it is. It should not make changes that would frustrate or distress those for whom it may be doing a perfectly good job under its existing scenario. It does not need to apologise for itself but should continue to do what it does well even if it leads to eventual death of the congregation.

For many congregations that have been in Tenestas or Gericon conditions there is, however, the opportunity of moving into the Ecclesion vision. They may start where they are but they do not need to remain where they are. Ecclesion is a recipe for moving on in quite dramatically different ways and if the ingredients are to hand any congregation can attempt to bake the cake.

New Forms

But the Ecclesion scenario offers the greatest opportunities for those congregations who have actually reached the end of their present life and who are wishing to make quite radical change.

It happened for the Trinity Congregation in Dunedin when within the space of 30 days they had the opportunity to vacate their costly bluestone central city church. They had already done their homework and had moved some distance down the road of intellectual commitment to depending less on their property. They were aware that there were possibilities for a different style of church life if they stopped making a bad job of playing "Central City Church" and began to experiment with another game the name of which they did not even yet know. When they made the decision to lease the building and found new life in a former Radio New Zealand News Room the Good News Room was born and a totally different kind of church life followed. It has been fully documented in The Trinity Fortune Affair which would be of interest to many people interested in the Ecclesion scenario.

The Maori Response

A different kind of new life has been emerging in the Maori work of Methodism in Aotearoa. The traditional structures of circuit and congregation and particularly the use of ordained ministry were of little relevance to Maori life by the late 1960s.

A new model of congregational life was planned around structures that already existed within Maoritanga. The public rituals that so eloquently define Maori life—tangi, hui and others—are inseparably involved with the rituals of Christianity. As we have many times observed on the television news, gatherings and meetings of all kinds normally include karakia—prayers—and these observances are a natural part of every meeting or event. A vital role for their church and its ministry is to be a an integral part of daily life, not to set up a parallel kind of spirituality celebrated primarily on special days and in special places. Rua Rakena's Maori Response to the Gospel is the classic work in this area, of course. It should be read by every Methodist.

And the people to lead this are those who already are identified as having mana (respect, authority) on the marae, those in whom the community already has confidence. As Minita-a-iwi—ministers from among the people—they are not comprehensively trained in the pakeha model, nor are they ordained. But some of these carefully selected kaumatua, elders, are recommended to Conference for authority to administer the sacraments. They function in many ways as do ordained ministers in the pakeha church without the benefit—and cost—of theological education and standard stipends and housing and so on.

This bold approach, unconventional by pakeha standards, has elements of the Ecclesion style about it. If some other congregations in Methodism were to be so completely radical in reviewing their existing life and ministry there would be some exciting benefits to be gained.

Radical Discontent

A necessary requirement for commencing an Ecclesion congregation is a fair measure of frustration. If people in dwindling, small congregations are satisfied with things as they are then they are in the Tenestas or Gericon modes and there will be no change. But if they experience such a measure of discontent that they resolve to act radically upon it they can move towards the Ecclesion position.

Instead of considering feelings of frustration and failure as demoralising, we need to help people see how these feelings, if worked upon, can become a catalyst for change. Members who are hard-bitten in their pessimism can be very difficult to persuade to another point of view when it is tackled head on. But when their bitterness and hurt is heard and felt and then explored the pain may be the crucible out of which new concepts may be moulded. Sometimes all that is needed is for their distress to be properly acknowledged and accepted.

New models of church life will be born only out of some heat and pressure. The congregations which have found themselves under the greatest pressures in recent years may be the ones who will respond most dramatically to the Ecclesion invitation.

Small is Good

Methodism in Aotearoa has made a cottage industry out of closing small congregations. Any group of under 20 attenders at worship is likely to have found its existence being questioned—either by others or by its own members. The easy solutions of combining with the nearest Methodist congregation or uniting with any nearby member of the Negotiating Churches have been par for the course.

Now we are coming to recognise that churches of as small as 15 or 20 members actually have a great deal going for them. The overseas literature testifies that 60—80% of Protestant members are actually in modest sized churches. Of course the American idea of a top figure for a small church may vary from 50—120 so they are not talking of the small church as we are defining it here. From an international perspective we might more usefully define our "small church" of 15—35 members as a Macro Church. The principles of "smallness" in our kind of small church are more marked and more important. We need to define them in relation to strengths that Americans see in our compact congregations of only 80 or 100 people.

A case can certainly be made. The congregation of 15—35 enjoys all kinds of special advantages that are not available to the 50 to 70 strong community. As suggested earlier, these relate primarily to being oneself and knowing one's partners in the congregation. This kind of congregation hardly ever needs to use name tags, those self-conscious gimmicks of the larger "We're really friendly here, folks" community. It is usually a "single-cell" community.

We need to acknowledge here that many of the features of the Ecclesion congregation can be found in larger bodies. In the USA there are some very lively fellowships that every Sunday engage in highly effective worship and education involving numbers as high as 200. Personal experience in St Mark's Episcopal Church in Washington DC and other places leaves me in no doubt about this. But my concern for the NZ scene is our failure to identify and exploit the strengths of our very small congregations. The case being made here is that they are not only to be tolerated—they have enormous advantages and should be deliberately fostered. They could become the major growth point for the denomination over the next few decades.

Involvement

This congregation will enjoy a high degree of involvement of its membership in most of its activities. Most people will be prepared to offer active leadership in worship, in administration, in the basic tasks that are required to maintain both the intangible community and the physical plant.

Those who do not take up-front roles of active leadership will nevertheless be marked by their enthusiastic support of the congregation's life and work. In the Good News Room an attendance register was kept and it was found that in the new situation the same members attended twice as often as they had come to Old Trinity. If they had been fortnightly in the old church they now came weekly to the new community; if they had been monthly attenders before they now attended fortnightly. The new congregation called out more loyalty and commitment than members had previously been prepared to give. Similarly the total financial commitment of about 30 members in the new setting equalled that of 130 members in the former situation. And this dramatic increase occurred in the context of the fact that the congregation now only paid for a few hours a week of the ordained ministers' time.

Closer fellowship

If the Ecclesion congregation is already established in a small meeting space it will almost certainly enjoy a high level of personal fellowship. People will be likely to know one another and to identify visitors easily without having ask that most awful of all questions "Are you a visitor?". Nobody who is on the welcoming team should have to ask that question—they should know the answer. And no member can possibly be helped to feel to belong who is still being asked it after several months, never mind several years as happened to my sister in a large central church that she attended regularly.

Similarly, a congregation that decides to move from a large meeting space into a smaller one will immediately find an increased level of fellowship and community among its membership. It is a central mark of the Ecclesion community.

Homogeneity

One of the great benefits of compact single-cell congregations is that they are less prone to factionalism. They may have powerful differences of opinion but they are not threatened by the sub-grouping of opposing alliances that can happen in larger groups. All members are closer to the sources of authority and know the persons who are asked to carry it and are more likely to have confidence in them as persons if not necessarily in their judgment as leaders. Differences of opinion do not usually become sources of personal conflict.

Smaller congregations can also form themselves around particular interests or concerns. They can attract people who have a specific attitude to worship, or community service, or personal spirituality or a any other issue. The fact that they don't need to find a large group to meet substantial costs for stipendiary ministry opens up the possibility of communities with quite a narrow focus for their community life.

This option is not available for the regular congregation which tends to be formed around a geographic location or a historical accident rather than any specific need of the membership. Such congregations have to struggle to cope with a wide range of interests and styles. Many continue in considerable tension because their people's needs are so diverse and incompatible they can be met only in part. If you try to please all of the people all of the time you are destined to failure. It's a "no win" situation when you have too many contrasting expectations.

The Ecclesion congregation will usually have a membership that can agree about their hopes and objectives. They share a sense of purpose as they work towards them together.

Pluralism

At the same time the Ecclesion model offers hope for more pluralism in the Methodist Church than exists at present. Some might wish that we were not as pluralist as we are because the tensions are very great. The claim of this writer is not that we are too pluralist but that our pluralism is not able to be expressed within the present parish structure. A greater number of smaller congregations would enable more faithful honouring of the wide range of styles of Christianity already represented in our constituency. It would also permit the development of an even more pluralistic style. If more individual congregations shared a parish life that was like the old Methodist Circuit they would have the best of both worlds.

Certainly something that may be needed in Aotearoa Methodism at present is a clearly defined sense of what it means to be a Methodist in the denominational sense. This would be enhanced if we had more opportunities of developing distinctive congregational styles so that more of our Sunday worshippers had a real sense of involvement and excitement about what was going on. It is because we try to satisfy so many different objectives in any one service of worship that we are so successful at pleasing no one in particular. By trying to hit all the possible targets we score fairly low on almost everything we do. A greater number of congregations in our circuits would enable more particular styles to be recognised and nurtured in the local setting.

Whatever congregations we manage to open in the coming years will probably be small ones. With reasonably homogeneous memberships they will have the added advantage of being able to exploit the very virtue that recent history has called a failure—smallness and intimacy. The Ecclesion model is not simply another strategy to hang onto the members we've got; it is deliberately offered as a way to develop some distinctively new church life. It is an invitation to churches to invite the response of people who have not before shown much interest in what we have been doing.

Organic sense of mission

The Ecclesion strategy assumes that the congregation is going to take some major initiatives with mission and ministry. The traditional understanding that we pay the minister to do the work of ministry does not stand up in this situation. The hierarchical model whereby the presbyter is at the top of a triangle of leaders who in turn are "over" the members and the adherents has no place in this system.

Mission is the work of the whole body and the congregation is an organic whole which has to decide how best to deploy its resources for that mission. It may see two different areas for mission.

Some of its work will be in the maintenance and upbuilding of the congregation's life and membership. It will need preachers and pastors, teachers and administrators. It will identify its specific needs and it will determine which of its members should be engaged in each ministry. Somewhere in its life there will be a person who is ordained or authroised to be in a particular relationship to the community's sacramental worship, the tradition and teaching of the church and the wider Connexion. In the Ecclesion congregation such a person will not normally be stipended. The fellowship we are considering will also see itself with an equally vital role in the community from which its members are drawn. This may be a geographic community in which the fellowship happens to be located. Or it may be defined simply by the interests and commitments of its members. An ecclesia consisting primarily of lawyers and meeting in the city centre midweek may see it has special responsibilities to the legal community and may seek to work out its wider ministry in that particular context.

The same careful strategy will go into deciding how this ministry will be carried out and by whom. Looking at the total resources of the body the congregation may decide that some individuals should work primarily in the community field and should not also be expected to provide a leadership contribution to the worship gathering. It will find ways in which those who have been detailed to outreach and mission can give account of their stewardship. It will assist them to demonstrate the effectiveness of what they do as well as to share their frustrations and seek help.

Somewhere in this part of the Ecclesion church's team there will be individuals (possibly ordained deacons, who will spearhead the thrust of outreaching mission in the servant model of Christ. By sharing by example and action the Good News of Jesus through the cup of cold water and the outreached hand deacons and others lead the congregation's work of evangelism.

Healthy Independence

The church model that is being proposed here may looks a bit like rampant congregationism. It is not.

What is being offered is a model of completeness and sufficiency. It is contended that no group, however small, should be deprived of the right to take initiatives in respect of its own welfare. No church, no matter how insignificant, should not have its "own" sacramental celebrant. No congregation should have to share a presbyter with any other congregation to achieve this. No group of Christians, wishing to be associated with the Methodist Church should be permitted to feel that they lack some essential element and therefore cannot play a full and independent part in their own mission and ministry.

However, the strength of the Methodist Connexional system is that no local church needs to "go it alone". There are wider church resources which are essential to the promotion of the kind of congregation we are considering and these ought to be available. The existing polity of Methodism can cope adequately with every practical aspect of this thesis. Indeed, it was the basic model for Wesley's Methodist movement and can make no claim to originality. If any denomination can put the Ecclesion model into operation it should be Methodism.

More must be said than merely that the wider Connexion is there to help. The model that is being offered will only work effectively within a firm commitment to the Connexion. The key to this has been in the provision of an ordained local presbyterate. With presbyters who are faithful to their ordination the local congregation is not isolated but can draw on the strengths of the wider fellowship.

Of course it may sometimes seem that the Connexion is not as responsive as it should be to local initiatives. When the Trinity people in Dunedin proposed to lease their church and the Connexion found itself unable to give them permission they resolved to close the doors the following Sunday and "send the key to Head Office". When the Mt Eden congregation found that David Rolinson's ministry for several years as a sort of "acting lay supply" was apparently not a sufficient basis for him to be accepted as a candidate for ordination they got up a petition and there was talk of seceding from the Connexion. A faithful disobedience may be the first sign of a healthy independence.

But in the long run the collective wisdom of the Connexion is greater that of each local church and the benefits of being part of a wider whole far outweigh the transitory advantages of total independence. In each of the above examples a solution was found within the existing "system". The Ecclesion proposal is for a Connexional church with a revitalised life and structure at the flaxroots.

A Learning Church

The Ecclesion congregation will be more conscious of the educational needs of its members than are most churches these days. It will be dedicated to the premise that "The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth". It will be open-ended and enquiring in its search for truth. It will not espouse a rigidly literal position on interpretation of scripture, for instance. But it will also be a church for people who have become alienated by an aggressive social justice that is sometimes almost as literalist and rigid. It is a congregation for those who used to comprise most of the now disappearing "middle ground" in Methodism.

First and foremost, then, its members will want to engage in learning. Their regular gatherings will always include an element of educational work: about scripture, theology, church structure and polity, issues in the world; you name it—it will have relevance for the study of a people with a passion to learn and grow. Any congregation which is going to take initiatives for mission and ministry will, by definition, have to become a learning church. New skills will be taught and new concepts explored as the members simply get on with being Christian in the community of faith.

The Paihia Co-operating Parish congregation circulated a talents questionnaire and invited people to make themselves available for a whole range of church and community service. The first need that became apparent was "Well, I'd be willing to do some visiting of our people but I don't know how to start." From an issue about mission they found themselves directed towards education. A simple four-session video "Caring and Service" that could be passed around among interested members was a useful outcome.

A member of one Ecclesion congregation observed, "I learned more about my church and my faith in the last four years than in the whole of the rest of my life." She was 76, the kind of member we usually consider is not likely to benefit from an education programme in the local church. She affirmed an essential element of the programme envisaged in this book.

Appropriate Decision-Making

One of the conflict areas for any denomination or congregation is how decisions are made. All too often there is a sense that "somebody" is making decisions for them "up there". There is a feeling of distance and powerlessness about the whole process. The Ecclesion congregation will be small enough to ensure that everyone is able to participate in decision-making. If sub-committees have to be formed they will be close enough to all members to be approachable and accountable. But, ideally, there should not be much need for committees at all.

The Good News Room congregation came from all over the Dunedin area and transport for meetings involved a lot of travelling in cars with only one person in each. An early decision was that they would have no committees at all. Every separate structure for decision-making was shut down. Any matters for decision were considered on Sunday morning during the weekly gathering of the congregation. Sometimes two or three people were asked to go off and do some work and report back. But most matters were decided on the spot by something approaching a consensus. It was always possible to sub-group the congregation to discuss an issue for a few minutes. No business decisions ever took over the session. It just became accepted that if there was something to be decided it would be done when "we" met.

It is a good model for a church which is bedevilled with interminable meetings and trying to find its way out of rigid committee routines. They are not necessary in the Ecclesion congregation.

Church Growth

Implicit in all that has been stated in this chapter is the conviction that the Ecclesion strategy is a strategy for church growth.

This is not a formula for simply arresting the membership decline; it is a commitment to extend the life and influence of the church. My basic thesis of church growth is that we will not extend the church much by trying to add members to the churches that are already present. These have invited people to join their cause and people are saying, by and large, "No, thanks". The strategy has been attempted in many ways and it has failed. We seem unable to make a success of the great evangelistic gatherings. Visitation evangelism has not brought people out of the woodwork. We refused to become too involved in the World Methodist Crusade of the 1980s. Everything that we have tried to put energy and skills into has left us just about where we were. We have nothing much to lose by trying one more time.

A strategy of adding congregations instead of members might work. It might mean that some existing congregations would send small numbers of their membership into new situations as "missionaries" in an attempt to establish new churches in strategic positions. It could mean that some dying congregations give up their present structures in order that an Ecclesion strategy might be developed around their remnant (a good biblical word, that) membership. A few dying congregations might even make their property resources available for an Ecclesion fellowship which might not attract their present membership but could interest some newcomers. There will be risks to be taken and prices to be paid.

But my point is that what we are doing at the moment is not working. We have nothing to lose by trying something else. And there might be some things to gain.

Middle-of-the-roaders

Methodism has alienated many middle-of-the-road members as it has allowed itself to polarise over matters of belief. It has failed many people who looked to it for something it could not—or would not—give them in the uncertain decades of the immediate past.

These people used to be the main strength of the denomination. We always had a minority who were committed to radical social justice. There was always another minority who found expression of their faith only in the most conservative forms of spirituality.

But the bulk of Methodist people in decades past would not have strongly identified themselves with either of these positions. Thoughtful and dedicated, these mainstream members held the denomination together. They comprised the great bulk of its members, attenders, givers and workers. All too many have now left it.

They are still "out there". They have already made it plain that there are certain kinds of religion and church life they will not respond to. Some have specifically challenged the local church to change to accommodate them. It may be that these offers are not entirely genuine but we should at least try to offer them something different.

The Ecclesion congregation may have some appeal to these kinds of people.

