EFAC
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EFAC National Leadership Consultation
  WHAT SORT OF MINISTRY? 
 

Paper for E.F.A.C. Conference 2001 by Markus Richardson
  A Taxi driver was heading down the road when the passenger in the back leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, mounted the footpath, narrowly missed pedestrians, swerved back across the road clipped a bus, and finally screeched to a halt just millimetres from a large plate glass shop window.
  The driver spun round and yelled at the terrified passenger, "Don't ever do that again I nearly killed us both. " The passenger replied with a shaky voice, "I'm terribly sorry I didn't mean to scare you I just wanted to ask a question". The Taxi driver paused and said, "No I'm sorry it was my fault. You see it's my first day on the job! I been driving a hearse for the last 20 years! "
  When change comes too fast it can take some getting used to! When change comes slowly, in degrees small enough that stealth hides its effects, we can end up like the proverbial frog in hot water: boiling to death for inability to notice when it is now too hot to stay in the pot!
  The sociologists and analysts are saying that in the history of mankind we have never seen as much change on such a wide global front in such a short period of time as in our lifetimes.
  Sadly, it seems that for the Anglican Church of Australia, change is often resisted strongly despite the clear evidence at hand that without calibrating for the cultural shift around us, our dwindling congregations just may become extinct unless we are prepared to change.
  Having worked in ministry in the Anglican Church of Australia for the last 20 years, I have come to the conclusion that large sectors in our Church seem ill equipped and/or unprepared to change. Many clergy and congregations seem determined to die rather than reform.
  If National Church Life Survey figures are a helpful reflection on the state of the church in Australia today, then Anglicanism is in serious trouble indeed. People are deserting the traditional Christian denominations in droves, and Anglicanism is no exception. The average Anglican Congregation in Australia in 2001 has less than 55 members, has an average age of 65, and has become so accustomed with the steady pattern of decline witnessed in recent decades that it is accepted as the inescapable and inevitable now.
  These days it is normal to be in the process of dying in an Australian Anglican Church!
  Between 1960 and 1998 the number of Australian Anglicans attending (at least) monthly halved, ( "Build My Church", Kaldor, Bellamy, Powell, Castle & Hughes. Openbook, 1999. Page 23.) with the figure for the decline in the five year period 1991-1996 at 5% (IBID. Page 24.). These figures are made worse by the fact that within Anglicanism there are pockets of growth, which go against the trend. In other words, where there is decline, it is often worse than the average figure! To further compound the statistics, the number of congregations also fell by 4% (IBID, Page 26.) in the same 5-year period
  Hand in hand with the steady decline experienced in the traditional Protestant denominations is the growth of Pentecostal churches. It is hard to avoid the reality that it may not be an "all of church" problem but more a "our kind of church" problem.
  Despite the apparent, though reluctant, acceptance of this by many Anglicans, it is clear that unless such drastic decline is addressed and reversed, the Anglican Church will begin to become extinct in many suburbs and communities across Australia in the next decade or two.
  This 'psychological backdrop' of decline has started to flavour the way we think theologically. Many now say, "Church growth is vulgar. Small is beautiful. We have rediscovered the micro community units that are close to the heart of the New Testament church." This might be described as a form of 'palliative ecclesiology' adopted as a result of  decline, rather than deliberate, thoughtful reflection on where Anglicanism is at in Australia in 2001, and faithful brave thinking about where it might go from here.
  In 1997 I attended a meeting of bishops, senior clergy and lay representatives from the country Dioceses of the NSW Province to discuss the future. Bishop Peter Chiswell, then Bishop of the Armidale Diocese asked the question: "What do you think the future will hold in terms of where your Diocese will be at in ten years time?" Two of the six Dioceses represented expressed real concern that they would not be financially viable in a decade, while at least one other said it could go either way.
  Only the non-metropolitan coastal dioceses expressed any confidence for future viability. However, this is inflated by a pattern of growth that is evident along the seaboard, particularly of retirees from larger urban centres. Though encouraged by the numbers of Anglicans moving to their areas, these dioceses have not put into place changes to the patterns of ministry that will defy the patterns of decline that are eating away at the fabric of Anglican parishes all over Australia.
  To put it bluntly, more old people joining your Anglican Church because they have moved from another town, is not growth! It is just stalling the inevitable!
  We are in serious trouble, and our inability to embrace or contemplate change makes us like the ostrich with its head buried in the sand when threatened. It does not mean that we will avoid it; change will be forced upon us. We will have no choice but death unless we actively choose to understand and counter that which is killing us.
