Board of Ministry –  Report to the General Assembly 2001

2.	COMMITTEE ON THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF ORDINATION

MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL
A Policy Statement for the Board of Ministry

2.1	Preamble
	2.1.1	The Board of Ministry has been given a wide remit by the General Assembly for the recruitment, selection, education, training, support and development of the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament.  It is now seeking to articulate the theological understanding of ordained ministry underpinning its policies and work in these vital areas.  The importance and urgency of this task is obvious, but so too is the need for careful reflection.  Therefore, the Board asked the Assembly of 1999 to allow it to make an in-depth study of the theology and practice of ordained ministry, so that the Church of Scotland would have a clear statement of the thinking that directs the Board’s work.
	2.1.2	In this study the Board has been greatly helped by the participation of the Board of National Mission, the Panel on Doctrine and the thoughtful contributions of many people whom it has consulted both within the Church and in the wider community (see Appendix I).  The Board has benefited from the sociological analysis of social trends in contemporary Scotland that it commissioned from the University of Edinburgh.  The Board is also grateful to have been able to draw on the insights of other Churches: especially the work of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in its 1992 study on the Theology and Practice of Ordination; and the experience of fellow Scottish Churches in addressing common concerns in formation for ordained ministry.  This collaborative approach to theological reflection on ministry is a model for the Board’s future work.
	2.1.3	At the outset, some definitions of terms used by the Board may be helpful.  In this report, the word ministry means service and refers primarily to the service offered by Jesus Christ.  Only in this light does it refer to the calling of all Christian disciples to serve Jesus Christ.  The New Testament term for what we call ministry or service, diakonia, is a life-giving invitation to all to become followers of Jesus Christ and carry out Christ’s commission of service in the world.  The words ministry and service will be used interchangeably in this report, in this New Testament sense.  The terms ‘minister’ and ‘ordained ministry’ will be used in line with common usage in the Church of Scotland to refer to those ordained to the particular ministry or service of Word and Sacrament and to the function they fulfil in the Body of Christ, on the clear understanding that all God’s people are called to ministry or service of Jesus Christ.  The words ordination and ordained refer to ‘the solemn setting apart of a person to some public church office’ (The Form of Presbyterial Church Government, 1645), in this case the office of minister of the Gospel.
	2.1.4	In introducing its report, the Board sets all its theological and practical reflection on ordained ministry in the context of mission.  It affirms the ecumenical conviction that mission is primarily and ultimately the work of God for the sake of the world, a ministry in which the Church is privileged to participate.  Mission has its origin in the mystery of God’s love, in the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, overflowing in God’s action in creating, saving and restoring the world: ‘It is not the Church that has a mission of salvation to fulfil in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the Church.’ (Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, p.64).  Ministry is always a participation in God’s mission of love to the world in Jesus Christ and the Spirit.  All that follows in this report is offered within this vision of God’s love and action.

2.2	Introduction
	2.2.1	There is a proper debate in all Churches about appropriate patterns of ministry for the 21st century.  This discussion is also being conducted currently in different areas of the Church of Scotland’s life and work.  There is much common ground within the Church of Scotland and among Churches around the world.  Today, we can all affirm that ministry is the service of the whole people of God, sharing in the one ministry of Jesus Christ, sent by the Father in the power of the Spirit to fulfil God’s mission to the world (John 3:16).  We all agree that it is only in that setting that we can rightly understand and affirm the role of particular ordained and commissioned ministries (as set out in the landmark ecumenical statement of 1982, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, and in the Panel on Doctrine’s 1985 Report to the General Assembly on the theology of ministry).  The Board is committed to being a partner in these wider deliberations on ministry and believes that it is for the General Assembly to decide on such fundamental questions.  In the meantime, the challenge facing the Board of Ministry, given its responsibilities for key aspects of ordained ministry, is to reflect on what it means to be ministers of the Gospel, in a changing Church and in a changing Scotland.  It offers the Assembly the fruit of the first stage in a continuing process of theological reflection on ministry, and not a final blueprint.
	2.2.2	At the outset, the Board affirms that one of Christ’s gifts to his Body, the Church, is the particular ministry of Word and Sacrament.  However, it is not that particular ministry which constitutes the Church.  It is Christ clothed in his Gospel who is at the centre of the Church, which is the Body of Christ.  Where the Word is faithfully proclaimed and the Sacraments rightly administered, there is the Church of Jesus Christ.  It is the Gospel in Word and Sacrament that orders the life of the Church and equips God’s people for service.  To that end, Christ calls and gifts some within his Body to ensure that God’s people faithfully hear and obey that Gospel in Scripture and Sacrament, in worship and witness, in life and service.  For this reason, and in this sense, we call such people ministers or servants of the Gospel – those called and gifted to proclaim that Gospel and enable God’s people to serve Jesus Christ and grow in grace (Ephesians 4:7-16).  The purpose of the ordained ministry is to keep the Church faithful to its nature and calling as the people of God, in worship and witness, fellowship and service.  But how is that particular ministry to be understood and exercised today, in a Church that rightly affirms the ministry of the whole people of God and in a rapidly changing society that questions the relevance of that Gospel?  And what does it mean to be ministers of the Gospel today, at a time when some are experiencing a crisis of identity and purpose in wrestling with inherited models and conflicting expectations of ordained ministry?  What models and patterns of ordained ministry are appropriate in this context?
