Opinions about Ordained Local Ministry...
Why OLM isn't just to be equated with 'Local NSM'
Ordained Local Ministers are set within the collaborative ministry of the local church, usually brought to focus in a Ministry Team or, in Wakefield Diocese, a Core Group. For this reason, OLM cannot simply be turned without remainder into a form of locally deployable Non-Stipendiary Ministry, an auxiliary or assistant ministry available to lend a hand where the need happens to be. For me, genuine OLM is rooted in and nourished by the collaborative context and expressed in team working.
There is a common failure to understand the centrality of the collaborative ministry context to the whole concept of OLM. Some dioceses that have never had an OLM Scheme now find that they can put forward candidates for Ordained Ministry (Local Deployment) without having to go to all the trouble of producing a Scheme: the candidates can simply be trained in the same way as other NSMs on local courses. In this way the concept of OLM is becoming watered down to a form of locally-deployable NSM. This loses the essential heart of the matter, that the OLM ministers within a collaborative ministerial environment that is crucial to the definition and pattern of his or her ministry.
Why OLM shouldn't be seen as a 'less demanding' or academically inferior form of training
‘Home grown’ diocesan OLM courses have sometimes been seen as lacking in theological depth and critical rigour. There may be some truth in this, but the criticism may also reflect a failure to understand the educational and formational models OLM schemes are employing, and a certain ‘tunnel vision’ about how theological and ministerial education should be delivered. OLM training programmes generally aim to design and deliver training that is collaborative in spirit, locally contextualized and founded on good adult educational methods- especially where students may have little or no previous background of study at post-compulsory level.
What about the view in some quarters that OLM is an experiment that has failed?
Good theological argument needs to be put in place, robustly defending the legitimacy of OLM as an authentic expression of the universal ministry of the church. Within the dioceses, more work is probably needed on both the principle and the practice of collaborative ministry. Many clergy (and not only clergy) remain to be convinced that this is any more than one among a range of models of ministry and styles of leadership. Many struggle to make the change to new ways of working that dioceses are expecting of them as, for example, multi-parish benefices grow ever larger and authorised lay ministries continue to burgeon. Some clergy are simply not good at working with colleagues, and indeed some would prefer not have to do so. Dioceses need to recognise that strategies for fresh patterns of ministry and mission bring with them serious training demands.
Some have gone along with OLM despite their personal doubts about it, and are now ready to seize upon any signs that it is ‘not working’ as reason to either abolish it or redefine it out of all recognition. If there is a pastoral breakdown involving an OLM and incumbent, or an OLM and team, the tendency is to assume that this ‘strange new beast’ called OLM is the cause of it. This assumption is not made in cases of pastoral breakdown involving inherited models of ordained ministry. OLM suffers from still being seen as ‘something new’, while having been around for long enough for people no longer to give it the benefit of the doubt.
There is statistical research around that purports to show that Local Ministry does not produce church growth and may even foster decline (see especially the oft-cited work of Bob Jackson). Some of this is superficial and flawed work that can be readily criticised, but it is also true that there is a need for good, solidly based sociological research into the impact over time of Local Ministry practice (teams and OLMs) in parishes, because bishops and others are entitled to ask, ‘does it work’? We need to know what it is we are trying to measure in order to answer this question.
Certain movements that are currently in vogue such as Fresh Expressions and ‘Pioneer Ministries’ are sometimes presented as being in contrast to OLM and Local Ministry Schemes, as being dynamic, missionary and oriented to growth, whereas Local Ministry is seen as safe, essential pastoral and oriented to maintenance. Rightly understood and practised, OLM actually has a creative part to play in these movements. Additionally, these movements are generating a lively interest in issues of leadership which sometimes set the ‘charismatic and visionary’ over against the ‘collaborative’, and this misunderstanding needs to be challenged.
In the debate about OLM a critique of the meaning of 'local' in OLM is sometimes mounted on the basis of the theological position that 'the local church is the diocese' (citing ARCIC I) . I would like to add my contribution to this debate.
I have long thought that this is a classic example of a piece of ‘pure theology’ cut loose from any moorings in concrete social reality. Theology by its nature is always at risk of this: doctrines can be impeccably orthodox yet untrue in practice. ‘The diocese is the local church’, in England at least, sounds like an ecclesiological assertion lacking the evidence for its truthfulness to be verified empirically.
