The Guide contains how-to-do-it advice on starting, developing and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences.
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The Guide contains how-to-do-it advice on starting, developing and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences.
More about The Guide
Posted by Andrew Wooding on 7 March 2011
During my early days of public ministry as a Community Evangelist I led a house group in a set of studies over six weeks. At the end of our journey we thought it would be good to end with a social and the Eucharist. Up until this point the priest had left it all to me whilst giving it his full support.
However to enable us to celebrate the Eucharist he needed to become involved in order to celebrate. Being moderately catholic he came and wore cassock and stole and led us through a simple Eucharist in the home where we had been meeting.
For me it was one of those seminal moments as I realised that we had not drafted in the vicar to 'do the magic' but as a priest in the Church of God he reminded us as a gathering that we belonged to the One, Holy and Catholic Church. We, as a small intimate group, were not the church but a part of it, with the priest coming amongst us – particularly, I would dare to suggest, as he was robed - symbolically helping to put our 'study and journey' into a bigger context.
Historically of course lay communities of sisters and nuns would have had a male priest come amongst them in order to offer Eucharistic ministry. Not wanting to get into the debate of male or female priest I think the important point is that a priest is a visible reminder of the One, Holy and Catholic Church. An ordained priest is not geographically or specifically located in one place or amongst only one community.
Perhaps where we might have gone astray is in thinking that priesthood, at least in Anglican terms of reference, most often is axiomatically equated with leadership. John Tiller's sadly neglected report, A Strategy for the Church's Ministry (CIO Publishing, 1983), would have gone a long way to help us consider this concept.
There are those who argue that a church can only become church as and when it celebrates the sacraments. For the Church of England this requires an ordained priest. Therefore what does this say about lay-led fresh expressions of church? That the lay leader can only take them so far down to the road to being recognised as church?
However if we had an Order of Companionable Priest, they could walk alongside the fresh expression offering a sacramental ministry as and when it was felt appropriate by the emerging community. Apart from having a role alongside fresh expressions, a Companionable Priest could be available to cover vacancies or to walk alongside another priest who might be having a tough time and who for that moment needs a 'Barnabas'.
Having a Companionable Priest honours lay leadership and also serves to remind the emerging community that it is part of the One, Holy and Catholic Church.
Gordon Banks is Diocesan Evangelist for the Diocese of Chichester with a brief for promoting fresh expressions of church.
If you would like to comment on this blog entry, go to 'Comments' at this bottom of this page.
If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Karen Carter. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Army, Fresh Expressions or any of its partners.
Comments
the character of a companion priest
Posted by David Muir on 8 March 2011 - 16:46
Gordon: I am sure you are on to the right track here. I myself fulfilled a similar role in relation to an 'alternative worship' community in the Derby Diocese in the 1990s, and I think it worked well. That was highly eucharistic, and could only be because I was involved in it, but not its leader.
I would only say that it needs a particular attitude of priest to do this. We need 'missionary' priests who know that the community they serve is not their 'culture' and so walks humbly alongside it, enabling it to be what it is, without wanting or needing to 'bring it into line', make it conform, insist on patterns of eucharistic celebration that are 'proper' and fit the culture of the church that the priest him/herself belong to. And such priests need freedom given to them by bishops to fulfil such a role. That's where I was fortunate -- or rather, was enabled to fulfil such a ministry by a trusting bishop. I sense that the CofE as a whole is not very understanding of this.
Posted by Gordon Banks on 9 March 2011 - 15:02
Thanks David - this is encouraging as a number of comments picked up through a Facebook link have been for the most part dismissive and even silly and ill thought through. As you rightly say it is seeking to recognise the servant role of the priesthood who walks humbly alongside as a companion and a critical friend of an emerging Church. Not one who seeks to 'bring it into line,' shades of Jerusalem and Antioch perhaps! I think there is a real danger that Fresh Expressions of Church can become insular and fail to embrace the Church catholic and become the poorer for that.
Posted by David Muir on 9 March 2011 - 18:55
I agree about the insularity, but I fear that mainstream church has been very unhelpful in this regard, in many places. Many FXs sit light to the sacraments because they immediately get into conflict with inherited church authorities over it. If there was an understanding and flexible attitude towards eucharistic rites in FXs, and missionary minded priests ready and willing to fulfil the kind of role both of us are talking about, I don't think we would be where we are today over this. I find it hard to encourage FXs to be more eucharistic when I know what kind of bother they are going to get into if they approach it creatively -- which for the sake of the integrity of their work locally, they will have to do.