More Variety

The Ecclesion strategy also offers a much greater variety of church lifestyle than has been possible in recent decades. The amalgamation strategy has lumped together some strange bedfellows in irrational and quite unpromising combinations. For instance the combining of the centre city churches with the mission congregations in all three centres has not been an easy process. There are differences in worship style, understanding of "church" and the sense of missionary attitude to community service. A member of one newly merged group commented to the writer of one side of the new partnership that "... they don't even know how to behave in a meeting" . These differences are not deviations from the "norm" that have to be exorcised; they are what make a group what it is. Our abject ignorance about the "character" of a congregation and the dynamics of the "two-cell" unit that results from haphazard amalgamations has led us into many a stressful union for the wrong reasons.

Every time congregations are brought together into new units we increase the number of objectives that have to be achieved when people come together to worship or work or even to share fellowship. Often we set ourselves an impossible task and are then discouraged when people do not seem to be satisfied.

The Ecclesion model of a larger number of more distinctive churches would have permitted a greater variety of congregational worship and lifestyle to remain available. It is not too late now for this to be encouraged to develop. People should have more opportunity to choose the kind of congregation they prefer. They should not feel that they must inevitably remain with a certain kind of worship that is uncomfortable for them if it is actually the choice of the majority of the congregation. Just as presbyters are matched in stationing so, too, members should be encouraged to match themselves into worship communities where they are confident their needs will be met and their contribution in time and talents gratefully received.

At present it is too hard to do this because we have allowed ourselves to be left with too few congregations to provide genuine alternatives. An urgent task for the church is to develop a strategy that would deliberately encourage the growth of specific kinds of worship and congregational lifestyle. This would be a strategy for growth and strength and life.

It could be achieved in two ways:

New Congregations

We could start some new congregations. Reversing our tendency to push everyone together into one place regardless of their place of residence or personal style we could encourage the development of distinctive new ecclesias around the fringes of our existing congregations. These new congregations would seem to be more likely to prosper if we ensure that they are enabled to develop an Ecclesion style rather than merely emulate the style of the parent congregation nearby.

We might even make it a missionary objective of a reasonably well-established congregation to start a "daughter" church near the edge of their boundaries. They could deliberately commission of some of their members to throw their weight into the new church rather than staying with the parent one. By such a method the NZ Baptist church has a plan to create hundred new congregations within the current decade.

Cell Division?

Another way of getting started is even more difficult. It is for the larger congregation which is probably of the Tenestas variety. It may have a few people like George and Heather who are very uncomfortable in it and would like to opt for the Ecclesion churchstyle. They covet its intimacy, involvement and vitality and they don't find these things in their present situation.

Why not start a separate congregation within the same buildings? It doesn't take many to make a start and if it works it will attract some other like-minded participants. Indeed, if it is doing a good job, many of its members would not actually be attracted to the parent congregation.

They could meet at a different time—say Sunday evening instead of Sunday morning—or in a different place. But they would need to be a distinct congregational entity, otherwise a "we"/"they" feeling can develop. They must be helped to manage their affairs themselves as a part of a multi-church "circuit" rather than as a part of another worshipping body which may resent their separateness and feel obliged to make decisions for them. That seldom works.

An objection is that "You mustn't split the congregation" but this is valid only if it is a single-cell organisation of 40 people or less. And even then, if it is truly of one mind it will not have a significant number of people who want to make a such a move. Any congregation of 50 or 60 or more can make a meaningful decision to "divide-and-grow". Using the Ecclesion style for one of the new congregations and retaining a Tradevange style for the other may result in an overall increase of satisfaction for both groups. That is all that matters. This kind of "division" in the church should be encouraged!

Summary

The Ecclesion congregation is essentially a small Christian community with a vision for itself and its mission. It can start where it is but will probably develop distinctive new forms of church life. It will find strengths in its smallness and will feature intimate fellowship, homogeneity and plurality, an organic sense of mission and a healthy independence. It will be a learning church and will develop a community-based style of decision-making. Ecclesion congregations are a strategy for growth directed towards middle-of-the-road people whose links with the church have been gently dissolving over recent decades. It will make possible a greater variety of church life and style in Methodism.

# 4

# What and Where in the Ecclesion Programme

Heather and George and their congregation have now decided to opt for an Ecclesion style of congregation. They are making deliberate plans to reduce their dependency on stipendiary ministry and intend to mobilise the resources that are already present in the congregation. They have sought the support of the district and the national church and have already had a major strategy consultation in which a number of people have been identified as having potential for leadership in the congregation.

In all of this, much of the discussion has centred around the Sunday morning. What, exactly, will take place? Will it be much like the Sunday morning one-and-a-bit hour "hymn sandwich" which has been the pattern for as long as they can remember? What will mark the Sunday gathering as an Ecclesion programme?

The word "programme" sounds a bit stiff, as though there is some sort of software that you can put into your computer which will give you a truly Ecclesion congregation. Or perhaps a carefully prepared order of events or items in a concert. It's nothing of the kind. But there are some basic elements and we need now to have a look at the aspects that will be present most occasions.

Above all else St Mary's will have to allow more time for Sunday's time together. The Ecclesion congregation will not be able to meet for an hour and then go home. It will need at least one and a half hours and probably nearer to two or more each Sunday. This will need to be quite clearly negotiated from the beginning with all concerned.

WORSHIP

These days—2015—if you look up the word worship in Google Images you will be presented with hundreds of pictures of raised hands. This is not at all a comprehensive definition of the word worship as envisaged here. The Ecclesion congregation will expect a time that includes the best elements of traditional worship in a mainstream congregation. Some people imagine that if the setting is a bit more informal and the members are to participate more than they do in an ordinary service then, somehow, what happens on Sunday morning is "watered down". It becomes something like "devotions", that often unsatisfactory beginning to the real business in hand. Or they think of a very informal unstructured exercises that are very person-centred and can become more "mateship" than "worship". On the contrary the Ecclesion community will work very hard at developing worship that is soundly based in the "otherness" of God, carefully structured in a manner that is appropriate for the liturgy.

Adoration

It has been thought that the key to inspiring a sense of awe in God has been the style of the worship building. Thus we have been told high reaching ceilings, special music and liturgical decorations enable us to approach God in a right spirit. The Ecclesion congregation will certainly be concerned to prepare its worship setting in ways that assist members to meditate upon God but what is said and done will always be more important than the surroundings.

The Ecclesion gathering will always include a period of adoration in its worship. The focus for adoration will be the Trinitarian God. This is not a congregation that opens worship by praying to "the Lord" or "Jesus"—with or without upraised hands. Calling out a sense of adoration in a congregation is one of the most difficult tasks of leading worship. But the Ecclesion worship leader will give it priority and bear the following considerations in mind.

As it is possible that the effectiveness of our efforts at meeting God may be conditioned by how well we "meet" each other, the first part of the congregation's worship will consist of some act of meeting. If the members are seated in groups at tables they may begin talking to each other there. Then everyone will be welcomed, (visitors by name and such introduction as they care to offer), apologies and greetings received and some of the week's news can be shared. Many liturgies that become quite formal before the hour is out actually "constitute" worship in this way already.

Worship will then be firmly initiated with a striking illustration out of the week's events or an attention-getting display or introduction to the theme for the day. Sometimes just a deep silence will achieve the desired atmosphere but this will always take longer than the few seconds customarily allowed for silence in the average Methodist service.

The selection of an opening hymn can often provide a good element of adoration. A strong hymn of praise and adoration does this best. Informal, subjective "Jesus loves me" songs do not do it at all. They have their place but this is not it. If the congregation can read a Psalm antiphonally this may give a helpful sense of direction but the choice would be important.

Hymns

The Ecclesion congregation will pay more than usual attention to the words it sings. It will try to be sensitive to the issues, recognising that as many may be offended by changing some words as those who are upset because they are not changed. The issue will be lively and talked through with the people as they develop an appropriate repertoire.

The tunes used in worship need to be singable and if one out of three or four is not familiar to the people it must be readily learnable. Melody lines should be provided for all who want them when learning new hymns of which this congregation will use quite a few. An unfamiliar hymn should not usually be placed in the opening section of worship.

Care must be taken over the issue of copyright when putting hymns into Sunday bulletins or overhead projector stencils. Copying any piece of work is appropriating something that belongs to someone else and if you are contemplating anything more than occasional one-off Sunday use of published work you must seek permission in every instance. Even a small congregation should see that its copying activities of whatever kind are covered by a proper copyright use licence.

The Liturgy

While for some Methodists this word conjures up images of reading stuff out of a little book Ecclesion members will know that it stands for the whole work of the people of God in worship. They will know that the liturgy requires a shape and a structure and they will expect to recognise it week by week. If they do not know what structure the worship leaders are working in they will not be able to participate fully in what is going on.

The structure may have some variety but it will probably resemble that commonly used for most conventional worship services. After commencing in praise and adoration it will move into confession and some declaration of forgiveness. God's word in reading and preaching will follow and a clearly defined response will be invited from the congregation in the offering and prayers for the community.

If the structure is varied this will be done for the sake of enhancing the involvement of the people in the liturgy not just for the sake of a change. The familiar pattern works best for any one congregation. To develop their own distinctive liturgy may be one of the first major tasks for a new Ecclesion congregation. A printed outline of the order of service may help. Some printed material for congregational reading is often useful. But a wordy bunch of reading covering several pages doesn't improve a true sense of congregational participation at all. Better a few words well said by a liturgist and some sparing but appropriate responses from the congregation than several pages of anything!

Good liturgy does not need to consist of a multiplicity of printed words—though you might not guess that from looking at most of what the Methodist Conference has done at worship. It was a refreshing experience to attend Communion at a country chapel in British Methodism and to have to turn only briefly to a few paragraphs in the back of the hymnbook.

Presentation

The worship will be planned by qualified people although some of the leadership will be given by other members of the congregation. There may be a Local Liturgist who has specialised in the structuring and leadership of worship. A Local Preacher and the Local Presbyter or authorised celebrant will also have significant roles in appropriate parts of the worship.

Only two or three people should be involved on any one occasion if worship is not to become a three-ring circus. For the same reason the leaders will be seated near where they are to stand and will not have to move about distractingly. If they do have to move they will do it with dignity. They will not announce one another nor permit clumsy intimations to creep into worship: "And now the next thing is I'd like to call on Joan to give the prayers of intercession". Joan simply will stand and say "Let us pray" or, if it is not already clear that the prayers are intercessory "Let us join in (our prayers of) intercession". No padding, no chattiness here. A "Ringmaster" you do not need.

Those who are to participate in worship leadership will be trained how to read with expression yet without turning the scripture into a dramatic act. Even young children can be taught to read the bible effectively and should be encouraged to do so. But this should not be a chore that is taken by everyone in turn regardless of whether or not they do it well. This is the presentation of the Word of God and it deserves better handling than it sometimes suffers in some churches. Simple training can make all the difference. The modest size of the Ecclesion building should make it possible for people to read without having to learn how to read for a microphone which is an art in itself.

Worship will include all age groups on most occasions. Children should be encouraged to participate in the mystery of worship and their capacity to cope with this should not be measured by their concentration span in school. Elements of the worship should be addressed specifically to children and their involvement should be sought but the special "children's talk" as a predictable slot at a regular point in the service should be avoided. That practice tends to encourage the children to think that everything else is for the adults. A sermon illustration can be lit up for all by the involvement of the children at that moment instead of at some structured children's "time".

Holy Communion will be a regular feature in the Ecclesion congregation. Indeed, if we could devise a more speedy distribution of the elements it might well be a weekly observance. I recently attended a simple Catholic Mass in which the congregation of several dozen were served in less than three minutes and the spoken liturgy took barely ten minutes—it would have left plenty of time for other elements of an Ecclesion celebration.

The Lord's Supper is by tradition and law a central role for the presbyter. The Ecclesion congregation will already have initiated the calling of a person who will be ordained or in training for this role. There will not be an expectation that unordained persons should celebrate. At the same time they will ensure that their celebrant does not also carry out a wide range of other functions to diffuse the nature of ordained ministry and the central sacramental role.

Participation

The fact that worship is to be orderly, structured and dignified does not prevent considerable congregational involvement. The other side of the coin is that being sloppy and casual doesn't ensure that people are involved. Good participation takes planning and careful presentation—stage-management even!

A setting in which people who are seated in groups and can easily communicate with each other may enable them to contribute directly by such things as

*—discussing topics for prayers of thanksgiving, confession or intercession. They should be helped to discover the distinctions and use them in their prayer, a skill which many who are willing to pray aloud in public appear to lack.

*—writing specific phrases or sentences for prayers of thanksgiving, confession or intercession. Members of the congregation should be able to distinguish these quite separate aspects of prayer and use them appropriately.

*—talking over a point in the sermon, perhaps with a brief response to the preacher before he or she proceeds.

*—choosing a hymn for a particular part of the service, discussing their choice and its strengths and weaknesses.

*—writing down a personal commitment to action for the coming week in the light of worship and discussion.

Written responses that are handed in are usually better than spoken responses in worship. The latter can sometimes become an opportunity for people to hold the floor at length. This can detract from worship. A high level of personal involvement can be secured without turning worship into an "internal" experience which will be measured by whether or not each person has managed to hold the floor. Worship is a community event and participation should express community.

In other parts of the Sunday morning gathering spoken comments are not only appropriate but should be encouraged. The use of tables facilitates natural groupings without the hassles involved in "Now I want you all to get into groups and ...." upon which announcement a lot of people in the "toastrack" pews of the normal church immediately examine their hymnbooks with studied concentration.

Offering

Every time the congregation meets there should be an opportunity for commitment of some kind. The offering should be an unmistakeable symbol of complete personal offering. Most Sundays there should be a specific invitation to commitment to some specific step along the Christian path or some contribution that might be made to the life of the fellowship or the wider community. These invitations should be offered in a way that makes it possible for people to respond, not held out as desirable but unattainable objectives from which people know they must fall away very soon.

Each week's gathering should also include a very strong element of commissioning, of sending people out to service. The presence of a deacon in the congregation could enhance this. The deacon is not limited to being a model of how to engage in service in the community. Appropriate Sunday roles could include a brief act of commissioning in the prayers or the benediction at the conclusion of the fellowship's time together.

The dismissal of the congregation may not come at the end of worship but at the end of the morning's programme. For convenience it is discussed here as the logical conclusion of the liturgy that began with adoration.

EDUCATION

Another major element that should be included in every gathering of the Ecclesion congregation is education.

It should be linked to the worship theme for the day and should be targeted to assist people to develop in quite specific ways. The question will be not so much "What can we teach people about Covenant?" but "How can we make the concept of Covenant come alive for people so that their everyday lives are affected by it?"

The education element may well be introduced during worship—in the sermon, for instance—although the distinct difference between preaching and teaching had better be quite clear if this is being attempted. Or it may simply arise out of the worship as a question or comment.

It will usually consist of a clearly defined separate session in which the congregation's participation is more actively sought and its style becomes more "laid back" and informal. The seating is likely to be moved into small circles of five to eight chairs each if it is not already in that layout. The education session will not normally be led by the people who led worship although all leaders for the day will have planned the programme jointly to assist people to see a thematic pattern to the gathering.

Intergenerational learning programmes now enable people of all ages to work at both worship and education together. But on some occasions it may be desirable for children to be able to move to an adjacent room to share in creative expression at their own level. They should not be given a sense of being removed from the community setting. Whether they meet in a corner of the same room as the others or go to an adjacent room it is very desirable that they return to the main group and "show and tell". The adults could perhaps do the same for them.

Education should include high-quality input from experts. It should make use of the best aids and the liveliest methods of encouraging people to learn. It must be done from the level of the people, not as a sort of head trip for those who like to argue academic niceties. Only a very experienced group should be plunged straight into "Well now you have heard John's presentation—discuss it together for fifteen minutes". Simple specific questions handed out on paper will help most people get into the topic more comfortably. Seating that is already arranged in groups around tables will facilitate the engagement process, especially if in the worship time people have already spoken to each other.

I will not say more about the need for good education in the setting of the local congregation as it has all been said before in many other places. What is significant about the Ecclesion congregation is that it moves naturally into educational experiences because of its very nature. Education simply happens. And it involves the whole membership instead of being an elitist experience for those who are willing to come out to an extra session or meet at another time altogether.

FELLOWSHIP

Christian fellowship of the highest order should be an achievable objective every time the Ecclesion congregation meets. In most cases the members will not see each other at any other time so they will not have other opportunities of getting to know one another or developing a sense of early church koinonia (fellowship) in their little community.

It goes without saying that members should know one another and be comfortable in using Christian names with each other. They will have some awareness of the personal circumstances of each and will be motivated to "keep in touch" week by week. They will not need the artificiality of nametags although these may be offered to visitors.

The deeper fellowship that is possible in the Ecclesion setting, especially since it is directly linked with worship, will permit more than the usual amount of willingness to share and be open to each other. Programme elements will tend to make this possible but it will happen only at the level that people are comfortable with. A "hot-house" kind of personal/emotional experience is not envisaged. The Ecclesion fellowship is not some kind of Human Potential Laboratory designed to push people a little in exploring their interpersonal relationships. But it will help them to develop the same kind of deep sense of personal caring of the members for each other.

If all elements of Sunday's meeting are organised around table groups the consistency of membership in each group might be carried forward from week to week. This could enable some aspects of "Accountable Discipleship" whereby members develop a covenant for Christian living and are account to each other for their achievement week by week. This excellent programme is designed for separate one-hour meetings of six to eight regular members. Its principles would work well in the Ecclesion setting.

