Forming Ministers or Training Leaders?

An Exploration of Practice in Theological Colleges

Anthony Clarke

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781725263505
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Forming Ministers or Training Leaders is a unique book because it is based on a significant piece of empirical research. Anthony Clarke explores the way that the practice among theological colleges in the UK has been changing and develops the concept of the "pastoral imagination" to express what a theological college is aiming to do with its students. The book then offers an analysis of the "pastoral imagination" that is in fact at work in a selection of Baptist colleges and other theological institutions in the UK. Alongside this Clarke offers a coherent and robust theological account of the work of a theological college, through engaging with recent trinitarian theology, and argues that this is best understood as a process of formation which embraces other ideas of training and education.

1

Introduction

Practice and the Pastoral Imagination

It was Monday morning. We had moved into a freshly decorated house and had begun to get to know neighbors. On Saturday the church had been more than full for an inspiring ordination and induction, and yesterday I had preached my first sermon as an ordained minister. And as I sat at my new desk, mug of coffee in hand, I thought to myself: what do I do now?

This has been the core of a conversation I have had at various times over the years I have been involved in ministry both with others and with myself! It may rarely be expressed in quite such explicit terms, but this has been a fundamental question of those who have settled in a church after finishing a process of preparation for ordained ministry. What should be done—now, today, first? The existential nature of the question may strike deeper among Baptist ministers, the majority of whom are inducted into sole pastorates without a “senior” colleague to direct them and more recently the timing of such questioning may have been brought earlier, as the majority of Baptist ordinands already exercise ministry while preparing for ordination, some in a sole pastorate context. It is a question at many levels, and while seemingly a very practical question it is one of significant theological depth.

It is a clearly question about the practice of ministry. I recall the Monday morning after my own ordination and induction service in 1991; I was now the minister of a small church in Dagenham on the borders of East London and Essex. My wife and I had been quite recently married and she had left for the daily commute into London. I had a very empty diary and the clear assumption was that I would fill it and knew how to fill it. What was I going to do with my day? But it is, of course, much more than a question about activity. Within the specificity of daily tasks are woven deep questions about a self-understanding and theology of ministry, out of which practice emerges and which practice then continues to shape a developing theological understanding. Neither practice nor theology remain static. It is, therefore, a question that remains constant through a lifetime of ministry, emerging perhaps more clearly at particular points, such as beginning a new ministry, but nevertheless always present: who am I as a minister, and what should I be doing now in response to my calling?

In this particular scenario it is also a question about the practice of preparation for ministry which has enabled, encouraged and shaped the practice of ministry both leading up to an ordination and induction and beyond. So while these fundamental and existential questions remain throughout a life of ministry, there is a sense that they are most acute and pressing the first time they need to be asked. Before settling in Dagenham, I trained for ministry in a more traditional college-based setting, having some, but more limited, placement experience. Having left college aged 24 to accept a call to a sole pastorate, I had limited experience of church life and, especially, in those early months I was doing many things for the first time. But I did have three years of theological education and preparation for ministry on which to draw to help answer my own questions about what to do, now.

Finally it is also question about the way that these two practices are connected, and this is the central conversation I hope to develop in this book, a conversation that seems to me needs to be pursued more rigorously than it has been in the past. As someone who has now spent half his ministry working in a theological college preparing men and women for ministry, my experience is that that these two questions are not frequently asked together, so the answers can inform each other. There are books that explore ministry and how this might be practiced, but these tend not to discuss the process of preparation, and there are books that explore the practice of preparation for ministry but these often make assumptions about the nature of the ministry to be practiced.

Andrew Mayes, for example, in some important research into the preparation for ministry within the Church of England can use terminology such as priest, minister and leader interchangeably, as if there were no theological distinction.1 The material from the ecumenical Quality in Formation Panel is intentional in not offering any particular theological understanding of the practice of ministry, seeking rather to ensure that each institution offers preparation appropriate to the breadth of traditions within the sponsoring church.2 Paul Goodliff, in his earlier exploration of the influence of a sacramental theology of ministry, does begin to make some links between the teaching of tutors and the theology of ministers, but does not explore what might be a distinctly Baptist approach.3 In his later book Shaped for Service,4 more recently published, Goodliff makes much more of a connection between formation and ministry, drawing on similar ideas of practice to those pursued here, developing this connection at greater depth. But there is still work to be done on how these two practices shape each other, and while there will be some clear resonances with Goodliff’s work, who is a friend and colleague, this book will offer a much more detailed discussion of the actual practice of preparation for ministry.

My aim in this book, then, is to bring and hold together these two distinct areas and practices, the practice of ministry, particularly but not exclusively as exercised in a local church, and the practice of preparation for this ministry, exploring how our understanding of one shapes and contributes to our understanding of the other. As in all writing, this book emerges from a particular context which shapes the whole way it has been written. Various aspects of this context will appear through the book but it would be helpful to mention two at the beginning.

The first important aspect of context is recognizing who I am. I come to explore these questions as a Baptist minister who ...