	2.2.3	To address these urgent questions, this report starts by considering the appropriate shape of ordained ministry from three related perspectives.  First, it examines ordained ministry in the light of the one ministry of Jesus Christ.  Then it considers ordained ministry in the context of mission in a changing Scottish society.  It goes on to consider views on ordained ministry that have emerged in consultation with the wider Church and community.  These three perspectives bring into focus a profile of the ordained ministry of the Gospel that the Board believes is faithful to the Church’s Reformed and ecumenical tradition and relevant to our times.  A closing section then considers the policy implications for the Board’s work in embracing these perspectives and this profile.  The report, therefore, is set out under three headings:
Section A	Perspectives on Ordained Ministry
Section B	Profile of Ministers of the Gospel
Section C	Policy on Ordained Ministry

2.3	Section A - Perspectives on Ordained Ministry
	2.3.1	How should the Church gain a clearer picture of the distinctive calling and service of ministers?  The Board has found it helpful to look at ordained ministry from distinct but inter-related perspectives: the theological perspective of serving Jesus Christ; the sociological perspective of serving in a changing society; and the Church’s perspective on ministry from its own experience of working with ministers in a wide range of local contexts.  Taken together, these three viewpoints bring into sharper focus the kind of ministers that God calls and that the Church needs to serve the Gospel today and tomorrow.  But one of these viewpoints has precedence and determines how the Board has interpreted the whole landscape of ministry, in a changing church and society – the perspective of Jesus Christ, as witnessed to in Scripture, the Church’s supreme rule of faith and life.

	2.3.2	Ministers of the Gospel – Serving Jesus Christ
	2.3.2.1	There is only one ministry, the ministry of Jesus Christ.  The Church has no independent ministry of its own.  Rather, it is called to participate in Christ’s ministry or service.  It is when we see all forms of Church ministry in relation to Christ’s ministry, that we see them in true perspective.  Scripture offers us a rich picture of the life of service embodied in Jesus Christ.  This is the life-giving source of the Board’s theological reflection on ministry, which it celebrates here in a litany of praise and wonder:
Praise God for the Earthly Ministry of Jesus Christ
Fully God and fully human, Jesus Christ lived one seamless human life, full of grace and truth in his person and in his deeds (John 1:1-18).  Jesus of Bethlehem and Nazareth came among us not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:35-45).  The Jesus who taught with divine authority, forgave sin and healed with divine power (Matthew 7:28-29, 9:1-8), was the same Jesus who willingly took the form of a servant, washed the disciples’ feet and went obediently to the Cross (John 13:1-17; Mark 14:32-36; Philippians 2:2-8).  The Jesus who invited the weary and burdened to take up his easy yoke in serving God (Matthew 11:25-30), was the same person who was restored from the emotional, physical and spiritual strain of his own ministry through the company of friends, the kindness of strangers and the care of his own body (Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8).  It was this fully human Jesus who served in perfect fulfilment of God’s love and purpose, in a perfect integrity of life and action (John 3:16-21; Matthew 3:17).  Serving God’s mission to the world led Jesus from baptism in the Jordan with sinners (Luke 3:1-21), to keeping company in Galilee among sinners (Matthew 9:1-17), and on to crucifixion in Jerusalem for sinners (Mark 10:32-34).  This same Jesus was gloriously vindicated in that unique ministry for the salvation of the world when God raised him from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:1-4; Philippians 2:9-11).  The Risen Christ was seen first by his loyal women disciples and only then by his unbelieving apostles, after discounting the women’s ‘idle tale’ (Matthew 27:55 - 28:10; Mark 15:42 - 16:8; Luke 23:52 - 24:12; John 20:1-29).  From the start, the faithless and frail disciples learned to serve only in utter dependence on God’s grace and mercy (John 21:1-22; 1 Corinthians 15:8-10).  Pardoned and re-commissioned by this Jesus (John 21:15-19), and filled with the Spirit, the apostles went on to make the Cross and Resurrection the centre of their preaching of the Gospel as witnesses of the Risen Lord (Acts 2:32; 1 Corinthians 15:1-19).  This is the heart of the Gospel (John 3:16), life in all its fullness in Jesus Christ, the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 10:10; John 14:1-14).  This salvation is from the Jews (John 4:21-26; Romans 9-11) but creates a new humanity for all (Romans 1:1-6; Ephesians 2:11-22).  This is the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, revealing the love of God for the world and reconciling the world to God.
Praise God for the Continuing Ministry of Jesus Christ
This same Jesus, now ascended to God’s right hand (Hebrews 10:12-22), continues to call humanity to follow him in his costly path of life-giving service (Mark 8:27-38).  In Christ, we are called to the same seamless human life as mature people.  In the Christian life, who we are as persons and what we do in service are to be integrated through our growth in grace and truth (Ephesians 4:12-16 ).  At the heart of Christ’s Way (John 14:6; Acts 9:2) is the life of prayer and worship, so evidently central to Jesus’ own earthly life and ministry (Luke 11:1-13; Matthew 14:23; Mark 6:46; Luke 4:14, 6:12; 9:28; John 17:9,20; 1 Thessalonians 5:18; Ephesians 5:20; Colossians 3:17; Philippians 4:4-7; Hebrews 4:14-16; Revelation 5).  This invitation to walk with God is addressed to the world through the teaching of the Apostles and the common life and mission of the Church (Acts 2:42; Ephesians 3:1-10).  Filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1-2), and gifted and equipped by the Ascended Christ for this service (Ephesians 4:1-16), the Church of Jesus Christ is sent out into the world to proclaim the Gospel and to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20).