  The wider cultural context against which the church faces this struggle is indeed a complex one. A decade or two ago, to have said that Australia is not a "Christian country" but a secular one, would have brought a strong response of surprise or disbelief. Today, it is widely accepted as the case that we are multi-cultural and a multi-faith community where Christians are in decline and in the minority.
  That is not to say all religion and spirituality is in decline... just our kind of religion and spirituality! This is evidenced by the fact that the fastest growing faith group in Australia has, for the last few years, been Buddhism.
  A multi-faith religious ceremony called "A Sense of Place" was conducted as a prelude to the week of Federation Centenary celebrations in Melbourne in the second week of May 2001. The program was equally shared by the following religious groups, in the following order: Indigenous Australians, Jewish Australians, Sikh Australians, Buddhist Australians, Muslim Australians, Hindu Australians, Christian Australians
  I was present at this ceremony and to say that the Christians were the least impressive of the 7 presentations is something of an understatement! Our program booklet item on 'Christianity', our stage presentation, and clarity of content regarding the Christian Gospel were, at best vague, and, at worst, missing the person of Jesus!
  It was a telling commentary on the fact that Christianity has slipped out of ascendancy in the Australian context. We are an "also-ran faith option" in people's minds, and hardly taken seriously by the generation referred to as baby boomers who are aged in the 40-55 year bracket. Religion has been abandoned in favor of the instant gratification and selfishness that marks the generation who have abandoned spiritual values for material ones. ("Generations", Hugh Mackay, MacMillan,1997.)
  In the minds of the younger generation; the offspring not only of "The Boomers" but also of Postmodernism (often referred to as "Generation X") the traditional institutions of religion hold no interest or relevance. Absolute truths have been replaced by a relativism that says "it's true if it works for you". They are not less spiritual or less in search of meaning and significance, but they have put their hope in the new age and its forebears: Eastern mysticism. Modernism is being abandoned and conventional Christianity is perceived as modernist. 
  Conventional approaches to Christian ministry have never been less likely to hold sway than at present and the future is under serious threat. To begin to answer the question of this paper: "WHAT SORT OF MINISTRY IN THE FUTURE?", our first answer to this question, especially in the Anglican context of Australia, must be: "a different ministry, or else none at all!"
  Given that change MUST happen if there is to be a ministry, we might ask the question: "Are there fundamentals we cannot change?" Clearly the answer to this question, at least for Evangelicals is that there are "unchangeables"!
  We believe that the Gospel is the power of God for Salvation (Romans 1:16-17); that there is no other name by which people might be saved than the Name of Jesus (Acts 4:12). We hold that the Bible is the Word of God which teaches, trains, corrects and equips every Christian teacher and disciple for a life that is pleasing to God (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
  To abandon those is to so lose the plot that we actually cease to be a Christian church anyway.
  There are three current reactions in Anglicanism which seek to address the decline in the church yet fail to rightly hold to these "essentials".
  Firstly we have those Anglican leaders, our current Primate included, who appear to believe that reinterpreting the authority and message of the Scriptures is the best way to repackage the church for our postmodern culture! Hence they peddle a revised salvation plan and statements about family, reconciliation and sexuality that are simply pale reflections of our society's current norms.
  To arrive at such different conclusions about passages of Scripture demands either the rejection of its authority altogether, or a deconstructionist approach that allows us to be more 'interpretative' of what God might say about this issue to this generation given the changed circumstances and context from the Scripture's original setting. Such an approach was seen at General Synod this year in Brisbane where those who spoke in favour of the church embracing homosexual practice and relationships used a hermeneutic that ultimately allows the reader to decide what the author really meant by the text.
  How men and women are supposed to relate to God with any confidence about His mind on things seems to have escaped their consideration. It seems to me to be impossible to relate to someone in a healthy way when everything they say is subject to my "filtering" it to mean what I want to hear.
  Their confidence that this will "keep us relevant" beggars belief! It certainly is not supported by the demographics... the liberal push has not helped the Anglican Church of Australia. If anything it has hastened our demise!
  The second group, the 'Anglo-Catholics', think that we can weather the storms of change raging all around us by preserving the traditions of the church, our liturgical formularies and symbolism. Unlike the liberals 'adaptation' model, the traditionalists have 'bunkered down' into holy trenches hoping that the change and uncertainty raging in the wider community can be left at the west door of the church. In the quiet safety of the church building the outside world will not be visible through the stained glass windows and we can maintain that it is we who are normal and they are all headed in the wrong direction.
  It seems to have failed to register for such folk (mostly from the older generation) that the very cultural baggage that they cling to is the millstone drowning the church in our Post Modern culture! 