Eating and drinking are desirable elements of the fellowship life of this kind of congregation and, hopefully will often be of the sit-down variety. Refreshments may be able to be served as part of the normal Sunday gathering and should be an integral part of the fellowship, not just an optional extra for those who have the time or inclination to stay. The facilities should enable eating and drinking to take place in the same place as the rest of the weekly celebration for the sake of keeping everyone together. It does, however, need to be recognised that eating in church is not acceptable to traditional Tongan or Samoan people. A multi-ethnic congregation would move very carefully in this area.

Sometimes the Eucharist can centre around the food and drink that is already being shared by the fellowship. These can be very meaningful symbols on occasion. One congregation planned a communion service around scones and tea or softdrink. The member who offered to bake the small scones presented them in one solid round mass which could be broken and served to individuals at the tables. Using something different from bread and grapejuice on occasion can enhance the sense of participating in the banquet of the Lord.

For any congregations which do not have an ordained presbyter or authroised celebrant the Love Feast could be revived as a significant event in which all can share a liturgical rite of eating and drinking together. A simple Order of Service has become available recently, reviving traditions in the primitive church and early Methodism (enquire of the publisher).

Another aspect of fellowship extends beyond the local congregation. Fellowship can assist the development of links with the wider denominational church. The Ecclesion church which is part of a "circuit" has more opportunities to do this than others but all should resist the temptation to become solely congregationist in focus. Ecumenical links can also be developed, especially by inviting people from other congregations to attend (in modest numbers—you don't want them to swamp your people!) your weekly celebration.

Fellowship can also develop, as it does in any congregation, in a sense of shared mission and service. The Ecclesion congregation will not take up a lot of time for its own get-togethers but its people are thereby set free to become more active in the community. Some projects will be undertaken in the name of the congregation and will draw members together in a common task. They may find a sense of fellowship in working together in direct service to individuals or needy groups in the community. Some may commit themselves to work together to influence those who are in government and decision-making in the nation or the community. Any such programme beyond the life of the local congregation can engender a profound sense of fellowship within its life.

BUSINESS

Ecclesion groups will decide to do their congregational business in the context of their weekly assembly. The advantages are substantial: saving in time, higher involvement of all members, and open decision-making. But there are some clear requirements of such a system.

There will probably be a need to identify which decisions are actually necessary. Too many churches spend considerable energy deciding things which don't actually have to be decided because they won't contribute anything significant to the group, the community or the commonwealth. Some filter system needs to be set up to ensure that things that matter do find their way to the table and others do not. The process happens in the current system, of course; it just needs to be more thorough and more open in the Ecclesion community.

When decisions are to be made the matter needs to be presented in a way that offers options and solutions. It is not sufficient to say "Well, people, we have got this awful problem of the spouting/Connexional Budget/Statement on Abortion and we're going to have to decide something". There needs to be some preparation of necessary background material and possible outcomes or resolutions for people to consider.

When easy agreement to a decision or a course of action is not possible an appropriate decision may be to ask a small committee or a convener to do some work and report back with specific proposals. But, generally, ongoing committees tend to perpetuate a "we-they" feeling in the congregation. They do not encourage a sense of trust on the part of the congregation nor a sense of vital responsibility in the committee members. Short-term workgroups for specific projects will usually perform better and find more acceptance for their proposals.

The congregation needs to avail itself of any specialist skills and knowledge among its membership but these people sometimes appreciate not being burdened with extensive committee work. The decision-making model proposed here may be something they can respond to.

Beyond the congregation it may be very important to ensure that the appropriate people take an active committee role in wider church organisational life. It may be all right for the Ecclesion congregation to function without formal committees but it is important that the same congregation be properly represented at Circuit and District meetings. Reporting by such representatives can be exercised each Sunday immediately after any outside meeting without being channelled through some other committee.

Ecumenical organisations may also warrant careful representation. Someÿinterchurch and interfaith events may deserve low priority for the Ecclesion congregation but if the members are to have a large vision they need to be active and involved at proper ecumenical levels. The congregation should decide what its priorities are and the relative merits of Religious Instruction in Schools, Community Household Surveys, and joint worship occasions be discussed and decided by them not just the minister.

Decisions made by the congregation should be recorded in a Minute Book or a Sunday Record which includes the details of worship including hymns, lessons and themes, education and who led and so on. Decisions could also be reported in the following Sunday's bulletin or newsletter so that everyone has a good chance of knowing what is happening and why. Once decided, issues should not be frivolously open to review by every subsequent Sunday's congregation but some kind of formal review procedure may need to be in place. Widely published decisions properly made by a regular congregation will usually be better honoured than those made by a separate committee no matter how representative its constituency.

Summary

The foregoing inevitably looks a little compartmentalised. As long as good worship is faithfully shared the other elements of the programme may be present or absent in any one morning and all in one place or spread through the diet.

Sunday celebrations should have a discernible outcome. For instance, an education session which followed preaching on an aspect of prophecy might include a "What does this mean to us?" element which might result in a decision to do say something to the local community. The resolution to take action is a "business" matter but it might properly belong within the "education" or "worship" time.

It's an appropriate way for people to work. It's a comfortable style for the Ecclesion congregation.

II—The Building

Now we need to turn our attention to the building in which this congregation will meet. By its very nature the Ecclesion congregation will need a special kind of meeting space. You can't do Ecclesion work in a "railway carriage" setting with everyone sitting in toastrack pews or rows of chairs facing the same direction.

We will now consider the features of an ideal situation, recognising that the ideal will seldom be completely achieved. The principles set out here may help people to work out what is appropriate for their situation.

Make a Change

The congregation that is thinking of changing to an Ecclesion lifestyle may find it creative to make a dramatic and significant move away from any existing meeting space. This physical change may make it easier for people to re-orient themselves to the new concept. Making a well-defined move may be vital to effective fulfillment of the whole dream. To try to change style within the limits of many existing settings may prove quite frustrating. It has been done. Some traditional church buildings have been quite effectively turned into comfortable homes for new kinds of church life. But it is a hazardous exercise; it has something to do with putting new wine into old wineskins.

Another reason for making a change is that most congregations typically own far more plant than is needed for an Ecclesion community. Cutting down on the maintenance and overhead costs of a large suite of elderly buildings may be part of the reason for planning an Ecclesion congregation.

If it is possible to use someone else's plant the new congregation may be spared a great deal of work. This may not be an entirely satisfactory solution in the long term but it may be a good way to get started. The relatively short Sunday usage by this kind of congregation may work in well with a weekday user and be much more economical.

Conversion

A similar solution is to convert an existing church plant into a more suitable space for the congregation and then seek ways of earning revenue or providing a community service with the same space during the week. Some elderly church plants can be readily turned into most comfortable lounges offering a valued meeting place for other community organisations as well as a Sunday home for the congregation. In the 1980s Clarence St church in the Riccarton Parish set out to provide a smaller meeting space by cutting off one end of their former large sanctuary. It had a delightful atmosphere and would be quite suitable for a congregation with a more radical approach to worship and fellowship.

Altering an existing house can provide a very suitable centre for the Ecclesion congregation. Paihia Co-operating Parish found themselves having to provide a new centre for worship with only limited resources. Pushing one or two walls out of an old house they have provided an L-shaped room which gave considerable intimacy in the worship setting and could be very suitable for what is being proposed here.

In a new housing area where there is a need to start with some kind of building an ordinary house with a special feature such as a basement or extra large lounge could serve the purpose perfectly. An advantage with the Ecclesion style of building is that it can be provided in a more flexible building than the average church. A house-like property can be fairly easily recycled for residential purposes when it's no longer needed for a congregation.

A disadvantage with this kind of strategy is that unless the congregation can dispose of the rest of its plant it still has the maintenance headaches on the whole property. It would be better to convert a building which stands alone so that other structures can be sold or let.

Size

One of the main reasons that existing worship centres are usually not very suitable for Ecclesion congregations is that they are simply too large. Most are based on the "great" congregation—even if it was only about 150 people at its best. They have sloping floors, or are too high, too draughty, or a host of other things. The Ecclesion meeting space needs to be no larger than will accommodate 40—50 people at most and will seem comfortably full with half that number. This is vitally important for the health and functioning of this style of congregation.

A very important consideration is that the ceiling should be not much over normal room height. This will encourage enthusiastic singing and permit any member of the congregation to be heard by all present without the need to use a microphone and public address system.

Style

The shape should be approximately square or circular rather than oblong. It should not have a clearly defined "direction" built into it as is the case with most older church buildings. Sometimes a useful space can be achieved by using part of an existing sanctuary. Usually it would seem that a more suitable venue could be converted out of some other part of the church plant.

The room should be warm and comfortable. The Spartan austerity of many of our church buildings has had a lot to do with creating the kind of congregation style the Ecclesion concept is seeking to move away from. Considerable attention should be paid to the fitting out and the furnishings.

Carpet is not a frivolous luxury but a calculated amenity. It can assist in the warmth of the environment and to improve the acoustics. Some places, such as Paeroa Uniting, have carried carpet not only wall to wall but up to dado height all round.

Windows should be plentiful not only admitting a generous amount of light but permitting the congregation to be reminded of the community beyond their walls. The Good News Room congregation found it particularly important that the centre of the city was immediately outside their spacious windows. They were never able to forget that the bustle of the city was part of the reason for their meeting. Attractive drapes are a vital opportunity to express something of the life of the congregation; they should be backed up with black lining if possible and must be on well-designed supports and drawstring systems. Nothing becomes more disreputable than curtains which hang badly, are impossible to close completely and are half off their tracks.

There is no excuse for not having adequate lighting; if the average church can manage with something less than ideal an Ecclesion congregation needs to be sure that participants can read aloud from wherever they are in the meeting space. Dimmers may be provided for use in some elements of worship and when audiovisual aids are being operated.

Facilities

The temptation to add extra rooms and facilities needs to be resisted if the congregation is not to saddle itself with a plant that may be a maintenance problem in the future.

Ancilliary to the main meeting room there might be another room or two for education and storage. Kitchen and toilet facilities are certainly required. Facilities to serve something more than simple refreshments would be desirable; full meals should be able to be prepared and served. Good quality cups and saucers should be provided; cheap plastic mugs and a hard biscuit may be OK for the office or a picnic but they do not belong in a congregation which is trying to engender a family atmosphere among its members. A good servery should open immediately into the meeting room itself otherwise a large well-equipped tea trolley should be available. If there is no kitchen this item could include stocks of cups, saucers, pots and supplies and be wheeled to and fro as required. The same item could handle glasses and other requirements for celebration of Holy Communion. Most of what is required for the Sunday congregation would also be needed by any other users so the economics may favour a fairly complete plant from the beginning.

Heating should be able to keep the meeting place warm and comfortable even in the worst conditions. It should be able to do this rapidly and then maintain comfort without excessive use of power or noisy equipment. The very smallness of the design should ensure that heating does not become the oppressive expense that it is in some regular churches.

There should be plenty of twin power outlets around the room. Long leads across the floor are not desirable with many chairs and people but electronic equipment may have to be used in various places. Shielded cabling and plenty of communications sockets for video and audio and other equipment to be used in various parts of the room will be found useful. Shelving and brackets should be installed for video monitor or television set, video projector and audio equipment.

Provision ought to be made for a permanent screen for overhead projection. This can be done without creating an ugly white testimony to technology; hang attractive drapes over a light-coloured section of wall or mount a neat pull-down screen in the ceiling.

Furniture

People will be seated on individual chairs that can be readily re-arranged in different seating patterns. When set out for the normal worship gathering the chairs will be no more than three deep from the "centre". (Yes, the inside row will probably be occupied last!) Everyone should be able to share eye contact with whoever is leading worship or conducting a session.

If the chairs can be stackable that may be a significant advantage in some settings. Have a wheeled carrier to move the stack around if removal to storage has to be a regular exercise. Some smaller chairs will be desirable if there are children in the congregation.

If there is funding and space it is a good plan to put money into well upholstered chairs with armrests. Really comfortable seating is necessary for the longer programme of the Ecclesion congregation. Fifty of these chairs contributed greatly to the outstanding conversion of the Glebe Uniting Church in Sydney. The intimate style of congregation which eveloped in this otherwise thoroughly traditional and elderly church plant was due in no small part to the comfort of the chairs.

Tables have been found to be very useful. As well as helping people to congregate in small groups of six to eight people they provide a needed support for pens, paper, handbags and hymnbooks. In Dunedin Evan Lewis designed a table of five equal sides with two opposite corners of 90 degrees. These tables could be put together to make a fish-shaped table for Communion or in sets of two, three or five for a worship centre. They proved very flexible in all kinds of use.

Costs

Some expense will normally be involved but setting-up costs should have first claim on proceeds from disposals of other property of the congregation or parish. What matters is that the new property is able to do what is necessary for the congregation, not meet some other requirements. It should have more built-in obsolescence than the normal church sanctuary. If substantial capital costs are going to be involved the building must be capable of adaptation to another use or removal to another site when its purpose is concluded.

General

The most suitable meeting space for the Ecclesion congregation will be more like the traditional church lounge than the worship sanctuary.

It has some special characteristics and if the programme is to be effective these really need to be studied carefully. The foregoing notes are only intended to be an introduction covering the points that have been found to be most important.

Summary

The Ecclesion congregation will share a Sunday morning celebration that includes worship at its best, education for everyone, a time of fellowship and a setting in which necessary business decisions can be made. The space in which it meets will be more like a lounge than the usual church, with careful attention to suitable furnishings and equipment.

# 5

# Membership of the Ecclesion Community.

If the congregation of St Mary's is to adopt an Ecclesion life they will need to look carefully at what has been called the pastoral task of the church. What must be done? Who will do it if there is not a full-time stipendiary minister? Will it be possible to do everything that has been done before?

There are a number of routes into these questions.

1—The Pastorate

In Methodism we have spoken of the church "family" or pastorate as though it could be simply defined. It's not that easy. We need to think about this a little.

Churches have all sorts of ways of measuring themselves: they have counted "Members on the Electoral Roll" or "Families under Pastoral Care" or "Attenders at worship" or "Communicants" and so on. Each of these figures will usually add up to something less than the number of people in the vicinity who give themselves a denominational label when they go to Hospital or answer the census questionnaire.

Levels of "Belonging"

Also, people have different ways of relating to the Church. Firstly, there will be a small core of members in every congregation whose enthusiasm, drive and commitment is substantial. They may express it in different ways from each other but no one will be in doubt that they are caught up in the Christian faith and its expression in the denomination of their choice. They will normally be in active relationship with their local congregations and will probably be listed on its Electoral Roll.

There will also be people who play a rather lesser part in the congregation's life. They are not personally committed to very active involvement in the church but may nonetheless be reasonably regular in their attendance and generous in their giving. If some task is put before them and it matches their abilities they may well respond.

Every Methodist parish also has names of individuals and families for whom links with the church seem slender and of no great importance to them. People in this group may occasionally call on the church to meet some particular need or may perhaps find themselves called upon by the church to assist to meet its needs. But normally they have little to do with the church.

There is a fourth group of people who are more or less unknown to the parish but who might have some reason to claim the name Methodist and might at some stage seek the services of the church. They may have had some previous relationship with the Church and, in a spot of difficulty, sense that it is perfectly appropriate to seek "their" church's help. There are not as many of them as there were when this book was first drafted but some are still there. Usually a congregation will try to respond to them and in the process might move their names onto its "responsibility" lists. This will at least ensure that some door may be left open for a future approach.

Many presbyters and churches have tried to maintain a full list of everyone who is likely to call on them for help. I think of this as the "Responsibility" concept of pastoral care. It can be made up from hospital admissions and previous pastoral records. But when the time comes for the Stewardship Education programme many of these are not included because it is recognised not only that they are poor prospects for a pledge but, more important, they do not acknowledge that they owe the church anything.

Making these distinctions is important for the congregation which wishes to respect people's attitudes towards the church. It acknowledges that any person is either interested in the church to some extent or not at all. If a regular congregation with a stipendiary minister can have a pastoral list of 150 families of whom only about 50 actually give much support to the church they can "count on" only the 50. This is a fair measure of the church's real strength. Those who have already indicated some interest in the congregation are often considered to be the "active" members and their names will probably be on the Electoral Roll. Other names will be kept on some form of roll which expresses the different degree of their relationship to the church.

Commitment

These distinctions, and all shades of involvement between them, are part and parcel of any congregation's relationship with its community. A careful congregation maintains precise and up to date rolls of those who are actively involved. It accepts the varying degrees of involvement of those who participate actively in its life. It is also aware of many in the surrounding community who are not active but may nevertheless call upon the church at some future date. And it is ready to respond to those of whom it has never heard before. It will sometimes spend a great deal of its resources of time and skills in funerals and other appropriate ministries for people outside of its regular life.

Metaphors for the Church

A way of expressing these different understandings of the relationship between the church and its people comes to us through the metaphors of how people have spoken about God in history. The terms are less satisfactory for us now but they reflect some helpful ways of thinking about the church. We have traditionally spoken of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Church has been correspondingly described as the People of God, the Body of Christ or the Vehicle of the Holy Spirit. In different times in history there have been different emphases.

For a long time the "People of God" definition was paramount and applied to every person born in a geographic region (a "parish", actually). If you lived in a certain village you were "of that parish". There was only one church and it took responsibility for everyone in the region. To be excommunicated in those days meant that you were cut off from "the" church, not just excluded from a local congregation or denominational group.