This Gospel proclaims to the world that we are made right with God and the world is put to right not through our own efforts but by God’s sovereign grace.  Placing our trust in the humanity of Jesus Christ, who has lived and died and conquered death on our behalf, the sinless one for sinners in a great exchange (Romans 1-8), God reconciles us to himself and to one another.  Freed by this Gospel from captivity to our own moral failure and the power of death, we are enabled to serve God and neighbour and care for the creation in costly love (Galatians 5-6; Romans 12-16; 1 John 4:7-21).  As Christians, we serve God and neighbour not in our own strength or adequacy but only through our union with Christ in a new humanity and life in the Spirit in a new freedom (Galatians 2:20, 5:22-25; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; 12:9,10).  In Christ all things hold together (Colossians 1:15-20), including who we are and what we do in God’s service.
Seated at God’s right hand, the Ascended Christ continues his ministry and mission among us on earth, through his sympathetic intercession for us as our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14 - 5:10), and through his faithful Body, the Church, acting in the power of the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1).  This ministry overturns the world’s assumptions and powers (Luke 4:14-30; 10:21-24; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25), as we follow Christ’s revolutionary pattern of humble service, forgiving love, healing power, life-affirming celebration and compassionate justice for the oppressed and despised (Luke 4-18; John 2:1-11; Philippians 2:1-11; James 2:1-9; 5:1-6).  This mission is not an end in itself or for the sake of the Church but for the sake of the Kingdom of God, the coming rule of God over all things (Matthew 5-7, 25:31-46; 1 Peter 2:9).  It looks beyond itself to the healing of the nations and the new heaven and the new earth (Revelation 21:1 - 22:7).  In the end, Christ will return all creation to its Creator (Genesis 1-2; Hebrews 1:1-13; Colossians 1:15-20).  This is the continuing, heavenly ministry of Jesus Christ, re-making us in God’s image and restoring the cosmos to God.

	2.3.2.2	At the outset of the new century, the Board of Ministry affirms in this doxological way the unique life-giving, world-shaking ministry of Jesus Christ inspiring, shaping and guiding all its work.  This confession of Jesus Christ leads the Board to make the following three points about the ministry of the Church and the ordained ministry that are of immense practical and theological importance for the life and witness of the Church of Scotland:
The Ministry of the Whole People of God
First, only the membership of the whole Church can demonstrate all aspects of the one ministry of Jesus Christ in and to the world.  Ministry in the Church of Scotland must be re-defined in the attitudes and behaviour of every member and congregation as the service of Jesus Christ expected of ordinary church members as servants of God, in all the rich variety of our gifts, talents and avenues of service in Church and community.
We must all repent of the wrong belief that ministry is primarily the work of ministers.  This prevalent view in the Kirk distorts the New Testament teaching and contradicts our Reformed and ecumenical statements on ministry.  It can burden ministers with impossible and competing expectations.  It can stop congregations from being fully enabled for their ministry by the particular service of the ordained.
Only Jesus Christ, ministering through the service of the whole people of God, in the power of the enabling Holy Spirit, is sufficient for ministry.  What the Church of Scotland needs above all today is a fundamental transformation in its perceptions and practice of ministry: where all church members see ministry as their own shared calling to God’s service, as disciples of Jesus Christ.
The Ministry of Word and Sacrament
Second, affirming the ministry of the whole people of God does not mean abandoning or devaluing the place of the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament.  Rather, it leads to a wholehearted re-affirmation of the value and contribution of the ordained ministry, seeing it in its proper context within our Biblical, Reformed and ecumenical understanding of the Church and its mission in the world.
Taking seriously the seminal teaching of the New Testament about the nature of the Church, that it is Christ’s Body, with many different parts and gifts (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4), every member has a distinctive gift to offer and service to render to God.  However, that does not mean that every member can fulfil the particular calling of the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament (1 Corinthians 12:27-31).  This is an all-too-prevalent contemporary distortion of the recovered New Testament emphasis on the ministry of the whole people of God.  It has too often led to the view that anyone can be a minister, and to the demoralisation of ministers, who come to doubt that they have any distinctive calling and gift.  At the heart of this confusion is a misunderstanding about the nature of the Church.
The Church of Jesus Christ
The Church is not a human initiative or fundamentally a voluntary association of members.  In our Scottish Reformed tradition, from The Scots Confession of 1560, we confess that the Church is a divine initiative and institution that has existed since the beginning of creation: as humanity in covenant faithfulness with God, first in Adam; then in Israel; and finally, fully, in Jesus Christ.  As both fully God and fully human, Christ alone has fulfilled God’s covenant with humanity, in perfect obedience and repentance on humanity’s behalf and in perfect love and pardon on God’s behalf.  Now Christ calls us into his new humanity, as members of his Body, the Church of Jesus Christ.  The Church is not ours.  It is God’s new creation.  And the ministry of that Church is not ours.  It is the ministry of Jesus Christ.  The Church is called as a corporate royal priesthood to share in the one ministry of Jesus Christ, as our one prophet, priest and king.  Christ is the one Minister in our midst, leading us in worship to the throne of grace and pouring out the riches of God’s love on our broken, troubled lives and world, through his Word and Sacraments and Spirit.  In Word and Sacraments, in worship and witness, the congregation gathers around Jesus Christ and not around the minister.