By way of a little analogy I will try to describe how I would understand ‘the diocese is the local church’, if I were to accept it as a true statement. Suppose that the Christian faith is spreading and taking root in Barnsley. Little Christian congregations or cells, groups of followers of the Way, are springing up in various places. Several meet in people’s homes (‘the church in Eileen’s house’, and so on). One gathers teachers, parents and children in a primary school. Some meet in hospitals or pubs. There is one at the Metrodome Leisure Centre, and so on. Each one is under the leadership of local elders raised up from among their number. As time goes by, members of these scattered and diverse groups make contact with each other and the idea begins to take shape that it would be good for them to work together in various ways, to facilitate and broaden their mission to the town as a whole. Gradually a kind of federation comes into being until the day comes when the churches decide to set up a unifying structure with a ‘presiding elder’, superintendent or overseer as their figurehead- a respected, mature, pastorally wise and mission-minded leader to be their public focus of unity and purpose, one elected from among the number of their local elders. And so, by such means, the office of ‘Bishop of Barnsley’ comes into being, whose diocese is ‘the church in Barnsley’, which on that definition becomes ‘the local church’.
The trouble is that this no longer works in the social reality that is the present circumstance of the Church of England: (1) where ‘the parish’ has been firmly established in society for centuries as the basic unit, not only of the church’s social presence but also for a long period as the basic civil territorial division as well; (2) where the Church is established and therefore its Bishops have a multiplicity of roles (not to mention their means of appointment) that make the above description virtually unrecognisable; and (3) where the diocese as a unit has become far, far larger (with the possible exception of the Isle of Man) than the picture painted above presupposes. We cannot buck social reality by means of theoretical ecclesiology alone, however fine and pure it may be- with all due respect to ARCIC!
The apple is the symbol of the Wakefield Ministry Scheme. The OLMs are the 'pips' in it.
Not inferior...just different (originally posted April 2007)
Many diocesan OLM Schemes are in the process of reinventing themselves as formational pathways within new ordination courses being launched by the Regional Training Partnerships. Sometimes this has meant hard questions having to be tackled against the backdrop of a clash of cultures. It was a principle of OLM that 'It is a development in ministry open to parishes and candidates of all social backgrounds' (part of a statement that House of Bishops' Regulations required to be included in the submission document for all OLM Schemes). Of course, all theological training institutions would like to think that they satisfy this criterion: but the current negotiations within the RTPs are suggesting that the accumulated experience of training for OLM has a particular, valuable and indispensable contribution to make to realising this.
'Candidates of all social backgrounds' has to be more than a noble statement of inclusive intent. Often it will require a distinctive approach to training and its educational methodologies. OLM Schemes offer expertise in at least three areas:
1. Training that is authentically contextualised: that is to say, students' studies and formation are rooted and grounded in the context, not only from which they have come, but to which they will be returning, indeed which they have never left! 'All backgrounds' includes people whose personal development, life of discipleship and vocational journey are highly context-specific, and who will flourish far more in a training experience that constantly relates and refers back to that than in one that requires them to be uprooted from it. As always the watchword is: the pattern is different, not inferior.
2. Training that prioritises the collaborative: yes, students will have to complete some assignments for assessment that are their individual work, but the overall provision of assessed work and practical formational experience will incorporate a significant measure of work in context, with others. Formation is for a ministry that is from the outset expected to be collaborative, so that a properly trained OLM should never even consider the possibility that anyone should expect them to be a one-person band or just another pair of priestly hands. Again, 'all backgrounds' includes people whose confidence grows and whose gifts blossom precisely in this environment of team-working. This does not mean they are people who lack leadership quality.
3. Training that really does believe in (and not just pay lip-service to) good Adult Educational methods. You can't deliver as much informational content in an Adult Educationally-designed session as in a lecture...and it can be very difficult devising a syllabus insisting on good Adult Educational principles, that will also manage to fit in all the content 'insisted on by the validating and moderating authorities. But again, if 'all backgrounds' really means what it says, some people will be far better formed for ministry and given a lasting appetite for thinking theologically if they are taught by methods that are experiential, participative and practical, even if this is at the cost of somewhat less of the traditional 'academic' content.
NOT INFERIOR...JUST DIFFERENT.