The growth of the denominations that has marked the Protestant era has been characterised by a protest against an automatic kind of churchship bestowed by birth or residence. A more vital sign of belonging to the church was to be a "member of the Body of Christ". So in Wesley's time we find the strict rules as to behaviour and membership in the societies and those quaint admonitions about visiting those who have not come for three weeks and then striking them from the Rolls. The church is this sense is a described as a "gathered" society.

To think of the church as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit is a major emphasis of just the last 100 years or so. Here the true Christian is defined by evidence of the activity of the Spirit and some congregations have made quite precise definitions of how this may be discerned. Experiencing the "second baptism" or speaking in tongues may be the "signs" of the true church.

Methodism?

It may be important for Methodists and protestants in general to realise that their vital beginnings lie in the "Body of Christ" definition. For us, the true signs of the church are where Christ's hands are still at work, his words being offered and his Gospel faithfully expounded to his followers and communicated in the world. If we think that the "catholic" and "charismatic" emphases have been sometimes too extreme we should reflect that our own emphasis on the "social Gospel" and ministry "out there" in "the world" have sometimes given us the excuse to neglect other expressions of the life of the church. Even in a denominational setting we need to find ways of expressing our responsibility to the whole of God's people.

Another Metaphor

The introduction of the Electoral Roll in 1966 derived from the understanding that a primary part of being a Methodist is being active in the service of Christ and the Church.

The decision acknowledged two things. Methodism is a "movement" in which all that counts is commitment and involvement. Yet it is also a "church" in which all sorts and conditions of people are included. Methodism is a blend of the "evangelical" tradition which emphasises personal commitment to Christ's ministry and the "catholic" sense in which all are children of God and stand under that loving grace.

Methodists will always want to say "both—and" to these options, and, as a denomination, it is proper that we should. We cannot escape either the call to personal commitment or the involvement in that mysterious providential grace that falls equally on all God's children.

But, again, our evangelical origins tend to draw us back to the primacy of our involvement in the mission of Christ. So we will take particular care to maintain the fellowship of the faithful. However, we will also be concerned for all who call themselves Methodists. They may not be actively involved in our work and may not even see themselves as objects of our caring concern but we may not be so free.

The Caring Tasks

The concept of the Ecclesion congregation may be seen to work well for the small core of the committed but it could be accused of being deficient in its care of the less active members of the Methodist community. This should not be the case but we have to recognise that a non-stipendiary presbyter cannot—and must not—act as if he or she were in fact full-time and stipended.

The Ecclesion congregation will therefore see itself as existing for the sake of those members of God's people who have not chosen to "belong". This group would be a primary target for caring service and for reaching out in evangelistic concern. Sometimes true concern would dictate service without strings as the only model for appropriate activity. Sometimes there might be specific invitations to involvement at a level that people would be able to respond to. But always the "plough lies waiting in the furrow" and the Ecclesion congregation will be trying to devise appropriate strategies for offering care to the wider church family. Here are a couple of possibilities:

The congregation may be part of a wider linking of congregations some of whom have stipendiary ministry available to them. An adjacent presbyter may be able to take some responsibility for such ministry work as may be required by these families. The unpaid team ministry may be able to minister to the Ecclesion members and the "inactive" adherent list may be taken over by the full-time presbyter.

Another strategy is for the Ecclesion congregation to take responsibility for all of these families itself. Utilising all its resources to the full it will ensure that it has members who are specially trained to be able to offer this kind of ministry. Funerals may be taken by one or two members of the congregation who have prepared themselves for a ministry of funeral celebration and bereavement counselling. There could be a licensed wedding celebrant in the congregation. Voluntary social workers and others could offer community-facing ministries of all kinds. Most congregations are already aware that there are very few points of personal crisis which cannot be met by their own well-prepared members.

Distinction

The distinction that begins to be made here requires us to rethink our understanding of pastoral care. We have used this term to apply to every kind of caring ministry that is offered by the church. It would be more appropriate to use this term only to describe the kind of caring that is given to active members of the church family. Pastoral caring or shepherding applies most appropriately to the "flock". It is not an individualistic relationship at all. Pastoral caring is for the whole fellowship.

If we used this term more carefully we might come to see that ministry to people who are not part of the family might be more appropriately expressed as "social and community service". This is an outreach and evangelistic function whereas pastoral care is a supporting function for maintaining the fellowship and holding the Body together.

If some of our clergy and people had made this distinction in the 1960s when we gave such strong emphasis to the "world writes the agenda" doctrine some of our congregations might be in better shape now. We would still have found lively and vigorous ways of serving in the community—and no NZ church has a better record in this way than Methodism—but we would also have paid more diligent attention to holding together the fellowship of the members who were offering that service.

Two Styles of Mission

Mission and ministry in this congregation will therefore take place in two styles. In the care of the members for one another the style will be _pastoral care_ ; in the outreaching care of the members for the wider community of needy people it will be _social service_.

As members of this congregation find their ministries it will be helpful if this distinction is precisely made. Some people are much better at one than the other. Separate training and preparation are needed for each. As, under the Spirit, the congregation deploys its resources in mission it will take care that people are equipped and deployed where their strengths lie and are not just left free to do whatever they wish on a haphazard basis.

In his presidential year George Goodman made a plea for exactly this division of congregational resources. He said that the local church should set aside some members to attend to the congregation's internal life and work and others to a community-facing ministry. It was never picked up as a deliberate policy of the Connexion but half a century later it still merits consideration.

2—A Team Ministry

A radical approach to the ministry of the local church is called for. It is found in the concept of a congregational ministry team. Some members' ministry will be directed specifically to the care of those who are members of the congregation. Others will work among those who are on the "Responsibility" list and in the wider community.

The team should have been thrust up by their congregation to be their leaders and servants in mission and ministry in the church and the community. Many will have already been working in ministry as part of their regular church commitment; others may find their roles defined as the group and the congregation proceed together over the years.

There needs to be a profound sense of team ministry in each local setting. At the same time as members are called to special ministry they will also be trained and equipped to do it. On qualifying with certain levels of study and experience they should be formally "licensed" or "commissioned".

Ministry can thrive in a team setting in which individual members complement each other in their various ministries. Other members of the congregation can be gathered into work with team members where this is appropriate.

Team Membership

There will always be at least one preacher or liturgist and one pastor and these two rather than a presbyter might spearhead these particular ministries in the local church. Others will assist them in each role but they will be formally recognised as being responsible for worship and pastoral care.

There will probably also be an appointed leader of the parish or congregation. This person would manage the meetings that are needed and "front" the congregation's official life. Some kind of administrator might be responsible for receiving and distributing all the congregation's communications. This person may also handle the basic office work that is required.

In the team there will might be a deacon or two who will be working at the community-facing mission of the people. And there may be one who is eventually to be brought to ordination as presbyter, who will help the community to see itself as a unique part of the holy catholic church. Such a person will not have to be busily engaged in a thousand and one tasks in the life of this local congregation. There will be plenty of people appointed and commissioned to share the work of ministry: but the church will have its own authorised or ordained person to preserve the tradition and to minister the mysteries that are at the heart of the community of faith.

Such a collegial approach to ministry strategy in the local church would seem to be less prone to the frustrations experienced by some voluntary presbyters when they find all the expectations of stipendiary ministry thrust upon them. It would also counter the tendency of a few other local presbyters to consume ministry with a passion and greed that rivals that of their stipendiary predecessors. When presbyters take over the ministry of the church it may be theft whether they do it at the price of a stipend or for nothing.

Clear Roles

For this team to be effective it will be important that members work within their assigned roles and do not work in several different areas at once. The congregation must decide who is to do what and insist that the division of responsibilities be taken seriously.

Meetings

The ministry team will need to have meetings that are frequent enough to ensure that teamship is being developed and that the whole range of ministry work is being fulfilled without unnecessary duplication. But meetings should not be so frequent that the mission of the church comes to be seen as attending meetings. A careful balance will need to be maintained.

Education and Funding

The Connexion should provide proper education for all members of these ministry teams. It should also set up significant recognition and accreditation for various ministries. It will need to provide some funds to bring about a meaningful commitment to team ministry in its marginal parishes. There will be some costs but presumably savings made by not having a full-time stipendiary person will release some local funding; this should not be expended before the necessary costs involved in educating and deploying a voluntary ministry team have been met in full.

Reimbursement

Travelling expenses for worship leaders and pastors should become not an optional extra to be paid if the money is there. It should be a first priority in maintaining the congregation's life. Education expenses for this kind of ministry will be substantial and good preparation for people to do their best must not be prejudiced by lack of available financial resources.

Raising Team Ministry

In 1990 The Episcopal Diocese of Nevada Programme had a very specific programme in which it identifies people for ministry. This was not a private decision—the whole congregation was involved in the process of bringing the right people into the range of designated appointments which was required. Adequate training and status then enable the continuance of a viable and highly relevant ministry.

The Diocese had some 37 parishes in an area of about the same amount of land as Aotearoa/NZ. But there were only 8 full-time stipendiary priests in parish ministry and these were usually in larger congregations of up to 300 or so. Almost all the other parishes were served by non-stipendiary ministry teams. Congregational numbers ran from 150 or so down to as low as seven. Any new centre that wished to remain identified as a centre of Episcopal worship was encouraged to do so. Indeed, two new congregations were commenced using this model. It was a remarkable achievement for a Diocese with only eight parish priests. The "Total Ministry" concept has caught the imagination of church strategists in many places. It has great potential for Aotearoa, as Anglicans in this country are already demonstrating.

In this kind of church all members have a definite part in the ministry of the church. This is not a community of "passengers" or "dead wood" as we once described inactive adherents to justify rather catastrophic pruning of the rolls. The matter of membership and the rolls simply becomes a matter of who is involved in the congregation's life and work. You don't need a membership list—by and large you can look around on Sunday and see who's there.

This is not to say that the Ecclesion church is not interested in those who do not come. Rather, it is an affirmation that until a congregation becomes intentional about the members who do attend it will be limited in its capacity to address those who don't. The gathering together of its resources and the careful organisation of preaching, worship, teaching, and other functions are targeted towards more effective service of the community in which the Ecclesion church is based.

Membership in the Ecclesion congregation will be reflected in a high level of personal involvement and commitment. Every member of the congregation will expect to take an active part in worship, fellowship, mission and service. The varied gifts of each will be acknowledged and used in the most appropriate ways. Naturally some will have more to contribute than others but all will find satisfying opportunities of significant service and participation.

Potential

If this seems to be expecting altogether too much I have two observations to make:

I believe that many members of our existing congregations are under-utilised and would be willing to do much more than they do. This is especially the case if what they are asked to do has some bite to it. The challenge is enhanced and dignified when proper education and accreditation are also offered. The time has come to draw some people out into more vigorous congregational involvement.

Secondly the kind of congregation I am describing will not have the elaborate organisation that characterises most of our present church structures. It will ask less of its people in meetings and functions dedicated to merely "keeping the show on the road" or serving interest needs of its members. The tasks required in the Ecclesion church will be more significant and purposeful as its members assume responsibility for the entire shaping and serving of their life together.

In NZ Methodism the "Electoral Roll" adopted in 1966 reflects this kind of intentional membership. It is for people who wish to stand up and be counted and who expect to play some part in the life and mission of the congregation.

3—GETTING STARTED

An essential element of getting a new Ecclesion programme off the ground is the motivation of the local congregation.

It may sound a bit idealistic but my experience is that where a group of people really see the vision nothing can stop them. If they are only a very small proportion of the congregation they may have to move carefully to win more general support. Imagination, good communication, sensitivity and persistence may generate a mandate for action.

Although any congregation may be more highly motivated to move in a new direction if they have run out of other options, a fatalistic attitude such as "Well, we've tried everything else and there doesn't seem to be anything else to do" is not a promising beginning. There is a need for a long-term commitment to local ministry as the main thrust of the parish's life rather than an expedient to "see us through a bad patch".

People

There will doubtless be a core group of enthusiasts who have made the vision their special concern in the lead-up to a decision for the Ecclesion strategy. The ongoing commitment of this group will be vital. Probably they will form the core of the Ministry Team which is to come later on.

But even if this group is not readily identifiable, the congregation needs to have confidence in its people resources. Sometimes it can be hard for a demoralised fellowship to see these and assistance should be given to identify and develop what is there.

At some point it should become clear that the congregation will be able to identify:

* At least one person who might be authorised to celebrate the sacraments and perhaps eventually meet the legal and desirable requirements for a candidate for ministry if invited to do so.

* At least one additional person who is an accredited Local Preacher or has some capacity for that office.

* Enough others who are committed to co-operate in the forming of the nucleus of an interim ministry team within a few weeks of the institution of the programme.

The specific choice of individuals should not be made prior to embarking on an Ecclesion programme but it should be possible to demonstrate that when the time comes to act the people will be able to be found.

Property

There must be suitable meeting spaces for regular Sunday congregational use or a declared willingness to word towards their provision. There must be a commitment to reduction of dependence upon church buildings—especially along traditional lines—and their replacement with facilities more suitable for Ecclesion congregations.

To try to bring an Ecclesion congregation to birth while being wedded to the existing structure is like the congregation who decided on a very divided vote to build a new church. Some people were perfectly comfortable with the existing church and opposed replacing it but others were keen to do something and eventually everyone seemed to be satisfied by the following resolutions:

> * That we build a new church

> * That we incorporate as much of the old building into the new building as we possibly can

> * That the old building continue to be used until the new building is completed

Such a compromise will ensure nothing happens. The Ecclesion congregation usually has to bite the bullet and make a completely new start if it is to succeed. Fiddling with the peripherals won't really change its heart and life.

Stipendiary Presbyter

There will be a stipendiary presbyter contracted to bring the necessary resources of enablement to the ministry team. This presbyter must understand the dynamics of this special task and be well equipped to teach, model and delegate. Experience and qualifications to act as a "supervisor in ministry formation" (we are coming to that later) will be required. This person will usually be a part-time or adjacent presbyter appointed especially to assist the development of the Ecclesion congregation.

Financial Resources

Costs will certainly be involved. It should be fully recognised that much of the saving in stipend costs previously met may be needed for expenses in establishing the Ecclesion programme. At least 10-20% of a stipend should be budgeted for these new costs plus whatever is needed to retain the services of a stipendiary presbyter in the education role.

However, some increase in involvement and commitment of the Ecclesion congregation will usually be reflected in a significant lift in disposable income even after all legitimate ministry costs are covered. There is room for a "missionary" approach to resources set free by this programme.

The Wider Church

There must be adequate District support both in terms of official policymaking and goodwill of significant individuals nearby. If the District mind is divided about the Ecclesion strategy and not willing to give unequivocal support that could be a grave hindrance to the programme.

The Connexion would need to be more intentional than it has been. There is still a need for a clear strategy for Ministry Teams and a generous capacity to be available in appropriate consultations. Seed funding should be available to assist parishes engage in explorations that are relevant to their situation.

Summary

Basic issues for the Ecclesion congregation include re-defining what is meant by the pastorate and clarifying the distinction between those who are active and committed and those who merely have nominal links with the church. This distinction is expressed in the separate concepts of pastoral care and caring service and in the ordained ministry of presbyters and deacons.

A Ministry Team must be at the heart of all local ministry. The calling and the work of ordained individuals must be set in the context of that team. The Connexion must invest resources in education and nurture of the ministry team. Ways must be found to enable team members to do what they can do best.

Getting started is a matter of motivation on the part of many people and organisations. The key to it will be the enthusiasm and dedication of a small core group of people some of whom will have potential to work in the ministry team that will develop.

# 6

# Ordained Ministry and Ecclesion

Reviewing my 1990 suggestions for ordained ministry in 2015, I am aware that much has changed.

There was then a major section on the place of ordained ministry in the Ecclesion congregation. I described how candidates might be better prepared for ordination and included some of my own hobbyhorses about ordination in the final chapter. I am less comfortable with this material now than in 1990 for several reasons.

First, the material on ordained ministry provided a distraction from the main theme of the book which is to do with the small congregation. Whether its ministry is provided from a stipended full-time person, or a part-time volunteer ordinand, or a lay ministry team in which one person is authorised to conduct the sacraments is not the point. The central theme of the book is about re-shaping worship, not re-shaping the ordained ministry. I have the feeling that central concept got lost in the attention given to issues that almost inevitably injected themselves firmly onto the agenda in the last couple of decades.

Also, it is a fact that the denomination has made huge changes in the way people are prepared for ordained ministry. I do not flatter myself that my little book necessarily made a great deal of difference. Perhaps I was just pointing out the obvious. But, for whatever reason, many of the suggestions I made in 1990 have now come to pass. For some years there has been a multi-faceted approach to theological education and ministry formation and there are more people than ever before engaging in some forms of theological study. From this large pool it seems likely that sufficient candidates for ordination will be found.

The dramatic decline in both members and in small congregations has continued. It was my hope that the book might contribute to some re-thinking about the strategy of spreading the ordained even more thinly over the parishes but this has not happened. Strategies for organising parishes and congregations are still oriented more around availability and affordability of clergy than any other factor.

The draconian decision to close church buildings because of the risk of death and destruction due to earthquake has forced many vulnerable congregations into different prepmises. Indeed, it has already brought about the closure of some congregations, faced with impossible costs to bring their buildings up to the Connexion's impossibly high standard.