  Both Liberalism and Anglo-Catholicism are well intentioned but seriously misguided. To abandon the foundations of Anglicanism, as expressed in the reformed theology of the 39 Articles, is to give up on that which ought to be unchanged, while at the same time, deifying the "cultural baggage" that ought to be changeable. Traditionalists who would hold up the Book of Common prayer as the ideal liturgy miss the fact that Thomas Cranmer would be 'turning in his grave' to think that we had failed to realize that his intention was to be sure that Sunday worship was in the language of the common people! He would insist that we use a form of liturgy that does not alienate people.
  A third group who seek to stave off the change that confronts the church are the Fundamentalists. If the Liberals are about adaptation to the world and the Anglo's are about withdrawal from the world, then the fundamentalists are about warfare against the world.
  Fundamentalism is seen in various guises, from Pentecostalism and sect-style, closed fellowships, through to 'hard line' Evangelicalism. Fundamentalists seek not to engage with their culture but to withdraw from it into separatist groups where members will experience the 'Kingdom of God' by abstaining from a 'sinful and evil world'. They have predetermined and set answers to all of life's questions that often depend on literal interpretations of the Scriptures. These dogmas are defensible only "by faith" and discernible only to "the faithful". The personality type that often is attracted to such dogmatism is coupled with an unattractive antagonism that rarely seeks to understand the subtleties of our culture and engage with people who are caught up in it in a winsome way.
  Many Christian parents have struggled with the benefits and drawbacks of such groups when considering whether to send their kids to parent-controlled or church-controlled Christian Schools rather than a mainstream government or denominational educational institution. The benefits are protection from the unrestrained face of secular humanism and materialism in our society. The risk is that our kids will have simply been 'shielded' from real life rather than trained to critically engage with their culture in a Christian way. If the church is to be relevant, we all need to navigate life with a wisdom that is not blind to the world but also informed by the Word of God.
  We are therefore, seeing the decline of the Anglican Church of Australia hastened by the internal confusion of what needs to stay and what needs to be abandoned. So the disintegration is a double whammy: our culture and our clergy seem to have lost faith in the trustworthy things of orthodoxy, and are at the same time confused about whether to change, and what to change in the church.
  It seems to me that neither Liberalism, Anglo-Catholicism nor Fundamentalism has demonstrated that it will faithfully and wisely navigate the turbulent and uncharted waters in which we find ourselves.
  Surely the question Anglicans ought to be asking is: "Which things are so central to Anglicanism that to dump them means losing the ship in the storm altogether, and which things are the excess cargo that we can afford to dump in order to save the vessel?"
  To push the 'storm at sea' analogy a little further: blowing holes in the hull to let the water out will only undermine the integrity and seaworthiness of the whole ship. We  must think carefully and bravely about what cargo we can dump so as to ride the storm, bail out the water we have taken on, and get our bearings in the new cultural seas of Australian society in 2001. The Anglican Church of Australia will be shipwrecked without its captains and crew keeping a cool head about what must stay and what we can live without.
  Clearly I am convinced that the hull of Anglicanism which we must keep intact is our reformed biblical theology. To abandon our core beliefs but keep liturgical and Episcopal traditions is to throw out the baby and keep the bath water!
  The constitution of Anglicanism declares that:
  "The Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of anyone... "(The Anglican Articles of Religion: Article #VI)
  "... it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, though the church be a witness and keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the Bible, so the church ought not enforce anything to be believed for necessity of Salvation." (Article #XX)
  If we choose to abandon the guidance and authority of the Scriptures then what guidance and authority will we have? I remain profoundly dissatisfied with the Liberal, Anglo-Catholic and Fundamentalist attempts to salvage Anglicanism in its current demise. We would do well to see how other denominations have similarly shipwrecked themselves by resorting to similar programs.
  With this discussion forming the backdrop against which we have determined the absolute necessity for change, and as a qualifier for what type of change, I would propose the following suggestions on WHAT KIND OF MINISTRY for the next generation:
  (i) A MINISTRY CONSISTENT with that which Christ calls us to in the New Testament. God's church is to be a people called out and chosen; a people who practice holiness because they belong to a Holy God; a people who rejoice in being forgiven; a people worshipping, working and waiting for God's Kingdom to fully arrive; a people who flee selfishness and sinfulness and live lives that bear witness to God's love and presence in the midst of a confused and rebellious world without withdrawing from it.' (1 Peter 2:9-12) We are also to be a people who are ready to answer and tell of the power of this Gospel that has changed our lives so dramatically (1 Peter 3:15). Another paper will address "What kind of church" but our ministry ought not to deviate from the specific New Testament terms and encouragements we glean from the teachings of Christ, the book of Acts and the Epistles.