Christ’s Gift to the Church
But how is that one ministry of Jesus Christ to be known and exercised in his Church?  In the history of the Church, too much of the debate about ministry has centred on unsustainable claims about ‘orders of ministry’ definitively to be found in the early Church and New Testament.  Scholarly consensus today would suggest that a variety of patterns of recognised ministry can be found emerging in the varied New Testament writings and churches, alongside a marked freedom and charismatic gifting for ministry in the young ‘Jesus movement’.
The Reformed tradition of the Church of Scotland would affirm two things in this relatively fluid situation in Scripture and contested situation in the history of the Church.  First, that its own presbyterian system of church government and order of ministry claims only to be agreeable to the Word of God, and subject to continuing reform according to the Word of God, the needs of contemporary mission and ecumenical dialogue.  And, second, in affirming the importance of the unique founding ministry and teaching of the Apostles in the New Testament, as authorised witnesses of the Risen Christ, it believes that Christ has gifted to his Church an authorised form of ministry to pass on the Apostolic teaching, as preachers and teachers of the Gospel.  In the Church of Scotland, that order of ministry has been known as the ordained ministry of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.  It does not exclude other particular forms of recognised ministry, far less take the place of the ministry of the whole people of God.  But it has been and is a particular ministry that ensures the right ordering of the Church’s life and service around the apostolic Gospel.
This particular ministry is essential to the life and health of the Church because the Church is a community created and sustained by the Gospel at its centre, proclaimed in the Word and Sacraments.  It is because the Gospel is at the centre of the Church’s existence and identity (and not ministers!), that we believe Christ calls and gifts some to serve and represent him as ministers of his Gospel in the midst of the life of the Church and the world.  The Church of Scotland has always laid great stress on a prayerful discernment, careful preparation and lawful ordination of those called by Christ to serve God’s Word and Sacraments to God’s people.  This has not been because they have been seen as a separate or superior order of Christians but due to their calling to serve holy things, the Gospel and Body of Christ, pointing people away from themselves and faithfully to Jesus Christ.
If the people of God are to participate fully and faithfully in the one ministry of Jesus Christ, in many different ways and exercising varied gifts and talents as members of the Body of Christ, then they must continually hear Christ in Scripture and receive Christ in the Sacraments.  It is through the Word and Sacraments that the whole Church is ordered and equipped for ministry and mission.  That is our confession as a Reformed branch of the Church Catholic in Scotland.  To keep Christ’s Body faithful to participation in Christ’s ministry and mission, and to guard it from its own activism and idolatries, we dare to believe that Christ gifts his Church with mature and suitable disciples called by God and authorised by the Church to proclaim the Gospel in Word and Sacraments.  Such ministers of the Gospel are called to be communicators, enablers and exemplars of the Way of Jesus Christ, in order to nurture the wider ministry of Christ’s Body, and not to supplant it.  This ministry of the whole Church is served by particular ministries given by God to guide and guard it in the Way of Jesus Christ, including the ministry of Word and Sacrament.  These particular recognised and authorised forms of service are not the ministry.  They exist to serve the ministry of the whole people of God, as we all share as disciples in the one ministry of Jesus Christ.
The Integration of Person and Practice in Ordained Ministry
This leads on to a third and equally important practical theological point that the Board wishes to make.  If ministers of the Gospel are to serve in this way, not only must their particular service be put in the proper context of the one ministry of Jesus Christ and the wider ministry of the whole people of God, they must also be people who seek to integrate who they are as persons in Christ with the particular functions they fulfil in the service of Jesus Christ.  The Church must always look for this vital and growing wholeness and integrity of person and practice in ministers of the Gospel.  This insight flows out of the Board’s opening confession of the seamless life and work to be found in the ministry of Jesus Christ.  It also draws on the Board’s own experience in seeking to fulfil its remit to the General Assembly, as it works with enquirers, applicants, candidates and ministers in all aspects of their recruitment and selection, education and training, and support and development.
Too often in the past, the person and the practice have been separated in the Christian Church’s understanding of ordained ministry.  Our Reformed emphasis in ordination has been on the setting apart to a particular pastoral function, rather than on a sacramental act conferring the indelible mark of a priestly status.  With that proper emphasis on function, we have tended to neglect the theological and human significance of the being of the person who is ordained to that function.  The two are inseparable and dynamically related to one another in ordained ministry.  It is the daily working experience of the Board of Ministry that both the problems and the possibilities in ordained ministry so often stem from this question of the degree of creative integration of the person and the function.  In this report, therefore, the Board wishes to move beyond the old debate separating who ministers are from what ministers do, polarising ‘ontological’ and ‘functional’ views of ordination.  It wishes to move to a sounder and more helpful theology and practice of ordained ministry.  In Christ, ministers of the Gospel are people who in their person and in their particular service manifest the same life of grace and the same practice of truth.  Ministers of the Gospel share a common humanity and discipleship with their fellow Christians.  And yet, in those called to this particular ordained ministry, the Church should discern a mature and growing integration of person and practice, being and function, as two related aspects of the one life lived in Christ’s grace and service.