Another significant change is the reality that the Methodist Church in this country is becoming increasingly Pasifika in numbers, influence and theology. The first edition of this book alluded to this presence and to the unlikehood that the Ecclesion model would hold much interest for huge congregations expressing their faith in a fairly conservative style. With the majority of candidates for ministry coming from Tongan, Samoan and other Pacific communities, the style and requirements for ministry in Ecclesion congregations are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

However, for the benefit the more international readership which may dip into the ebook version, the following three sections are restated, with some amendments. If the congregation where George and Heather worship is to be developing along Ecclesion lines what is the place of the ordained "minister"? Do they need one at all? What about people in the stipendiary ministry system who need the assurance of ongoing work? If Sunday morning becomes just a bit of a gathering for friends to get together and have a chat, is the Ecclesion programme going to put a whole lot of employed clergy out of work?

The answers to these questions will centre on the central principle that the Ecclesion congregation would develop the ministry of all of its members. But it would require significant leadership.

Ministry formation and education would be required of all who are in active leadership in the ministry team. In 1990 I assumed that the team would include an ordained presbyter. As they would, under the Ecclesion scenario, continue to have significant roles in the life of the church I gave them a considerable number of pages. And in the process I was able to ride a few hobbyhorses that took me even further from my central theme. Let's face it, at that time I was writing what I thought would be my only book on the subject.

So, as in 1990, we'll look at ordained ministry in the two groups that were available in the Methodist Church at that time: local presbyters and stipendiary presbyters.

1—Local Presbyters

It should be clear by now that a major thrust of ordained ministry in local congregations can be by way of part-time people who have made themselves available for specific covenanted ministry on a non-stipendiary basis. There is usually a connexional strategy to put them in place, especially when the need has occurred through vacancies left by stationing or other unexpected circumstances.

But a number of recent "supply" appointments have been arranged without so much as advising the Development Division until after the event. At both District and Parish level people have felt free to make arrangements for individuals to take significant responsibility in parishes, usually as "Lay Supply".

This kind of initiative may be commendable to a point but is not exactly what should take place under the present regulations. Its worst feature is that it tends to perpetuate the concept that one individual is required to take the responsibility for the congregation's ministry. It may bestow a challenge on persons who do not have the skills to meet it. If leaving all the work to one highly trained person tends to suppress responsibility for the ministry of all, appointing an untrained person to that position certainly does not improve the situation.

A Personal "Call?"

Part of this problem is due to our understanding that God "calls" an individual to full-time stipendiary ministry and that the Church responds to that call with evaluation and selection. Inherent in the 1976 decision to admit people to training for "local" ministry on a part-time non-stipendiary basis was the very significant flaw that the procedure for entering into such ministry should be essentially the same as that for candidates who were offering for College education.

The requirement for a Ministry Covenant certainly ensured that there would be a setting in which the ministry could be exercised. But the procedure by which the individual may offer first and the congregation then have to find a place for ministry has been by far the most stressful and painful part of the new programme. It should be changed.

Local Ministry should be available only for a congregation which is throwing itself fully into a style of life in which voluntary presbyter ministry may be effective. Such a congregation should not have access to another presbyter for sacramental and other ministries; the candidature should originate in the congregation's need for presbyter ministry.

The Calling Workshop

The identification of candidates for local ministry should arise out of a congregational process of analysing their needs for ministries of all kinds and their choice of the person most suited for various ministry roles.

A visit to the Diocese of Nevada in 1989 provided insights into a model of calling people to a team ministry. Volunteers and suggestions of names were not called for during this process. The various aspects of necessary ministry were identified. The presence of the Holy Spirit was especially invoked and then the list of job descriptions was distributed to every person present. In a final act each member present wrote in a name for each position and the sheets are brought together in an offering. Even then the "results" were not shared but go back to the Bishop who then issued individual "calls" for specific roles. The invitation was to consider whether this "call" from the Church might also be for each of those so chosen, a personal call from God.

A process along these lines was developed in detail by a small consultation at Camp Hilite in Koraleigh NSW by the author and a small group of colleagues from the Victoria Synod of the United Church of Australia. This model is dramatically different from the usual procedures for candidature for local ministry. It enables the fullest participation of members of the congregation in a secret prayer ballot by which names for various ministries are offered to a regional or district executive who may then issue calls to individuals. Various kinds of ministries are put in place in this way, including the ministry of Local Presbyter. The procedure is described in detail in The Cavalry Won't be Coming, by ColCom Press.

This procedure changes what we have understood to be the usual order of events. Instead of the personal discovering a "secret" call and the church evaluating it in terms of its own needs, the church now takes the initiative. Then the person is invited to see if a personal call of God comes through. Too often it seems that the congregation is attempting to co-operate in helping an individual to "fulfil his or her personal Call".

New Zealand?

It is this kind of approach that is commended for the local ministry in our church in this country. We should shift our emphasis from the presbyter candidate onto the ministry of the whole congregation. We should develop a sense of mutual commitment to mission in quite specific terms and then identify the appropriate persons to offer as candidate for presbyter and deacon afterwards. The existing Parish Consultation Process for development of a Ministry Covenant could be quite simply amended to enable this shift of priorities.

Once candidates for local ministry are identified they could proceed through the regular candidate procedures. We could perhaps be more faithful to the spirit of the 1976 decisions by providing a separate candidate track for such people. A combination may be an appropriate compromise.

But what matters is that candidates for local ministry should be thrust forward out of a declared strategy of the congregations, not just out of some "inner" or "secret" call to personal fulfillment. Our procedures have been trying to take account of this for some time but with only mixed success. The requirement that the candidate be identified as a member of a team in ministry in a specific situation would sharpen and clarify our purposes. It would improve our ability to assess such candidates. And it would give us a basis for education that would involve far more people in the local setting.

I said in 1990 that the Ecclesion congregation could have a "Local" presbyter whose responsibility would be confined to its own life and work. This person would probably be a volunteer without stipend and working under a precise Ministry Covenant signed by the congregation or parish, the person and the Connexion. This presbyter will probably be employed in the local community and will be, ideally, a local resident.

Experience now suggests that the Local Presbyter model is not a good fit with a local ministry team. When the first Local Shared Ministry team was set up in Bay of Islands, we did not look for someone to bring to ordination. In the first place, the likely candidate was not willing to engage in any process leading to ordination. Secondly, since writing Ecclesion, I was becoming convinced that ordaining any person in a lay team would not be much different from placing a stipended minister in it—sometimes all the expectations of an ordained minister were heaped onto the volunteer. Authorisation of a lay person to administer the sacrament became an entirely satisfactory option for that parish and has continued.

2—Stipendiary Presbyters

The normal way of providing for ordained ministry in congregations has been through presbyters who are trained in the theological college and on probation and who are available for appointment at the direction of the Conference. This is a full-time vocation and the Conference and the individual have some understandings about the permanence of the relationship.

We have discussed how the full-time and life-long elements of this particular way of doing ministry have put pressure on smaller churches to close down or amalgamate. However, if these elements can be controlled in any local setting College trained ministers can be used in the Ecclesion congregation. There are at least three ways in which existing Connexional/parish strategy can do this.

(a)—Tentmaking Ministry

Clergy who have left stipendiary ministry for other employment have sometimes made themselves available for a limited period for presbyter work. Retired clergy have also worked on the same basis. This is a simple solution that requires no shift in the present law. There are adequate regulations for local ministry covenants of this kind in our present law and practice.

The biblical and historical warrant for tentmaking ministry is strong and it has been present to some degree or other throughout the Christian era. It is only in comparatively recent times that ordained people have normally become "professionals" in the sense of being paid on a full-time life-long basis to work for the church.

For a congregation planning to move deliberately into an Ecclesion mode this could be a viable strategy. It could enable a progressive development from heavy dependence upon stipendiary ministry to a more independent position. Those who have experienced this kind of work report that it can sharpen up their identification of what is actually vital presbyter ministry and what can in fact be performed by other people.

Arthur Dickie at Kawerau and Ashley Corlett at Taumarunui both pioneered deliberate strategies of this kind in our church. The parish boundaries were not changed. The organisation remained the same. But stipendiary ministry was simply replaced by a contractual ministry of limited hours while the person concerned was employed in another vocation. Other examples have followed.

There are still some clergy associated with our church our church who are not in congregational ministry of any kind but who might be willing to join in a covenant for clearly defined presbyter ministry in a congregation that otherwise did not have a presbyter. If it were a requirement for remaining in Full "Connexion" that all clergy who have sought permission to be left "without appointment" in some way or other be covenanted in some vital form of congregational ministry there might be more such arrangements

Disadvantages

Tentmaking ministry is always liable to fall into the trap of carrying out all the functions of the stipendiary presbyter. Supernumeraries are particularly prone to this as they do not have outside limits placed around the time they have available. Many experienced clergy enjoy the traditional roles of presbyter so much that they tend to over-perform them. They may also know no other way of behaving except what has worked for them over the years. Such people will not be likely candidates for a congregation that is determined to embark on the Ecclesion programme. Both they and the people could become frustrated.

Tentmaking ministry is also very expensive as a long-term strategy. It would not be economic to bring candidates through the College course only to spend a large part of their working lives in tentmaking ministry. It is simply bad use of resources for both the candidate and the church.

This strategy could also become a very attractive option for some ministers for the wrong reasons. Many who find themselves frustrated with some aspects of parish ministry have welcomed the opportunity of working in a less dependent relationship with a congregation. The option of seeking secular employment and doing rather less work for the congregation has considerable attraction.

(b)—"Yoked" Appointments

We have not used this term in New Zealand but the concept is familiar. It consists of sharing the appointment of a stipendiary presbyter between two or more parishes and providing joint ministry without re-arranging boundaries and administration of the parishes concerned.

This strategy could be used for a Local Shared Ministry or Ecclesion congregation. A presbyter engaged in a fairly full-time position in a regular parish could be simultaneously appointed to a very small parish or congregation where the work of mission and ministry is being seriously undertaken by the members who do not otherwise have a possibility of an ordained person. The presbyter in this situation has to operate in two quite different modes. In one situation a more or less traditional role may be required but in the other a much more limited and specific role would be called for.

Some presbyters have been quite intentional about acting as resource persons and trainer-enablers rather than "doers" of ministry. Our Church has practiced this in some situations (actually, it has preached about it more than it has done it successfully) and, of course, a traditional Methodist circuit with several congregations should be able to adapt fairly readily to this kind of situation.

Limitations

Too often, however, the yoked or circuit ministry tends to provide only a more slender response to traditional ministry demands. People still expect that "the minister" will do this, that and the other. If the person concerned is shared between more than one parish the expectation may be reduced in amount but not necessarily in kind. It takes considerable determination for the yoked ministry strategy to contribute to a growing sense of mission by the people themselves.

The yoking of appointments to spread the full-time presbyter icing more thinly on the church cake should not become an easy route in every situation.

(c)—The Circuit System

The preferred appointment structure for the Ecclesion congregation is something akin to the Methodist Circuit system. Each congregation will be a part of a wider parish whole. Small congregations especially should be grafted into larger "circuits". Unlike Local Shared Ministry, the Ecclesion principle may possibly not sit well in a "one-church-parish" situation; it may benefit more from a sense of partnership in a wider enterprise. It may also gain support from the opportunity of choice for those who prefer to worship in a more traditional style or among a larger congregation.

In the circuit structure in which an Ecclesion congregation finds itself there will be a Presbyter who will have oversight of the whole parish and its congregations in the manner of Wesley's Circuit Superintendent. Several local congregations may be part of the total parish. Some may be large enough—or dependent enough—to justify full-time stipendiary presbyters. Others may have shared ministry without being committed to the Ecclesion scenario.

Benefits

The circuit strategy for deploying presbyters is as good for larger traditional churches as it is for the smaller dependent ones or the Ecclesion communities proposed here. It offers a basis for mutual support and inspiration in units much smaller than our ever-expanding districts. It ensures that small congregations do not find themselves completely alone. It gives larger well-endowed congregations a challenging field for mission that is not completely remote from their own borders.

The circuit system also lends itself especially to the delicate balance between congregationalism and connexionalism that was the inspiration of the Methodist movement. It is an ideal structure within which to develop the Ecclesion congregation.

(d)—The Paradoxical Presence

There are very important issues relating to the role of the stipendiary presbyter in the Ecclesion setting. One is that—as I have doubtless stated many times—any small congregation will be less likely to realise much of its potential if there is a stipendiary presbyter already there and exercising ministry.

It has been assumed that reducing the availability of the presbyter for a given congregation will release the ministry of the people to fill up the gap. "If the presbyter is only available three days a week the people will take up more ministry". So runs the theory. My experience suggests that as long as the clerical cavalry can come galloping over the horizon when anything becomes a bit complicated for untrained people or when members complain that they haven't had a visit from the "real" minister, the development of truly Ecclesion ministry will be impeded. The "Lone Ranger" style of ministry, to adjust the metaphor, is the inevitable result of a policy of retrenchment according to the reducing capacity of the people to pay for the inflated cost of ministry. To stretch the presbyter ever more thinly, it is the last resort of a shrinking church.

I suggest that a major requirement for lay people to be successful in claiming their ministry is for the stipendiary presbyter to disappear over the horizon once and for all. Indeed, parishes that have made a success of lay ministry have usually done it when that ultimate pressure came upon them. As long as there is some portion of a presbyter available their own effort will be minimised. It is as if the very shadow of the adjacent presbyter inhibits their involvement.

However, when the presence of the ordained person is gone altogether congregations have proved again and again that they can muster the necessary resources and skills. Some have surprised themselves by the competence with which leadership developed and tasks were completed. The sad thing in these situations is that when a stipendiary presbyter is appointed subsequently everyone can easily resume their former secondary role—sometimes with a great collective sigh of relief. The pressure, they may tell you, was really too much. "We coped—but it was a terrific effort."

They are more than partly right. They probably trimmed their expectations of each other to a considerable degree but the chances are that they did their best to emulate the ministry style of the stipended. In attempting to maintain most of the existing structures of parish life and work they gave unstintingly of their time and talents and probably ran themselves into the ground.

With more knowledge of alternative styles of the Ecclesion congregation they could have saved themselves some of that effort. With some parish education in realistic expectations of ministry they could perhaps have managed better and for longer. With some careful pastoring of some members who resented the lack of a presbyter and needed some time to talk through their concerns the enthusiasm of the workers might have been blunted less quickly.

The irony is that what could have helped them was a teacher and enabler. The minister who had to be escorted beyond the horizon to enable the people to pick up the task and run with it may have been the very person who could help them institute the new styles of ministry that are appropriate for the Ecclesion community.Is not this the popular model of the modern presbyter: not a **doer** of ministry but an **enabler** and facilitator of the ministry of the laity? How, then, can stipendiary presbyters be used to carry out these roles without inhibiting the ministry they should facilitate? I am quite sure that these questions can be answered in new strategies for deploying stipendiary presbyters.

Intentional Recruitment

If an Ecclesion strategy is to develop, we will need to review the way in which presbyters are called. The traditional method of seeking candidates for lifelong stipendiary ministry by waiting until God "moves" a person to come forward with a "secret" call, will not be sufficient. This typically Protestant/Evangelical order of events is not the only way in which people may be called to ministry. In recent years there have been some firm proposals that the ecclesiastical call should precede the secret call; the Connexion should not invite candidates who have experienced a secret call but should go out and look for the people it wants and then lay a call before them.

Given the need to deploy clergy who can minister in a huge range of different contexts we may have to devise ways of raising people to special ministries as enablers, resource people, administrators without invoking procedures more appropriate to the "general work of the ministry". Already a small number of lay people has been appointed to work with Local Shared Ministry Teams. The lack of a formal theological education in some may be a cause for concern but any good enabler can find resources when they are needed.

The Circuit Superintendent

Superintendents should be appointed, as were Wesley's superintendents, in the centre of a group of small congregations most of which will be served by ministry teams and local presbyters. In an Ecclesion setting a superintendent might give oversight to a group of congregations each of which has its own local celebrant, properly authorised or ordained by Conference. The primary roles of the superintendent would be those educational, inspirational, enabling skills of which these days much is spoken but too little done. The Ecclesion model would permit this strategy for ordained ministry to begin to work.

A Commuting Presbyter

Another approach to the problem of the stipendiary presbyter who is both needed and not needed in the Ecclesion setting is also very elementary: arrange for the presbyter to commute. It should be perfectly practicable for two parishes to share a presbyter—but only if the two parishes must be far enough apart to ensure that the "Lone Ranger" cannot come galloping over the horizon at a moment's notice for every call for help. The distance between the congregations might be 200 miles or more and the minister should commute as infrequently as once every few weeks.

While with them the Presbyter would take up some of the regular ministry work, relieving all members of the ministry team so that they were not easily overwhelmed by the unremitting pressure of high expectations. This might involve some specific "damage control" in areas of the pastorate where the new concepts were catching on only slowly. A good deal of sensitive and intentional visiting may be needed. a warm pastoral style, profound understanding of the essentials of the new models of ministry and ability to show absolute confidence in the ministry team would be essentials.

During these periods the presbyter would obviously work with the ministry team trainees. Team members could be "critiqued" in their roles and encouraged to develop the skills to do this for each other on a regular basis They would be given considerable training and oversight in the skills of effective team work. Specific preparation could be directed towards events that would take place once the presbyter has vanished over the horizon. Upon his/her return there should be comprehensive de-briefing sessions built into the next phase of the educational process. While the stipendiary presbyter is away the ministry teams would be completely relied upon for all normal parish ministry functions.

Once a disciplined pattern of intentional development of local ministry skills is established in this way I believe the congregation's dependence on stipendiary ministry will begin to reduce. It may take a year or it may take three but it will happen. The kinds of strategies proposed here offer exciting new incentives for those in full-time stipendiary ministry. Involvement in education of large numbers of ministry teams and the exercising of the special skills required will offer many rewarding satisfactions in years to come.