  (ii) A MINISTRY CONFIDENT in the authority of God's Word. There is no reason for Christians to lose confidence that the God who has spoken to men and women throughout every generation until now has decided to be silent to this generation. The Word of God must be clearly, accurately and powerfully proclaimed in our churches and in Christian lives if people are to see that God still speaks and seeks to input into our world and our lives. Do we believe that God is still active in His world? ... still in control of His world? ... still speaking to this generation through His Word or have we adopted the `palliative ecclesiology' I mentioned earlier? Unless we believe that we have entered a new era where  we are out-of-God's-reach, then we will continue to see His Word of revelation through Scripture as having something vital to say to Australians in 2001 and beyond! Such an application of God's Word to our context will need to be a "critical realist" approach rather than a naive fundamentalist one! But without confidence in God's authoritative and powerful Word, we will have nothing to say in the new millennium.
  (iii) A MINISTRY COMMITTED to evangelism. Holding that the Gospel of forgiveness and grace through Jesus Christ still meets our deepest human need... even in our advanced technological age, our church needs to remain committed to an outward focus of witnessing and evangelism. This requires engagement with a world that no longer asks the church the questions it used to. We will have to provide a strategic presence and witness that helps the world see that it has failed to ask the important questions, and is seeking answers in the wrong places. This requires Christians to be incarnational, intentional, inviting and informed in their discipleship and their words. Another paper is being prepared on this topic.
  (iv) A MINISTRY CLEAR about its culture and priorities. The age for sentimentality is gone. The stakes are too high for us to hesitate about whether or not we can afford to rearrange the deck chairs on a ship that is taking water as badly as Australian
  Anglicanism is in 2001. Leonard Sweet ("Soul Tsunami", Leonard Sweet. Zondervan,1999) confronts us with the stark truth that is reality in our Post Modern context. He says that the wave of change that is coming is a Tidal Wave (Tsunami) that was generated far away from our view and will sweep away everything in its path; we can deny and drown, fight it and lose or we can wax up the surfboards, hoist the sails and hang on for the ride of our lives through the uncharted waters that lie ahead. Such a mindset will not come easily to us. It certainly will not find ready acceptance with those who are from older generations and "traditionalists", but it is also a way of thinking that many "Boomers" with their modernist mindset will find hard to accommodate.
  I find myself 'uncomfortable' with the style and sound of many new songs on FM radio stations. The stuff my kids are enjoying on the TV leaves me feeling unsure about whether it is suitable and helpful for them to watch or not. I suspect that my discomfort is a question of style as much as content: they are just normal kids watching what every other kid is watching. My discomfort lies with the fact that the tone and presuppositions behind the production of this media are very different from the material I was exposed to in my formative years. Such discomfort is an indicator that things are different now from when I was in my teens and 20's. I can't relate naturally to the cultural change so what shall I do with the unfamiliar sounds and sights and the attendant discomfort that I experience? I could listen only to the radio stations dedicated to music from the 70's and 80's. I could rail against what's happened to all the good TV shows. Or, I could climb onto the education curve and try to understand what makes the next generation of Australians tick, what they long for, and what they value by attempting to see what lies behind the songs and shows that appeal to them and their age group.
  In a recent edition of Southern Cross magazine (the Sydney Anglican Diocesan, Newspaper) there was a fascinating item called "The Pros and Cons of Buffy" (Southern Cross Magazine, Anglican Media Sydney. Copyright 1998-2000). Included in this piece were two short articles from thoughtful Christian authors, one of who was warning Christians (and their children) against watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". The second article argued the value of watching the show and understanding that its plot and themes are not inherently evil, but symbols which powerfully communicate the values and relationship styles that are common amongst teenagers today. Open-mindedness and courage to move outside of one's comfort zone will be required if we are to gain such insights and not just retreat to that which is familiar and comfortable for us.
  Stanley Grenz says: 
  "Postmodernism poses certain dangers. Nevertheless it would be ironic - indeed it would be tragic - if evangelicals ended up as the last defenders of the now dying modernity. To reach people in the new postmodern context, we must set ourselves to the task of deciphering the implications of postmodernism for the gospel... we must 'boldly go where no man has gone before'. " ("A Primer on Postmodernism", Stanley Grenz. Eerdmans,1996. Page 10.)