A Three-fold Affirmation of Ministry Today
This reflection on the ministry of Jesus Christ, set within the trinitarian mission of God in the world and the Reformed understanding of the nature of the Church, leads the Board to affirm three things that are too often seen as competing, contradictory or distinct today in our debates on ministry.
First, we affirm that only the ministry of the whole church can reflect the height and depth and length and breadth of the one earthly and continuing ministry of Jesus Christ in the world.  All Church members are called and commissioned in baptism to this life of service in Jesus Christ.  The Church is in its very being a community of service.  Ministry is the work of all the servants of God, as we bear witness to and seek to follow after the one ministry of Christ, as the Spirit variously gifts and enables us to fulfil a variety of ministries.  This must be a clarion cry of the whole Church of Scotland as it addresses all questions of ministry in all areas of its life and witness in the 21st century.
Secondly, as an essential part of the health and growth of the Church’s ministry, we also affirm that the Ascended Christ gives to his Body the Church the gift of a ministry of the Gospel, in Word and Sacraments.  The purpose of this particular gift is to keep the Church faithful to its nature and calling as the Body of Jesus Christ.  The Church is also a human institution, in all its frailty, sin and historical contingency, that must always live in tension with its calling to be in practice what it is by grace, the Body of Christ in mission to the world.  Only by keeping this tension alive can we keep open the possibility of Church reform and renewal in our time.  The Board believes that God has gifted the ordained ministry of the Gospel to his Church to represent Christ in the faithful proclaiming of the Word and the right administration of the Sacraments and so ensure the possibility of such reform and renewal.  As the Church of Scotland wrestles with questions of structural reform and spiritual renewal today, it needs a ministry whose calling is to keep before it the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all its fullness.
Thirdly, we affirm that what is wonderfully joined together in the one ministry of Jesus Christ – person and practice – should never be separated in the Church’s discernment and development of those women and men called to serve Jesus Christ as ministers of his Gospel.  As the Board of Ministry has reflected on the theology and practice of ordained ministry and on its own practical experience in working with candidates and ministers, this concern for the integration of personal being and vocational function in ministers of the Gospel has emerged as a fundamental one.  Indeed, this concern is so fundamental that it shapes the rest of the report: the remaining perspectives in this Section A, the profile of ministry offered in Section B and the policy implications in the closing Section C.
However, none of these three linked affirmations flowing out of the one ministry of Jesus Christ – the shared service of the whole Church, the particular ministry of Word and Sacrament, and the personal and functional integration of ministers of the Gospel – is immune from the impact of social change.  We must complement this theological understanding of ordained ministry with a sociological perspective on the social context of ministry and mission in a changing Scottish society.

	2.3.3	Ministers of the Gospel – Serving in a Changing Society
	2.3.3.1	The Church of Scotland has a clear mission as a national Church, as set out in Article Three of its Articles Declaratory.  Our aim as a national Church is to share the Gospel throughout Scotland.  We do this through the worship and witness of the local church and ministry in every community, in partnership with our fellow Churches.  As set out above, the Board believes that ministers of the Gospel play a key part in that mission – proclaiming the Gospel and enabling others to use their talents in Christ’s service.  But what kind of service will the Church of Scotland need from ministers of the Gospel in the future?
A Changing Scotland
They will certainly be ministers who can serve in a rapidly changing Scottish society.  It is not just that we have a new Scottish Parliament.  We all feel the impact of economic and cultural change in our lives, in the home and family, at work and in the local community, and in the beliefs and values of society at large.  If we are to assess the appropriate forms of ordained ministry for the 21st century, then we must reflect on how we handle social change.  To do that, we must consider the particular social trends that are having the biggest impact on contemporary Scotland, including the Church of Scotland.  Our mission must be engaged with the social realities of Scottish society, and not be culturally wedded to a Scotland now largely gone.  [All data on social trends given in this next part of the Board’s report has been taken from public statistical sources, cited and collated in its internal document, ‘Changing Scotland: A Report Prepared for the Board of Ministry of the Church of Scotland’ by The Governance of Scotland Forum, University of Edinburgh, 1999.]
The Nostalgia Trap
In seeking to know what is to be done about ministry, there is often the problem of 'romantic retrospect', the assumption of a golden age, against which we measure, usually implicitly, the current situation.  Taken to extremes, this can mean that the present rarely measures up to the past, and the future looks uncertain, if not bleak, as it is extrapolated from what we take to be the current situation.  Even at face value, the social and cultural conditions of the past are rarely present.  The past is often the enemy of the present; it can freeze us into inactivity.  Why should any of this matter?  It matters because it often makes the current difficulties seem intractable.  We are immobilised by our pessimism and reluctant to embrace change lest it make matters worse.
No Single Solution
So what is to be done? First of all, we have to give up the search for the single key in the lock to solve all the problems of ministry and mission.  There is no key and certainly no golden aura on the other side of the door.  Instead, we need a careful and considered assessment of the conditions of our society.  We must pay attention to what it is really like, rather than what we would like it, or imagine it, to be.
A Pluralist Context
How can we characterise Scotland today?  First, it is now a pluralist society, one which organised religion finds it hard to come to terms with.  This is not simply a scientific and rationalist age; it is also one in which attachments to grand narratives, be they religious, political or even scientific, are not especially popular.  People may 'do' religion or politics, but they do it in their own way and their own time.  Whether we refer to this concern with the minutiae as a post-modern condition or not, it does seem to reflect a declining belief in over-arching canons of faith of various forms.