A footnote to this chapter is that when I moved to the Bay of Islands as "supply" in 1990 I asked to be appointed part-time to two parishes more than an hour's travelling apart. Such a proposal was beyond the imaginings of the hierarchy of the day and I was placed half-time in the Bay with the promise of short-time consultancy work out of town for three months of the year. In the event, over the next four years I found such opportunities myself, mostly in the Uniting Church in Australia. As is explained in The Cavalry Won't be Coming, the greatest learning opportunities for the team occured during my absence rather than during the times I was back in town.

It is a sad reflection on the ordained ministry that they inhibit the ministry of the rest of the congregation at least as much as they facilitate it. It is not putting it too strongly to say that both lay people and ordained have entered into a conspiracy of theft. "We will pay you a stipend, and you will do our work of mission and ministry". Only the removal of the stipended clergy from the grassroots life of the congregation can change this situation.

Summary

New Zealand Methodism has the necessary structures to assist the development of Ecclesion congregations with appropriate stipendiary ministry. The present regulations for candidature and stationing of Local Presbyters need to be set in the context of a local team of leaders working together. This work for both lay and ordained should be only in the context of a congregational strategy for a team of people in ministry.

Whether with Local Presbyters or Local Shared Ministry, NZ Methodist basic understandings of membership and mission are appropriate to the Ecclesion vision. No congregation needs to delay implementing an Ecclesion lifestyle because it is under the impression that it is incompatible with Methodist theology and law. All you need to do is start.

# 7

# Education for Ecclesion Presbyters

In 1990 I described three individuals who symbolised the different strands of preparation for ministry. Since then the kinds of changes I envisaged have largely been instituted. The Theological College programme is varied and wide and copes with a substantial range of individuals and needs. We will traverse this ground again only for the sake of the record. It reflects the situation in the late 1980s, not the current situation in the college

> **Kate Smith** _is chairperson of the Parish Council of her small rural church. She has been a very acceptable lay preacher for seventeen years, most of this time in her present congregation. Her family of three have left the region and she is finding more time for church and community service than she used to have. With some decline in the local population the Co-operating parish where she now worships has been forced to accept that full-time stipendiary ministry is no longer an option for them. An adjacent parish has the same difficulty and is proposing that they pool their resources._

**Kate** stands for a few people who will need to be brought into local ordained ministry in the Ecclesion congregations. They are people of personal, intellectual and emotional maturity. They have been nurtured in the faith and the church and know the difference between them. They are experienced leaders in their local congregations and some have been thrust forward by these congregations to the point of offering as candidates for ordained ministry.

Their ministry has already been clearly defined out of the needs of the local congregation or parish and they know what it is they are offering for. In most cases they are already carrying it out to a greater or lesser degree. Furthermore, they have no aspirations beyond this specific ministry. They are not seeking a lifelong status and certainly not a paid position some time in the future. To meet the present need is good and sufficient motivation for their candidature.

The Church must have a programme that appropriately prepares Kate and her colleagues for effective local ministry. It must take account of their maturity as individuals and as Christians and must build on the strengths that have become evident through their years of service. It must be related intimately to the needs of their local communities and yet must also graft them into a profound sense of the "connexionality" of the denomination and indeed the whole catholic church in every age.

> **Ron Jones**

Ron's situation is quite different. He could be the typical theological student of the 1950s except that in the next half-century more of his group came forward as married students. He expects to serve the Church for the whole of their working lives and recognises that three years of full-time residential education followed by two years on Probation is the normal pre-requisite for ordination and that kind of service.

However, he is also aware that as well as the Church paying a high price for their education he himself and his partner will have to make a substantial sacrifice to be present at the College. They need to be satisfied not only that the Church's requirements are appropriate and fit their own personal aspirations but are worth the sacrifice.

Ron and his contemporaries are grateful for the opportunities of substantial study but are not unaware that some people come to ordination in a much shorter time with much less emphasis on academic study. Sometimes they feel resentful that the church seems to be casual in the way it approves people for ordination.

A significant feature of aspirants to full-time ministry in the Methodist Church is that in the last few years the overwhelming majority of candidates has been of Pasifika background. Many have a good grasp of idiomatic English, but the sometimes uncomfortable reality is that most of them will be needed to serve congregations of largely papalagi membership. Certainly not all will find themselves in congregations of their own ethnic preference. What this means for the future of small, traditional Papalagi congregations is not yet clear but any concerns can only enhance opportunities for the local shared ministry strategy.

> **May Strong**

May represents a group of women and men who are finding that the fulfillment of most of a lifetime of work leaves them with something to offer the church in the final working years when they are less financially dependent and looking for new challenges. They are a largely untapped source of full-time stipendiary work. Many of them find voluntary employment in various aspects of the church's life but some are appropriate candidates for stipendiary ministry in a denomination which is battling to close the gaps after the Stationing sheet is adopted each year at Conference.

"Supply" ministry as a lay person is a way of trying oneself out. It provides invaluable experience and with a more thorough educational programme built in would offer considerable opportunity for May and her colleagues. And if some of them decide to offer for ordination the church has already provided procedures to consider the possibility. Candidature of a person over 55 has not so far been refused on principle and it is appropriate for people to be sought out from that age group with a specific commission to enter an appropriate educational programme and serve for a defined term.

People such as May have a great deal of experience of the church as it is at present and can minister very effectively in some congregations. They may have limited capacity to adapt to the changing needs of the church of the future but where an existing congregation requires a more or less traditional ministry for a limited period such presbyters have a great deal to offer. Neither they nor the church need be committed to a long-term ministry in which the conditions may change dramatically but they can fill a present need and fill it well.

The church should seek out more of them during the current stationing situation so that the vigorous and highly motivated young Rons are not limited to the more conservative congregations which may not move into the Ecclesion age.

All these three notional people share a common factor; the ordained ministry of presbyter seems to be on the cards. They have distinctive needs in terms of selection and preparation.

Ministry Formation

Future education/formation programmes in the last decade or two have been taking into account this wide range of ministerial deployment. Flexibility will also be the name of the educational game in the future. The Connexion has shown considerable capacity to pioneer experiments; now its experience must be used to shape up educational theology and practice that will be more consistent and fair to all concerned than has sometimes been the case in the recent times.

When accepting the offer of a person like May to be available for short-term ministry of just a few years we need to relate her education more appropriately to her proposed job description. Simply giving her a "year in the College" has been shown to be not necessarily the most effective way of achieving this. When considering the offer of a very experienced Kate to move from local to stipendiary ministry we must follow our own rules and look more closely at the educational issues. When receiving a Ron for three years full-time College training we should ask many more questions of him and ourselves and we should have a much more flexible educational package available.

Home-Setting Education

What our denomination began almost by accident in 1976 has become one of the world church's most promising developments in ministry formation. The Trinity College Home-Setting programme has commended itself for doing what it sets out to do: to offer an appropriate education programme to the Kates who have been thrust into local ministry at the urging of their congregations.

Most criticism that has been levelled at the programme—both from with the Methodist Church and outside it—relates to misconceptions about its purpose. It was not intended for people who aspire to full-time service whether at candidature or at some future point in time and it should not have been used in this way. It is designed to meet the specific situation in which the sponsoring parish finds itself. A need for an ordained person can be met by the offer of this particular individual; the problem is, how best can this person be assisted to make preparation to act.

Something like the Home-Setting Programme would be essential to the development of Ecclesion congregations involving shared leadership of all the roles of the presbyter.

Distinction

The Connexion should treat candidatures for local ministry quite differently from the requirements for full-time itinerant ministry. Rather than considering the candidate alone we are learning to enter into an exploration with the local church to identify a complete team of potential leaders. A Ministry Covenant is normally prepared involving a ministry team rather than just one individual. The presbyter candidate procedures could apply in the usual way to the person who designated for that ministry but the Covenanting process should be specifically related to a team of at least three other people.

In the same way the education programme should include all members of the team. Stipendiary presbyters in the vicinity should be able to provide enhanced contextual training for Lay Preachers, Liturgists, Lay Pastors, Administrators and Sacramentalists or, perhaps Local Presbyters. The local teams could join with other similar teams for regional one-day events of a more intensive and extensive curriculum. Proper accreditation, at least equivalent to that currently offered Lay Preachers, should be available for all who complete prescribed courses and achieve acceptable standards of study and performance in their specific roles.

There should be separate national gatherings for those offering for ordination as presbyter or deacon. It is good that something akin to the 1980s Home-Setting Residential Weekend is being maintained to develop the particular sense of community and some firm relationship with the College. Funding should be found to enable Lay Preachers, Lay Pastors and other members of ministry teams to experience the benefits of these kinds of assemblies.

Ecumenical approach

In 1990 there was a need to develop a more ecumenical approach to the need for a form of local ministry. Methodism should not put down its present programme while sister churches decide what to do but should grasp every opportunity of extending the practical application of the present law. Happily, the Presbyterian Church has not only put in place an equivalent of Local Ministry but also enshrined in its regulations the concept of a Local Team Ministry. It is a boon to Co-operating parishes that both of these parent churches are able to respond positively to their distinctive ministry needs.

Ministry Formation-Supervision

Many trainee ministers are assisted in their development by what is called "supervision". This is an intimate relationship with a qualified person who assist the student with all aspects of personal and professional development and study. This style of "formation", or development of skills and being, will more and more become the main basis of the church's education programme.

This all sounds a bit clinical. But the New Testament understanding of what we loosely call "minister" included both "elder/bishop" and "elder/presbyter". The common word "elder" describes one who has both a teaching and a supervising role. It is a very appropriate term to use of the kind of congregational leader envisaged in the Ecclesion scenario.

Furthermore, educational supervision is becoming a normal requirement of all who engage in ministry work, whether ordained or lay. It should be exercised not just in respect of congregations but also of presbyters. Formal training in supervision skills will require considerable time and will probably be available only for full-time students in the College. Local Presbyters who have not had the benefit of that kind of education should be given every opportunity of acting and learning through high quality supervisory relationships.

It is now clear that every presbyter is expected to be under supervision for ministry but this is not the point at issue. It is becoming normal that that those who have been educated in the Home-Setting style of programme will acknowledge ongoing education/formation in ministry.

Transfers

We have already noted that some local presbyters have transferred to other places and moved into new parish appointments. This should take place only in the context of a thorough examination of the individual merits of every case, the fulfillment of specific educational criteria relating to the proposed appointment and the person's capacity to meet these. There should also be a firm congregational commitment to the development of a ministry team in the new situation.

Others again, may wish to transfer from voluntary to stipendiary appointments. This also is a case for the most careful consideration: time in the Theological College used to be the normal route into such ministry. It was argued that if such people are itinerant enough to be able to take up a stipendiary appointment they should be able to come to college. It seems that we are much more flexible in these situations than we were thirty years ago. But, no doubt, then as now, we were always under pressure from the "exigencies of stationing"

Funding implications

While the shift in emphasis that is proposed above may not be very far from what has been done in recent years it was clear at the end of the 1908s that more money would be required for direct student costs in education outside of the College. The amounts then available for student expenses in the Home-Setting Programme would not permit a fraction of our presbyter students to enrol for some sophisticated academic courses.

But new approaches in managing ministry education have made dramatic changes in the the way money is spent to provide the church with appropriate people in ministry. And it may still be reasonable that any parish wishing to institute a local ministry team would appreciate that some contribution should be allocated to do justice to the task. Some element of "User Pays" could complement the presbyter-oriented resources of the college to provide adequate funding for delivery of high quality education and ministry formation for all concerned.

The College Programme—Ron and May

After lengthy consideration of the alternatives to the traditional stipendiary role we now must affirm without reservation the place for stipendiary presbyters. Our church must continue to develop a clear sense of what that role will be for the future. It seems very clear that there will be an ongoing need for life-long "vocational" presbyters. The task of educating these people will be made particularly difficult until we are able to offer a realistic "job description". All that we are really confident of at the moment is that it will be rather different from that once exercised by stipendiary presbyters. In recent years the Theological College has paid some attention to what stipendiary presbyters are likely to be doing in the future. But the concept of training enablers of lay teams seems to continue to be very low on the priorities.

A substantial core of full-time students should be working towards good academic qualifications in the basic disciplines. The church should be quite unapologetic about its need for a cadre of "career" presbyters who are not just theologically literate but have the ability to do detailed ongoing theological work for the church as part of their normal ministry. These students will also need to be been selected for their potential as educators in ministry. Theoretical and practical formation of this kind would also be a substantial part of their residential education. Whatever kind of full-time stipendiary ministry continues into the future will need to be able to exercise effective skills in supervision-education and the College must make this work a priority for appropriate students.

The College has greatly extended its formerly modest level of theological formation for many people who might not be described as the theologians of the church but will nevertheless be actively and creatively involved in full-time ministry. Courses for these people are being tailored to their potential for ministry. It ought to become normal for someone like May, for instance, to be covenanted at candidature for a one-year course followed by a one-year probation. Each case could be considered on its own merits as part of the candidate process, not by way of special consideration once the "normal" course was under way.

There seems to be general acceptance that only the best is acceptable. Yet the church is caught up in clergy shortages which foster panic calls for "recruitment" and the occasional acceptance of people who do not meet the desired criteria. To say "We treat every student as an individual" may just fudge the real issue.

Matching and Job Satisfaction

If a person with relatively modest education is to be moved from a fairly straightforward parish appointment to a role involving the more specialist skills such as ministry supervision the church should have appropriate educational programmes in place to make that possible. A Ron, who has spent extra time preparing for such a role could be expected to feel a little aggrieved if the Church simply popped a May into a position requiring specific skills in a moment of stationing pressure.

Let's sharpen this particular issue: May's experience may make her an excellent stipendiary minister in a parish with relatively traditional expectations of mission and ministry. Ron's gifts and skills in delegation and theological reflection and supervision-education may be relatively unused in such a parish but will be needed in a future situation where two or three congregations are seeking help to develop their own ministry using their existing lay resources.

The tragedy of our situation is that in the exigencies of stationing we have appointed some highly qualified Rons to some traditional parishes which have not been able to appreciate and use their particular gifts. Some early resignations from active ministry have been associated with this scenario. In 1990 it might have been possible to re-activate the ministries of some of these able people. But that opportunity is now largely lost.

Costs

Another issue is the sheer cost of residential education. In the early 1990s the Connexion was beginning to discover just how great that is. But it was still slow to do the complete sums. If the student's own loss of income and capital are added to the real cost of owning and operating the joint facility in Meadowbank a figure of over $200,000 can be shown to be the "cost" of bringing each person to ordination. Our church has not had to meet much of this until recently so it has not really been forced to face theological issues involved in the cost of theological education. When the matter of cost sharing came onto the agenda at St John's/Trinity the Connexion was obliged to explore the overall principle of Christian stewardship involved in preparing people for ordained ministry. But the major Trinity Theological College Consultation (which managed to do its business without the assistance of the two people who had been most closely associated with the College programme in the previous years) came out largely the same door that it went in.

Happily, many alternative models for ministry formation and theological education have become available. In some it is possible for students to take acceptable initiatives themselves. E-learning has proliferated widely and Trinity College has taken some remarkable initiatives. More and more people have access to sound academic courses that may lead to a very respectable university qualification. Such a course could be taken by someone like May while working in a stipendiary "supply" appointment. The blend of practical and theoretical study made possible in today's programmes offer an ideal way of qualifying for a shortish period of presbyteral service. The merging of Home-Setting and College-Setting resources for people like May has been a development that may continue to be fostered for all students for ministry.

Conclusion

Kate Smith and her colleagues may be the primary thrust in presbyter ministry in the next twenty years. There are many of them available and, according to the Ecclesion scenario, an increasing number of congregations, old and new, will be identifying them and pressing them into service. Funds will need to be found to give them and their team colleagues better training in their local settings.

The Theological College and the Connexion are going to need many students like Ron in the coming years, particularly if they have a good number of years of service to offer. If small congregations are to develop as this thesis suggest, the Rons of this world will be needed to exercise the changing skills that will be needed.

For the foreseeable future the Church will continue to require people of more modest formal academic education who can nevertheless maintain traditional congregations because they have had a lifetime's experience of doing that as lay people. People like May could make a great contribution in ordained ministry of this kind.

The varied requirements for education can be met by a church which is as flexible as ours. The last two decades has seen significant development of appropriate styles of theological education and ministry formation.

# 8

# The Presbyter Role

The Ecclesion congregation proposed here will need a new style of presbyter. The primary thrust of presbyter ministry will be in local ministry of unpaid or only partly stipended individuals.

Primitive Ministry

This will be based more upon primitive church models of ministry than upon the protestant minister of recent years.

What we know of the early church suggests that the local congregation was a very simple and loose-knit structure. The various aspects of ministry belonged to the whole congregation and were assigned by it to individual members. The responsibility of each person to fulfil one's own ministry and the inappropriateness of individuals claiming the whole ministry for themselves are both clearly spelled out in brief references in the New Testament.

It seems that the early Christians believed that God "gave" the "charism" (or gift) of teaching to some, of preaching to others and other ministries again to yet others. Gifts were not to be used for private edification but for all. The whole community—under the guidance of the Spirit—would determine how this was to be best achieved.