  (v) A MINISTRY CREATIVE in mission - seeking to understand the needs of our culture and expressing God's Good News in the language and terms of reference that make it understandable and practical to the age in which we live. Many writers have suggested that such "connection" in our Postmodern context is through the power of story: hearing people's stories and bringing God's great unfolding story of grace into contact with their lives and experiences. ("The Power of Story", Leighton Ford. Navpress, 1994.) Others point out that traditional ministry goals of community, intimacy, caring and hope, along with dialogue evangelism encourage those seeking to reach the younger generation using the "old, old story" but applied in the context of their needs. ("Generating Hope", Jimmy Long. Marshall Pickering,1997.) Others remind us that it has always been authentic discipleship: life-sharing transparency which brings reality to the message, and a narrative style of communication which, arrests their attention and feeds the emotional holes that exist in their psyche. ("Inside the Soul of a New Generation", Tim Celek & Dieter Zander. Zondervan,1996.) In an age of slick presentations and media spin-doctoring it has been suggested that people today are not so much looking for a great preacher as they are a great Christian, a great Congregation. It has a more "authentic" human feel about it when real people are living out what they believe.
  Far from having nothing left to say to a Post Modern age, the church should realize that the Gospel shared and lived in authentic relationships of trust and care is actually scratching exactly where generation X is itching. No hiding behind jargon or false piety here though, this generation will demand that we "walk the walk", and not just, "talk the talk"!
  (vi) A MINISTRY COURAGEOUS in direction for the future. Clearly we need to do more than just abandon the things that hinder ministry in our new context. We also must be constantly reviewing and reforming all that we do so that we don't fall as far behind as we have in the last decade or two. Anglicans must learn to ask the question that every church born of reformation needs to keep asking: "Would we choose to act as we do today and do the same tomorrow, if we hadn't done this yesterday?" Such intentional strategy in ministry is not part of the Anglican mindset. We are creatures of habit who have long lost contact with the forces of threat and challenge that shaped our doctrine and practice in the first place. Who taught us that to be Anglican means staying the same for hundreds of years? We have lost touch with our reformation roots!
  If we are to reinvent ourselves as a reformation church then there will need to be more than discussions at the "ministry level". We need to be as brave and intentional at the "preparation for ministry level" also.
  Our theological colleges struggle to deliver adequate training for ministry because they style themselves after the pattern of traditional tertiary academic institutions. Their educational models are often out-of-date and out-of-touch. I remember one of my lecturers at college commenting that my observation that I was being taught to "cram, regurgitate & forget" was correct, and that he could not re-pass the BTh. exam without going through the same process!
  I'm not suggesting for a moment that we ought to abandon sound and thorough theological formation - this would be to contradict my earlier claims of what is essential. But for too long we have produced candidates for ministry who have focussed on the academic theological skill-set required for preaching/teaching without appropriate attention to the kind of minister who will be  able to use such a skill-set in our current cultural climate. Brave, dynamic and creative leaders are not formed at college; they rise out of the casualties in the ministry years that follow. Some would claim that our colleges actually stifle creativity in the way that they seek to ensure the theological skill-set is being learnt. The skill-set of ministry is actually the easiest thing to learn. It is ministry mindset I have been unpacking in this paper which is the steepest part of the learning curve. The skill-set alone is not sufficient for ministry!
  Such training is not just the domain of the theological college, but also the diocesan programs of placement, preparation and ongoing training for ordained and other ministry. Ministers are already prone to vulnerability, burn out and depression in their role. Add inadequate preparation, isolation, lack of ongoing support and the trauma of leading resistant congregations through dramatic cultural change and you have a recipe for disaster that threatens to debilitate the key influencers of our Anglican parishes and decision making processes.
  The Anglican Church of Australia must come to grips with the possibility that the typical/traditional parish is a thing of the past. We must be smart enough to train men and women whose strengths are missiologically oriented to what might be in the future rather than the outdated structures we are familiar with. Training for contextual ministry has never been more important and we have a history of neglecting this.
  There is a telltale question that betrays our confidence to embrace the above six strategies. "Do you believe that there has ever been a better time to be alive and doing ministry than today?"
  Unless your answer to that question is a resounding "YES" then we have allowed ourselves to wander into the palliative ecclesiology which believes that things are worse now for the church than they have ever been, and it is harder now to be a follower of Jesus than it has ever been, and evangelism is tougher than it has ever been, that the world is worse than it has ever been.
  Such a perspective is a very short sighted one, but an easy error to slip into.
  If we truly believe that God is no less interested in humanity than He has ever been, and if we hold that the Gospel is still the powerful and effective means for us to be reconciled to Him, then we will embrace with prayerful energy and enthusiasm the challenge of effective ministry for this decade and the rest of this millennium.
   
  MARKUS RICHARDSON is Vicar of St Barnabas' Glen Waverley (GWAC) in Melbourne
 
              
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