A Secular Society
Second, it is a highly 'secular' society, in terms of the percentage of the adult population who go to church.  For example, about one in four Scots claim to attend church once a month, about one in five in England, which makes Scotland, in these terms at least, probably one of the most secular societies in the western world.  This is, of course, a crude measure of 'religiosity'.  Alternatively, if we take people's own assessment, about four Scots in ten claim to be very or somewhat religious, and stretching the point further, around seven out of ten claim to be at least minimally religious.  This may seem like those jokes about good news and bad news.  Just under three in ten Scots say they have no religious beliefs whatsoever, suggesting at least that whatever people's religious practices, there is a bedrock of religious belief in this secular society.
Religious Affiliation – what does it mean today?
The other important feature to grasp is that we know very little about what religious affiliation actually signifies.  Is the fact that older people are more likely to claim a religious identity than younger people simply a reflection of age, notably that it was often a bureaucratic requirement made by armies during wartime, and hospitals do it for much the same purpose? Similarly, claims to be a 'national church' imply a remit to ministering to all of Scotland in some sense, rather than serving 'our people' which smaller denominations might claim.  It is also not difficult to 'class' religious denominations, at least in their ethos.  Who can doubt that even in today's multicultural and socially mobile Scotland the social meanings of religious affiliation are still strongly resonant?  These labels 'place' people socially and ethnically as well as religiously.
If Scotland is a 'secular' society in terms of religious practice, it is also one with a strong and continuing undercurrent of religious values and ethos, especially what has been called by some commentators 'secular presbyterianism'.  In fact, all the churches in Scotland have carried this undertow of social, even political, values at some point in their histories.  Notions of national identity and social respectability have been played through church affiliations for much of modern Scottish history.  If Scotland is becoming a more 'secular' society, it is not necessarily becoming a more amoral one.  While the belief in the transcendent appears to be on the wane in western societies, there is little evidence to indicate that there is no recognisable moral code.  It may be that it is no longer an overtly 'religious' one.
An Ageing Population
Third, Scotland, like other western societies, is an ageing one.  In the course of this century, there has also been a dramatic fall in family size.  Less commented upon, but perhaps more significant, is the transformation of household structures.  Put sharply, the classic 'family' consisting of two adults and one or more children is easily the exception.  Only one in five households in the late 1990s comes into this category.  There is no typical household any more.  Adults living with no children far outweigh those households with children living in them.  Indeed, only just over one-quarter of all households in modern Scotland contain children.  Relatedly, cohabitation is much more common, while most cohabitees end up marrying.  Similarly, more than one-third of all marriages are re-marriages where at least one partner is divorced.
A Mobile Society
Fourth, Scotland is a socially mobile society.  Over a forty-year period, it is relatively rare for people to end up in the same kind of job as their parents.  Most have been upwardly mobile out of families in which only one parent - almost always the father - worked, and normally in a manual job, to those in which women and men are employed (there are now more women in the labour force than men, albeit they work part-time in the main).  Non-manual work is now the norm, and while we cannot conclude from that that these are well-paid 'middle class' jobs, they do represent greater work opportunities and guarantee better standards of living for most people.  Greater prosperity in the population is reflected in the large proportion in recent surveys which believes that they 'get by' or manage financially.  On the other hand, endemic poverty among a minority of Scotland's households tends to be concentrated, for example, among single parent households.  Older people too are stratified between the relatively comfortable majority, and the minority who struggle to get by.
Scotland has now a better educated population than at any point in its history, at least in terms of achieving qualifications.  The acquisition of academic credentials opens up social and economic opportunities of an unprecedented sort, giving people better living standards and increased life chances than ever before.
Increased affluence also correlates with increased social and geographical mobility, in which most people who are buying a house stay in it for less than ten years.  This also has implications for people's leisure and consumption patterns.  This is a 'privatised' family pattern in the main, as households are thrown back on their own social resources, rather than locking into kin networks which have been left behind in time and place.  While there is more time for leisure, especially for men, households are fully engaged seven days a week.  The notion of a day of 'rest' seems no longer salient; this is a seven-day week, which clearly has implications for denominations with strong sabbatarian practices and histories.

	2.3.3.2	Questions for Ministry
	2.3.3.2.1	This kind of social analysis raises a whole range of questions for the wider ministry of the Church and the ordained ministry in particular.  For example:
How seriously should this social ethos be taken by the Church of Scotland as a national Church?  To what extent does it simply go along with ministering to a changing Scotland, seeming to condone the changes; and to what extent does it provide alternative moral frameworks?  Should it provide the services which people want, such as baptisms, marriages and funerals, asking for minimal commitment in return; or should it demand 'membership' as the necessary prerequisite?
In such a changing society, some wonder how valid is the traditional model of the full-time ordained and parish ministry, premised on its 'professional' status, and linked at least historically to other lay 'professions' (lawyers, doctors and other traditional 'pillars of the community')?