Sacramental Ministry

Among these "charisms" was the ministry of the sacraments. A chosen person from among the members broke the bread and poured the wine for them at the eucharistic meal. This person acted in a "representative" capacity, performing a necessary task on behalf of all. When ordination at the hands of a Bishop became the official rite by which a person assumed this particular ministry, it seems that the congregation still took the initiative in presenting the candidate. When they subsequently wished to put forward a different candidate for ordination the first one simply resumed "lay" ministry as a member.

A changed ministry

From such beginnings have developed both a church and an ordained ministry that bear very little relationship to their birth. Today's church has become a complex organisation with ramifications far beyond the local congregation. The ordained ministry has developed into a lifelong profession which is supported by the church.

Ordination as a Presbyter in our denomination is to "Word and Sacrament and Pastoral Care". It thus makes a takeover bid for almost the entire ministry of the congregation. It is interesting that some other contemporary churches do not use this wording. Some use an ordination formula that is more carefully "ordered". Presbyterians in the USA speak of "Word, Sacrament and Order", for instance. United Methodists in that country ordain to the "office and work of an elder". The Uniting Church of Australia, even in its latest proposals for re-defining what ordination is all about continues to use the term "Ministers of the Word" which could be considered to be highly restrictive when compared with the breadth of our description.

But whatever the actual formula, it is clear that in Aotearoa ordained Presbyters are given wide responsibilities and lifelong status. They are not readily able to resume "ordinary" membership within the lives of the congregations but are expected to give active service throughout their working lives. Their very presence in many a smaller congregation draws functions of ministry to them because they know most about them or appear to be best qualified to perform them. Sadly, they are not equipped to resist this process because they feel bound to be fully occupied. It is psychologically very difficult to delegate any task to a volunteer when one is paid full-time for doing nobody knows exactly quite what.

Professionalism

Many clergy dislike being described as professionals but in many of the worst respects the term fits.

As long as clergy are completely supported by their congregations it is hard to avoid the description. Pious observations that "Of course, what we are talking about is a stipend, a necessary compensation for living costs" do not equate with reality;. Hardly any denominations actually calculate their remuneration on the basis of the living costs of the family concerned. Our church has certainly resisted this in reviews of its remuneration package.

More important issues of "professionalism" have to do with the way in which the various roles of teacher, pastor, preacher, administrator, healer, liturgist, celebrant and so on have been all brought together and handed over to the clergy. More and more of the various functions of the body have found their way onto the clergy's plate. And the latter seem to be happy to have it so—for not only are they obliged to find something useful to do with the vast amount of uncommitted time at their disposal but also must they find some satisfying outlet for their energies. Parish ministry does not abound with satisfactions these days and one way of searching for these is to take on ever more responsibilities.

Resignations

We cannot hope to explain in a few lines the rash of ministerial resignations over the last three or four decades. Suffice it to say that the reasons are probably different from those of earlier times, that they have to do with the church's entire health and understanding of itself, that they are probably related to inappropriate perceptions of the work of parish ministry by candidates and that there are some clear links with a lack of "job satisfaction" whether actually identified and acknowledged by resignees or not.

What disturbs me about resignations over the past three or so decades is the apparently disproportionate number of people of considerable ability who have resigned. If parish ministry is failing to attract and hold the church's best people that is a significant change from past times and should be a cause of profound concern.

When this perception is coupled with the very moderate ability of some who have persevered in ministry there is evidence either of totally unfathomable working of the Spirit or a pretty clear message to the church: something is seriously wrong.

Search for a Paradigm

One thing that does seem to be missing these days is a clear—and mutual—perception of exactly what and who the Presbyter is. This is not actually summed up in what the Presbyter does. This is a ministry of being rather than doing and we pragmatic Methodists of Aotearoa are all too prone to limit it to a set of functional skills. It needs to be acknowledged that this temptation is actually heightened as we move into non-residential ministry formation and part-time and self-supporting modes of ministry.

Ministers as we have known them in the past have been to some extent shaped by the church and to some extent by each other. A growing sense of "professionalism" has led to changes in how the church and its ministers think about the presbyter role.

Recent writers have drawn attention to the shift in thinking about a paradigm or model that describes the work of the presbyter in a nutshell. In time past both the church and its ministers had a fairly clear idea of what the job entailed and were comfortable with it. In the pioneering period this role was often described as Preacher. But Pastor and many other similar terms have all been used to describe the "normal" role of the parish minister in a word or so.

By the 1950s the traditional roles of ministry were changing and in this country our church in particular responded to an understanding of parish ministry as centering around one-to-one counselling work with individuals. Under the influence of Carl Rogers, Seward Hiltner and our own David Williams, parish ministry was summed up in the paradigm Counsellor or Pastoral Director.

Thus it was that Clinical Pastoral Education became the model for pastoral ministry training. Its base in highly specialist institutions such as prisons and hospitals did not seem to be a problem because essentially the work of ministry was person to person. The development of SPE, Supervised Parish Education, is an advance but still tends to emphasise certain sets of personal relationship skills as being central to the Presbyter role. These may appropriately describe a person who, ordained or not, may be paid to be a pastor; they do not necessarily help us to get a handle on the essence of being a Presbyter.

It was ministers brought up on this model who first began the really significant exodus from ordained ministry. Many carried into their first parishes expectations of carrying out extensive one-to-one "problem—centred" ministry which were not to be fulfilled. Many found that the community offered more demand for their counselling skills than did the congregation. Encountering the "Death of God" and the "Let the world write the agenda" theologies of the 1960s many people felt that the church was no longer "relevant" to the needs they saw around them. The minister as Pastoral Director and Counsellor was an image that led them to find other spheres of work.

Facilitator-Enabler

In the 1970s another paradigm for presbyter ministry appeared. This resisted the doctrine that appeared to have said "The minister does it all" and sought to provide a legitimate role for parish ministers in a meaningful way. It attempted to define the roles of ministry more in relationship to the ministry of the whole people of God. So were borne the buzzwords of the current generation and the minister or presbyter became Facilitator and Enabler.

This model attempted to provide a distinctive role for the presbyter and a good balance between ordained and laity in the total ministry of the church. It responded to a re-awakening of democratic principles that rejected authoritarian leadership and it took account of the unhappy experiences of church minorities such as women. It tried to establish a significant and necessary role for clergy without putting them firmly once more in the helm.

While this paradigm has obviously influenced the church very significantly right into the present time it is apparent that a good few church members do not actually wish to be facilitated or enabled.

Worse, more than a few clergy simply do not have the knowledge or the skills to perform such a ministry. And the traditional role of the "minister" as leader of the congregation persists not just in the less sophisticated parishes but even in some official documents that use the buzzlanguage of facilitation and enabling. The whole church needs to find a new paradigm, a new model to describe congregational ministry.

Kenneth Mitchell, in his book Multiple Staff Ministries, proposed the term Overseer or Supervisor. His concept comes from the education-formation sense of the word Supervision. It makes a great deal of sense in some very large congregations and may be appropriate in the North American setting. But the difficulty of explaining that the term is actually rooted in the New Testament understanding of a bishop or episkopos and not in shop-floor management makes its wide acceptance unlikely in flaxroots Aotearoa. A more profound objection to this term is that it seems to find its being in the full-time stipendiary model of professional ministry. If we were raising up an appropriate ministry from within a fellowship of Christian believers who were not already being led by such a person it might be that they would not necessarily choose this kind of person.

A Paradigm for the Nineties

What is now proposed is a paradigm that cuts right to the heart of presbyter ministry. It seeks to bypass other roles that have accumulated over the decades as the presbyter has accepted the status that goes with the stipend instead of the roles that are essential for the health of the worshiping community.

It is not a perfect paradigm. But it comes close. It is a term that describes what presbyters do that no one else can do. It is a term that describes pastoral actions rather than personal status. It is a term that would assist the church begin to recover and re-define all its other roles in mission and ministry. It is a term that includes all the vital roles of presbyter ministry and does not get easily confused with the roles of others who take active part in the mission and ministry of the congregation.

The term is Celebrant. Celebrating is the heart of presbyter ministry. It takes place in several significant ways.

Presbyters celebrate the Wider Church.

An important part of the theology of presbyter ministry is that presbyters are the tradition-bearers of the church. When others forget their roots and cannot account for where the church has come from it is the presbyter who is able to say "This is the rock from whence ye were hewn".

A congregation with its own presbyter thus has immediate links with the heritage of the wider church. The presbyter also symbolises the "Connexional" nature of the living church, guarding against the narrow kind of congregationalism that can flourish so easily in today's small-visioned church communities.

Presbyters Celebrate the Local Church

In celebrating the church a presbyter becomes the catalyst that works on sometimes unlikely elements and produces an amalgam. In helping the Christian community to be and remain Christian the presbyter celebrates the congregation and gives it confidence in itself and its mission.

The presence of the presbyter helps to define the congregation as a legitimate and theological entity and not just a club of individuals with a common interest. A corollary is that it is the existence of the congregation which gives meaning to the presbyter's life and work. Without them the presbyter has no ministry, no purpose.

Presbyters Celebrate Ministry

Celebration involves a kind of leadership that builds community and helps people develop a sense of belonging when "laissez faire" democracy might permit them to fall apart as a community. This is not heavyhanded, oppressive leadership but has a touch of light and laughter about it as it celebrates. It is not so much the management of a meeting or a squad of soldiers as it is a party of children gathered around a clown.

But it has a sense of divine authority about it. It can unlock some of the meaning of life and it can offer appropriate rites of passage for community members as individuals and as a community as a whole. It celebrates birth, life and death, and touches these milestone events with a sense of the eternal.

Ministry of this kind is essentially pastoral. The celebratory role of the presbyter may well involve a personal presence at the heart of the church's pastoral task. But the focus for pastoral ministry will be congregational rather than individual. Nurturing and building up the body will be the primary pastoral objectives.

The presbyter may have special roles in respect of conflict within the fellowship. Any issues that threaten the health of the community will have priority in pastoring. Skills in handling conflict may be very necessary requirements for presbyter ministry of the future. The presbyter cannot take sides on conflictual issues; this will interfere with the pastoring of the fellowship.

The presbyter as celebrant will also be a spiritual director in helping the community identify its spiritual heritage and express this in terms that are appropriate for its day and situation. A central role will be in worship but the presbyter will perform this function as one of a team of people rather than an individual.

Presbyters Celebrate the Sacraments

Although presbyters celebrate the sacraments in a representative capacity this is still the quintessential role of presbyter ministry. It is inseparably tied to the congregation. Indeed, it would be good if the Connexion established that presbyters do not have the right to administer the sacraments outside of their parish of appointment. This could enhance both the congregational basis of sacramental ministry and the place of the presbyter within the congregation.

The strongest argument for ordaining people who have not been to the theological college is that the need of the local congregation should shape our theology of ordained ministry. It is far better to ordain appropriate people than to authorise them to conduct the sacrament. The latter strategy smacks of an emergency situation where a last-resort solution is applied. Providing an ordained person at the centre of every worshiping congregation affirms both the person and the congregation. It is a sign of maturing churchship and not the opposite.

A New Model

This kind of presbyter ministry is not just a slight variant of the model we have experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. It involves a considerable shift of emphasis in the direction of the primitive Christian church and—let it be clearly acknowledged—the early Methodist movement. It is a model that can cope with the current structures of the church but also would assist the development of new Ecclesion congregations. It lies within the present regulations of Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa and is an option for presbyters and congregations right now.

If its different emphasis needs some justification this will be found primarily in the needs of the particular congregation under consideration. Ministry is not some entity "out there" or "in the law book" but it is an approach and a way of being and a style in a particular situation. Whatever is said and done must take its first cues from our situation in the light of our needs.

Scriptural ministry

That is to say its basic shape will be consistent with that of the infant church of the New Testament. It will be a ministry that derives its being from the local congregation to a greater degree than the present Connexionally-oriented ministry of Methodism. It will find as much of its authority in and from the local setting as from the wider church. It may sit lightly to some aspects of Connexional discipline when these conflict with responsibility to the local setting. But it will also have a clear responsibility that is not subject to local wisdom alone.

Sacr amental ministry

The Ecclesion church will encourage only ordained people to celebrate the sacraments. If it requires someone to celebrate the sacraments it will look upon lay authorisation through the Conference as only an interim solution. A well-developed theology of sacramental ministry will characterise people who exercise ministry in this setting. They will have firm commitment to the congregational aspects of sacramental ministry and will celebrate the sacraments for the benefit of the whole fellowship and not as a subjective or individualistic means of grace.

Structural implications

Ordained people are representative of the local congregation at the point of celebrating the sacraments but they are also representatives of the wider church or the Connexion. Those who exercise this ministry will represent the tradition and the heritage of whole church. The discipline of Full Connexion will bind them in a special relationship with the local and the wider church.

The presence of an ordained person defines the local ecclesia or congregation. One presbyter in each congregation can form a theological focus for the life of the community. There is an interdependent relationship between presbyter and congregation: neither can exist without the other. Each has need of the other.

In Practice

What are the practicable implications of this kind of understanding of the presbyter? There seem to be several.

Place of Local Ministry

Firstly, these principles affirm that the former Methodist requirement that all presbyters be fully employed by the church is no longer appropriate. The decision in the mid-1970s to move away from this requirement was appropriate. The church agreed that ordained people could be employed by a parish on a part-time or non-stipendiary basis. It was about time: the United Methodist Church in the USA has over 30,000 small churches many of which would never have survived if it had applied the rigid "full-time minister only" policy of our denomination before the 1970s. It has always had flexible policies of part-time ministries, lay pastors, student ministers and others who did not need to receive a full stipend.

While it is true that there is now a great more flexibility in ministerial appointments this variation needs to be **encouraged** rather than merely **permitted**. And the development of self-supporting or local presbyters could be carried out with a good deal more enthusiasm than has been evident for the first fifteen years of the new regulations.

The foregoing definition should suggest that local ministry might become the primary thrust of presbyter ministry and stipendiary service might be carried out by a rather smaller proportion of the ordained.

Local presbyters, by virtue of the reduced amount of time at their disposal for ministerial work, should limit themselves to functions which are strictly presbyteral in character. This is more easily achieved by people who work for another boss than by those who are on the church's payroll somewhere and have to allocate their time between different aspects of church work.

This is a distinctive task. It requires lengthy experience in local church life and special preparation in an appropriate style of ministry formation. The church must continue to explore ways of becoming more effective in promoting the ministry of local presbyter. Local ministry has a major contribution to make in the Ecclesion scenario for church life and growth in future decades.

Our church is realising this—but only rather slowly. It must become much more intentional. The setting up of the Small Churches Task Group in the Development Division might have been a step in the right direction. Those who would be pioneering new forms of church life would have benefited to be assisted to network together in education and support. Alas, the Task Group died after only two meetings and was never reported back to Conference.

Limits on Presbyter Functions

Perhaps the most valuable outcome of the proposed re-defining of presbyter ministry would be the need to identify and describe the exact nature of that ministry in practical terms.

Central is the concept of the ministry of the Word in authority. But this is not to describe the preaching office as much as all that lies behind the function of preaching in the local congregation. Other people might preach as frequently as the presbyter, perhaps one or two might preach more frequently. But authority of and for the Word in the local congregation is vested by ordination in the presbyter. There is some accountability for the performance of oneself and other preachers. There are links with the church's academic studies and interpretive viewpoint over the centuries.

A church with such a presbyter in its midst is not thrown back onto its own resources nor is it totally dependent on the latest offerings of the popular religious press. A legitimate role for the appropriately trained presbyter is the adequate training and oversight of preachers so that the local congregation is assisted to grow in knowledge of the church's scriptures and doctrines.

Another central role for the presbyter is obviously the administration of the sacraments. Here the presbyter will not simply ensure that all is done properly but will actually celebrate. There must be no doubt that a celebrant is present. This may show in such a minor point as the fact that the celebrant is not offered the bread and the wine by another person but takes them, serving oneself first ("..and then to the people in order" as our Order of Service for Holy Communion used to say firmly).

Sick Communions will be timed to be an extension of congregational occasions, not casually introduced to meet some private need. The use of the Communion in this way is not a part of our Methodist tradition and we do not need to encourage an expectation for a practice that actually belongs to churches whose theology may be quite different from our own.

The traditional pastoral role of the presbyter will reflect a different approach with this new definition of presbyter ministry. The emphasis will be on pastoring congregations rather than individual members. This could involve direct education, assistance and guidance to the people who are responsible for direct pastoral care of the members. It may mean some specific aspects of individual pastoral care that cannot—or should not—be done by others.

But it will also mean some careful attention to necessary business meetings, some proper planning for administrative and other matters. And it will certainly mean some careful maintenance of the Connexional links through district and other relationships.

Communications among and beyond the members may be seen as pastoral tasks for the presbyter whose availability is strictly limited. Even the Connexional mailing and its proper distribution may have pastoral implications for the health of the congregation (though I'm not proposing that this be specifically handled by the presbyter).

Ensuring that the congregation is properly "ordered" and equipped for its mission is a legitimate pastoral task. It is not "administration".

Time constraints on a presbyter's availability will help to keep the pressure on both people and presbyter to ensure that only those roles which are essential are actually carried out by the presbyter. Some self-discipline will certainly be necessary to establish appropriate priorities and carry out an effective ministry.

Criteria:

Presbyters must not take to themselves the ministry that belongs to the whole church. When ministry is being allocated among the people of God this question must be asked: Does this task actually require the services of an ordained person or could someone else carry it out?

The answer may be different from situation to situation and from time to time but the question must be rigorously asked in every case where the involvement of a presbyter is being considered.