And perhaps most fundamental of all, this social analysis raises the question of the extent to which the Kirk is still implicitly thirled to a traditional world in which the 'parish' is viewed as fairly static and immobile, in which 'place' is known socially and geographically?  For so many people in contemporary Scotland, a sense of community and identity is formed through a shifting network of leisure activities, work and interest group contacts, media channels or web sites in cyberspace, rather than long-term residence and involvement in a local community or church.  What does it mean to be a parish church or to engage in mission and ministry within this post-modern Scotland?  In such a diverse and heterogeneous society, should we be thinking of a plurality of missions and ministries, rather than a ministry with a single mission?
	2.3.3.2.2	This changing social context of ministry and mission in Scotland and the questions it raises, must be taken with the utmost seriousness.  Such social trends have profound implications for what we consider to be appropriate forms of church life and mission, and also appropriate models of ordained ministry for a variety of changing local situations.  The one ministry of Jesus Christ must be made incarnate time and again within contemporary Scotland, in all its social and cultural diversity and particularity.  This is a theological issue as well as a matter of social analysis.  The sheer scale and relentless pace of social change has persuaded the Board that the Church will need ministers who can help it to act in ways that are faithful to the unchanging Gospel and appropriate to a changing Scotland.  In a more secular culture which questions traditional religious beliefs and institutions and in a more mobile society with fragmented and diverse patterns of living, the Church requires ministers who can help it discern the fresh relevance of the Gospel, build and sustain inclusive communities of faith and equip its members for mission and service in a complex world.  This will require gifts and skills in critical reflection and collaborative leadership, and a commitment to continuing theological education and ministerial formation, if ministers are to rise to this challenge.
	2.3.3.2.3	However, ministers will also have to be people who can cope creatively with the impact of a changing Scotland on their own lives and ministry.  In such a society, the social role and sense of identity of ministers are clearly subject to change, uncertainty and stress.  As the above analysis of social trends makes clear, ministers no longer inhabit a world of deference and respect for their traditional functions and authority in the Church or community.  This can put particular stresses on ministers and their families, especially where they are serving in areas of institutional church decline while at the same time facing increasing work-loads.  Much valuable work has been done by the Board of Ministry, Presbyteries and other bodies in recent years in addressing questions of stress, health and pastoral support in the ordained ministry.  The Board believes that its own commissioned sociological analysis of a changing Scotland has highlighted for its work the importance of developing a theology of ordination and practice of ordained ministry which integrates person and function in a dynamic and relational way.  We must not separate the impact of social change on the person in ministry from its impact on his or her functions and roles in ministry.  It is the person in the ministry who feels the changes in church and society.  This personal unease can bring into question the relevance of functions expected of this particular ministry.  The two are inseparable as these social and church trends affect who ministers are as persons as well as what they do in ministry.
	2.3.3.2.4	This social analysis of mission and ministry in a changing Scotland informs the kind of profile of ordained ministry developed in Section B; leading not so much to a check list of ministerial gifts and functions suitable for a stable church and society but more to a dynamic portrait of the kind of integrated, gifted and able persons called and equipped by God in Christ to be ministers of the Gospel in our uncertain world.
	2.3.3.2.5	But ministers are not called to ordained service in isolation from the wider Church and the ministry and mission of all God’s people.  How does that wider Church see the impact of social change on its life and work?  Here, it is the Church on the ground that is often best placed to reflect on the most appropriate forms of ministry, including ordained ministry, in its own local context.  That is why the Board of Ministry held a national consultation last autumn, 1999, to hear from the local church and community across Scotland their views about ‘tomorrow’s ministers’, in the context of this changing society.  Through a series of six regional Board Roadshows, local discussion groups meeting throughout Scotland and submitting written responses and, for the first time, through interactive web pages on the Internet, around a thousand people took part in this consultation process.  Those taking part included not only church members and office-bearers, those serving in the Church of Scotland’s range of ordained and commissioned ministries, Presbytery office-bearers and General Assembly boards, but also friends in the community who look to the Church as a partner in public service.  These included representatives from health, education, social work, the voluntary sector, the professions and Members of the Scottish Parliament.  For any institution, this represents a major consultative exercise and the Board wishes to record its thanks to all those who took part.

	2.3.4	Ministers of the Gospel – Serving the Church
	2.3.4.1	In that autumn Consultation, the Board asked Church and community members to consider the impact of social change on church and society from their local perspective and to consider whether the Board’s initial thinking on an appropriate model of ordained ministry for the 21st century would be relevant in their local context in church and community.  In particular, the Board asked if its vision of an ordained ministry that was, (a) able to communicate the Gospel in ways appropriate to varied contexts, (b) prepared for a deeply collaborative style of leadership and (c) open to continuing vocational development and appraisal, would provide the kind of ministers the Church on the ground needed to equip it for mission and service.  The responses represent a broad geographical spectrum and range of church and ministry contexts.  By far the majority of written responses were the result of group reflection.
Team Ministry
The overwhelming message of the responses is that the only sustainable future for ministry lies in continuing the development of collaborative patterns.  This is expressed most strongly in the form of team ministry, of which two main types are regularly evinced.  The first is to see teams developing which comprise church members, ordained ministers and other recognised ministries.  In this form of team, much more emphasis needs to be placed on the ability of church members to perform tasks and functions traditionally reserved to the ordained minister.  Although this is expressed in a variety of ways, it may perhaps best be summarised in the notion of ordained ministry as a part of the ministry of the whole people of God, rather than seeing church members as ‘playing a part’ in a ministry which is largely carried out by ordained ministers.