In order to carry out ministry effectively the church will assign certain tasks and functions to presbyters but the number of these that require an ordained person is actually quite small. As presbyters and people learn to work within the theological and pastoral limits of the ordained office the whole church will be strengthened.

Ordination

In the minds of most people the act of ordination confers certain functions. Presbyters are ordained to a ministry. So, they feel, ordination is an act whereby a new style of life is entered into and some additional and specific actions are declared to be appropriate for the person to carry out as a result.

But this pervasive yet erroneous understanding of **ordination-as-addition** has tended to assist the transferring of the congregation's ministry from the people to the minister. If an ordained person can do everything a lay person does **plus some other things** as well it becomes inevitable that the presbyter somehow exercises a better, fuller ministry than lay people.

Indeed, it is clear that some candidates for presbyter ministry aspire to being "Super Christian"; they see the ordained ministry as a superior way of serving the church, a more complete surrender of oneself to Christ. It was once almost natural for people to observe of any enthusiastic young Christian "Will he/she now go on to offer for the full-time ministry?"

This kind of motive for ordination is part of the subjective Protestant approach that has given priority to the "secret call" of the individual and has been less responsive to the need of the local congregation. The language of the ordination service itself continues to betray this thinking. The life and work of the ordained ministry today still testify to its primacy in the church.

The time has come to restore ministry to the whole people of God in the congregation. We need to identify the elements of work which have moved from the whole church to the presbyters—congregation by congregation as well as across the whole of the Connexion—and to clarify what roles are distinctively conveyed at ordination. Then the practice of presbyter ministry may enhance and build up the church instead of inadvertently creating a dependent community that can become trapped in a spiral of rising costs.

Ordination is not an "addition" function but quite the opposite. Setting apart some people for special functions and to—yes, we must say it, a certain status in the congregation—is less a matter of conferring additional functions than it is a matter of taking away certain freedoms.

Ordained people are **no longer free to act as lay people**. An essential element of being under the discipline of the church in ordination is that this is done so that the whole ministry of all may be better carried out. To assume responsibility for more acts of ministry and for more status as a presbyter than are actually conveyed at ordination is—however inadvertently it may be—to steal ministry from the congregation.

It is highly questionable whether the privileges that are conferred in relationship to ordination should be continued for those who are not acting as ordained persons. Sir Paul Reeves' announcement to his friends in St John's College in 1989 that on moving to the position of Governor-General he would continue to celebrate communion in the residence once a week identified the issue. It is inappropriate to be a presbyter and not act like one. His particular solution was to conduct a eucharist that seems to me to arise out of an individual need rather than congregational necessity. But the essential relationship between being and doing is nevertheless intact.

Presbyters who are given permission to act outside of a congregational appointment of any kind should be required to forego any privileges that go with being ordained. They should certainly not take presbyter seats in Conference even if appointed to Connexional positions within the church.

On the other hand it would not be difficult to ensure that every Connexional appointee was also the presbyter of a local congregation. They would not be appointed as part of a team in some large congregation just to demonstrate that they were "on the books" but would have sole presbyteral charge for small congregations where the essential elements of presbyter ministry were only available from their living and being. Arguments that they wouldn't have time simply do not stand up if all concerned are disciplined in determining those elements of the mission for which ordination is actually required. A number of such part-time positions matched with Connexional resource skills could increase the variety and style of Connexional resources available to the Districts.

Summary

Presbyters are, in a sense, more vital for the life and health of the church in these days than they have ever been. What is needed is to re-define the presbyter role so that it has a clear sense of being and purpose. When congregations and presbyters do this the people will find new and vital ministry for which they have the skills. Presbyters will discover new levels of personal satisfaction in knowing that what they do is vital for the life and health of the congregation and the good of the whole church.

When this re-defining process is done with some discipline two things will happen:

* a genuine local sacramental ministry will be available to every small congregation through the ministry of its own lay members, called and suitably authorised. Occasionally, sacramentalists may be candidates for Local Ministry and subsequently ordained.

* the role of stipendiary presbyters who have received the benefit of a reasonably complete training in the theological college will come into sharper focus. They will be needed as enablers of ministry teams. Their focus will be on the development of competency among the individuals of the team rather than in close contact with the membership.

# 9

# What, then, shall we do?

George and Heather have read the book. What are they going to do now? If you're in a small struggling church like theirs what can you do?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Write down your own ideas about what you've been reading. See if you can shape up a Vision for your own Small Church—How would it worship? What else would it do when it gathered? Who who give leadership and how would they be raised up? What would be the place of what Methodism calls the "Connexional" link with the wider church? How would it use stipendiary presbyters to stimulate involvement without their having a negative effect?

2. Get two other members of your congregation to read the book and do the same. Then meet together and share your Visions. Do you have some things in common? Could you shape up a shared Vision?

3. If so you might have some confidence in asking a few more people to have a look at the book. Or you might ask some friends around to your home to "talk about our church" and you might share something of what the four of you are beginning to feel. Don't expect people to grasp hold of the whole picture on the basis of just a bit of a chat. See if you can pick out the bits that will stimulate them to get a copy and consider the whole case themselves.

4. Get in touch with the Resources Division of the church (<http://www.methodist.org.nz/board_of_ministry> ), POBox 9357, Newmarket, Auckland. They are charged with providing flexible and appropriate strategies for congregations seeking to develop new ways of being.

5. Meanwhile, you can do a number of Ecclesion things in worship and mission. Some of you could consider formal preparation for preaching, worship leading, pastoral care, outreach and mission and so on. Many really good opportunities are available these days and there is no excuse for not taking advantage of them. All such training will be helpful if you are moving towards a more vigorous model of mission and ministry.

6. Don't expect that everyone on your local church meeting will catch the vision on the basis of a conversation or two. Unless other circumstances force quick action on you, take your time and prepare the ground thoroughly. Certainly do not attempt to rush any kind of decision through your local church governing body until you are confident there is a reasonable measure of consensus.

7. Your church may be able to agree to hold a one-day event to discussion mission and ministry. This could include an introduction to the Ecclesion dream. Some aspects of the event could be modelled in the Ecclesion style to help people see the possibilities.

8. Your church might agree to have an Ecclesion style event on a Sunday morning as a one-off or perhaps as a monthly variation on the usual style. Experience suggests, however, that it is more likely to succeed if the commitment is fairly complete rather than infrequent or "on an experimental basis for six months".

9. Your church might be willing to move quickly to a major consultation on ministry of the kind suggested on Pg 78. This would require an outside person from the District or the Connexion and a carefully drawn up programme which helps people to move to a conclusive turning-point. The Small Church Task Group can assist with guidance in setting this up.

The big issue in all this may be how desperate the congregation is to find a new way through. If your church is managing pretty well the Ecclesion formula may not apply to it.

Over to You

But where a few of you are really dissatisfied with what's going on in the local church and the rest do not share—or even understand—your problems there are another options and you should use them. Do some dreaming and some praying and some planning. You and George and Heather can do it. The whole church needs it.

And if you make a contribution towards reversing the slide in the membership statistics that's great. But what matters is that you do something that is satisfying for you and your people, something that uplifts God in the congregation and the community, something that breathes life into dry bones.

It can be done. It's in your hands.

# Glossary

**Aotearoa** The Maori word ("land of the long white cloud") for New Zealand, now coming into regular use as an alternative name for the country

**Churchship** The best equivalent I can think of for what we used to call churchmanship—a sense of the church that is larger than the sum of the members or even the local congregation. A term that expresses a kind of ecclesiastical maturity.

**Circuit** A very good old-fashioned word that has been regrettably dropped from our official vocabulary. A grouping of several connected congregations and clergy given pastoral oversight by a Superintendent. "Parish" is used today but is not an equivalent term at all.

**Commonwealth** An inclusive alternative to the New Tesatament word Kingdom

**Deacon** This New Testament word for caring servants of Christ is used to describe those ordained ministers who are appointed to serve in the community rather than in the congregation.

**Ecclesia** The New Testament word for the local church. It describes a rather smaller group than we usually think of as the "congregation".

**Ecclesion** My word for the small congregation that has caught a new vision of what it can achieve within its own resources.

**Electoral roll** Instituted in the 1960s this roll contains the names of all members who consider themselves currently "active" in the life of the local congregation.

**Episkopos** The New Testament word translated "Bishop". It has distinct connotations of "supervision" and "oversight" together with "pastoral care". Wesley's (circuit) superintendent exercised these kinds of roles.

**Formation** Used of educating ministers this term expresses more of the roundedness of preparation for ministry than merely doing some study and passing exams. It applies particularly to students who are doing their learning in the actual work, e.g. probationers, in-service and home-setting students.

**Gericon** Bodycomb's word to describe the congregation that appears to be geriatric and contracting.

**Hui** A Maori gathering of any kind, often held on a marae

**Imaginex** Bodycomb's word for the congregation which is aiming for the imaginative but very expensive solution

**Intergenerational** Describes educational and resource materials that are designed to be used in a church setting with all ages present.

**Iwi** The Maori people, more particularly tribal groups.

**Karakia** Worship and prayers in the Maori setting. Any ordained person on the marae might be invited to offer karakia on an official occasion. Even "secular" events are usually opened and closed with karakia.

**Kaumatua** The elders or leaders of a particular marae, tribal or family group

**Kinderspiel** Yes, well, I don't know what it is either but it was a lot of children singing and it was a lot of fun

**Koinonia** The New Testament word for fellowship, one of the Gospel marks of the Christian community.

**Liturgist** This may be a helpful term to define the person who leads most of the worship services but does not usually preach or celebrate the Communion. "Leader" is often used.

**Local Preacher** Wesley's name for the preachers who did not "itinerate" or move from place to place on his instructions. Originally they might have been ordained clergy but were usually lay. In the interests of ecumenicity and more accurate expressions of the facts we changed to "Lay Preacher" about twenty years ago. But "Local" is a very good word in Ecclesion thinking.

**Mana** Ascribed authority, status, influence of a Maori person or place.

**Marae** The ground on which a Maori tribal meeting house is set, particularly the sacred ground immediately in front of it. It is the ancestral "home" of every member of the tribe and they will return to it for a tangi or other major event.

**Minister** This should preferably be "ordained ministers" to whom it properly refers. It now includes both Deacons and Presbyters. It is confusing use this term of lay people. See also ministry

**Ministry** This term should be used only in the context of the whole church, lay and ordained, unless it is specially qualified as, for instance, presbyter ministry or ministry of the word, etc.

**Minita-a-iwi** Lit. "Ministers from the People"; the self-supporting style of Maori ministry raised up by the local tribal group

**Pakeha** Maori term for New Zealanders and others of European descent; the equivalent of papalagi. Lit. "fair" of complexion, but also, says Muru Walters, in manner.

**Palagi/Papalagi** New Zealanders and others of European descent, in contrast with those of Pacific Islands descent.

**Paradigm** A symbol, thumbnail sketch or model that describes, demonstrates or represents the whole: so "celebrant" is a paradigm for presbyter ministry

**Presbyter** The New Testament word for the early church person who comes closest to what we used to call "the minister". This word was restored to our vocabulary in the 1969 Plan for Union and was adopted for use in Methodism soon after that. It is a word that we really have to use now that we have two orders of "minister". It relates to those who are appointed to serve in congregations and parishes rather to ministry in the wider community.

**Probation** A two year period served by a stipendiary minister just out of College. It is a time of mutual testing and evaluation and is followed by ordination at Conference in the second year.

**Scenario** John Bodycomb uses this term to describe the ways in which contemporary churches function.

**Supervision** Coming from the social sciences, this term nevertheless has some New Testament overtones which make it very good for describing the relationship between a student in practical ministry formation and the person who gives personal support, offers critical judgment, and facilitates theological reflection on the process. Many of us believe that every presbyter should be in an ongoing supervisory relationship, the same as any professional counsellor or therapist.

**Tangi** The Maori rituals of mourning, funeral and cleansing when a member of the tribe dies

**Tenestas** Bodycomb's word for the congregation which is tenaciously holding onto the status quo.

**Tradevange** Another artificial word suggested to describe the traditional, evangelical churchship that is still in very good shape in some congregations.

# About the Author

Retired Presbyter of Methodist Church of New Zealand. Passionate pioneer in Local Shared Ministry, consultant in small churches, publisher of niche market books, producer of prosumer video, deviser of murder mystery dinners and former private pilot.

Dave trained for the Methodist Ministry at Trinity Theological College and eventually completed MA, Dip Ed as well. He and Bev married just before his first appointment in Ngatea where their two children arrived. They went on to Panmure and Taumarunui. Longer terms followed at Dunedin Central Mission and the Theological College. During this time he was also involved as co-founder and second national President of Family Budgeting Services and adviser to the (government) Minister of Social Welfare in Home Budgeting.

Dave's final four "working" years were part-time, developing the first Presbyterian or Methodist Local Shared Ministry unit in this country and promoting the concept overseas. Retirement has brought a whole lot more opportunities and challenges including publication of over 100 books of which he wrote about ten and a blog in which he tries to write fairly seriously on a range of topics.

An ongoing adventure with prostate cancer brought Bev and Dave to the Hibiscus Coast Residential Village near Auckland in 2014 but in early 2015 his immediate prospects seem much improved.

Contact Dave

colcom.press@clear.net.nz

davemullan35@gmail.com

Visit Dave on

http://dave-mullan.blogspot.com  
http://www.colcompress.com

Dave's books on church and ministry

**Diakonia and the Moa**. Although published in 1983 this book offers a distinctive understanding of the role of the "permanent" Deacon in the modern church. A5 170p From: Trinity College, 202 St John's Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-9597775-0-4

**Ecclesion — The Small Church with a Vision.** Reflections on the contemporary church and suggestions for revival of the small church in vigorous new styles of Sunday church life, mission and ministry. This book introduces the thinking behind the Lay Ministry Team concept developed for Methodists and Presbyterians in the Bay of Islands Co-operating Parish in 1992. It is being completely revised and updated for e-publication in 2015. A5 140p 978-908815-08-5

**Fresh New Ways — Emerging Models for Mission and Ministry in the Local Congregation**. Ed. Dave Mullan. Papers and reflections from a significant Australian conference, this book details (a) new structures for the church or parish and (b) innovative styles of ministry. A5 130p From: Trinity College, 202 St John's Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-76-X

**Koru and Covenant** : With J J Lewis and L.W. Willing. This book offers biblical reflections in Aotearoa and notes some links between the Christianity of the 19th Century Maori and the religion of the Hebrew Scriptures. Warmly commended by authoritative reviewers and some years after publication still very relevant. A5 120p. 120p From: Trinity College, 202 St John's Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-60-3

**Mital-93—The Church's Ministry in Tourism and Leisure.** Ed: Dave Mullan Presentations at an Australian Conference are supported by dozens of flax roots ideas that have helped. "A fascinating study... an enabling resource" (Pat Gilberd). 82p. 220p From: Trinity College, 202 St John's Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-22-8

**The Cavalry won't be coming (Print version of this e-book)**. Dave Mullan. Introduction to the concept of Local Shared Ministry in which a team of volunteers spearhead the mission of the small church which is discovering that all the resources for ministry are held within its own membership. First edition still available but being revised in 2015. A5 134p, From: Trinity College, 202 St John's Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-99-1

As indicated, these books are available from Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland.

trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz

Dave's other general books

**A Small Qango** Dave's account of the Home Budgeting Advisory Committee to the NZ Minister of Social Welfare, 1978-1988. This small committee had 120 meetings and ran seminars, consultations and training events. It functioned like to no other Quasi-Autonomous Government Organisation with a degree of independence that left some of the Head Office boffins breathless. It achieved huge financial support for family budgeting volunteers throughout the country. e-book only: 978-1-877357-17-6

**Attwood of Hepburn Creek**. The life of Thomas William Attwood, who settled in the Mahurangi 1907, initiated the NZ Fruitgrowers' Federation and represented NZ fruitgrowing interests in South America and UK 1923-1925 and then went on to found the NZ Alpine and Rock Garden Society. Lady Anne Allum of Auckland was his daughter. A5. 134p. ISBN 1-877357-01-4

**In and Out of Sync.** Dave's life story up to 2013. Extracted from a more substantial text, this book presents Dave's personal family background and professional life and ministry. Reviewers have said it offers a significant and insightful view of the Methodist Church of New Zealand in a turbulent and challenging time. A5 220p. ISBN 1-877357-10-3

**John Roulston, Grazier of Calkill & Runnymede**. With Val Mullan of Brisbane. Our attempt to trace the life of the mysterious and very distant relation from the Upper Brisbane Valley. He left a fortune to family members in four countries when he died in 1929. Most of them had never met him. A5. 122p. ISBN 1-877357-00-6

**The Almost Attwoods.** Ed Dave Mullan. Personal stories of the 143 descendants in the first three generations from James and Emma Attwood of Lewisham. A5. 220p. ISBN 978-1-877357-4-9

**The Saga of Wasp (Print Version of this e-book).** Revised and enlarged collection of Dave's short stories, 2014. Some include significant historical material from his early working life with the New Zealand Forest Service. But all were written mainly for fun. Also available as epub, 2015 180p ISBN 978-877357-12-X

These books are available from ColCom Press stock or printing on demand. Some are soon to be made available in eBook format through Smashwords

Contact Dave

colcom.press@clear.net.nz

http://www.colcompress.com

Other ColCom Books

During the last 25 years Dave has published well over one hundred titles for other writers under the imprint of ColCom Press. Most were done in very short runs for niche markets and were delivered to the authors. Some may be still retrievable in some form in 2015.