Group Practice
A second form of team ministry that commands a high degree of support is that comprising a number of ordained ministers.  Many see such teams as following the modern pattern of General Practice in medicine, where a number of GPs with a variety of specialist skills work together across an area to provide both general and specific care.  The rotational aspect of GP work is also alluded to, with the proposal of a kind of ‘locum’ minister covering the times when the ‘parish’ minister is unavailable.  Almost all responses of this type view teams not merely as an unavoidable necessity in a shrinking institutional Church, but much more as a positive and appropriate deployment of resources in a manner suited to the needs of the Church in contemporary society.  Not least here the concern is raised about ministers experiencing burn-out as a result of having an increasing diversity of tasks placed alongside existing expectations of ministry.  For many, the issue of multiple competency has now already reached crisis point, and a form of team ministry in which competencies are spread across the group seems a good option.
An obvious spin-off from the desire for team ministry (of whatever kind) is the need for ministers who are collaborative in style and flexible in outlook.  This is clearly reflected in the feedback from groups.  Alongside the search for co-operative people, however, a strong desire is expressed for ministers who can exercise appropriate forms of leadership.  Allied to the emphasis on the need for teamwork, then, is a strong affirmation of the ordained minister as a person with a sense of vocation to leadership, exercising special skills in motivating and encouraging the service of the whole people of God.
People of Passion
Some correspondents were critical of the consultation document’s assumption that ordained ministry will be a feature of tomorrow’s ministry.  Those critics are far outnumbered by the call for a renewed emphasis on the ‘calling’ to ordained ministry.  Ministers should be people of integrity, who need released from much of the administrative burden under which they have increasingly felt swamped in recent years.  Their primary focus should be on the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and because of this, they need to be well equipped to lead worship.  In many different ways, the responses speak of the need for ministers to be people of passion – a holistic passion for the Gospel; for the pastoral needs of the local congregation; and for building  two-way links between the Church and the wider community.
Good Interpersonal Skills
Clearly to be genuine team- and bridge-builders, ministers will need the highest possible degree of skill in interpersonal relationships.  This comes across in a number of key ideas in the responses.  Approachability, tolerance and humility are significant components in constructing good relationships, but other qualities such as enthusiasm and a sense of humour (which includes the ability to laugh at oneself) will also be important in developing the kinds of contacts with people both inside and outside the church which may enable others to find a sense of belonging and being valued.
The accent upon ‘team’ is the primary indicator that the consultation’s stress on ministers as those who ‘can work with others’ was significantly in tune with the thinking of congregations throughout Scotland.  Ministers must think about their work, collaborate with others and continue in life-long learning.
Working with Other Churches
Another aspect of the collaborative emphasis in responses is the note of encouragement towards a co-operative rather than a competitive approach to ministry.  This comes out in various ways, not least in the call to see ecumenism as an essential for the future rather than an optional extra as time allows.  Within the Church of Scotland, the need to share across parish boundaries is noted, not least in terms of human and financial resources.
Committed to Life-long Learning
A further major emphasis in the responses lies in the need for openness to life-long learning in ministers.  It might again be argued that this has always been a requirement for ministers, but the contemporary context allows for a greater degree of opportunity for study and better structures for managing this aspect of ministerial life.  Perhaps the best learning grows out of open-minded self-awareness, and demands a willingness in ministers to allow themselves a degree of appropriate vulnerability.  There is a need for effective methods of appraisal, which encourage ministers to identify areas for personal and intellectual development, and which go on to offer support and guidance on how in-service and study leave opportunities may best address issues raised.
The opportunity for peer support for ministers is also commended by correspondents.  This assumes a high level of trust between peers and fits well with the picture of collaborative ministry.  Additionally, it requires that ministers be reflective people who are able to integrate their experience, their ability to listen and observe, and their knowledge base.  Through mutual accountability ministers may again be able to identify areas for growth and opportunities for learning.  It follows that the Church needs to make available high quality in-service and study leave opportunities which will be of benefit both to ministers and to their congregations and other ministry contexts.
Openness to learning also includes readiness to become properly acquainted with the benefits of modern technology, particularly in the area of Information Technology (IT).  Alongside IT literacy goes the need for good management skills, including such areas as organisation of time and stress management.  Far from being an unnecessary chore, these things were affirmed as of real long-term benefit to ministers willing to engage in them.
The Church as a Partner
In addition to the major issues emerging from the submissions, there are a number of significant observations, often made by only a very small number of correspondents, which taken together form quite coherent themes for consideration.  One of these is the issue of the Church as a partner, not merely internally with other denominations through ecumenical co-operation, but also ‘externally’ with society at large.  This is reflected in comments about the need for awareness of the multi-cultural, multi-faith context of the society in which churches now find themselves.  Or again, the need for the Church to become more aware of and engaged in local community and educational issues.  In all of these matters the theme of collaboration, so strong in terms of the inner life of the Church, is pushed further to take in a wider group of partner relationships.  In the regional Board Roadshows, colleagues from the community consistently expressed a wish to form new partnerships with the Church and its ministers in fields of common endeavour such as education, health, social work, employment and voluntary and public service.
Meaningful Participation
A second grouping of issues may be gathered around the word ‘involvement’.  There is a strong desire from a number of different angles for people to feel involved in significant ways in the ministry of the Church.  This issue links closely with that of the formation of teams in ministry and it reflects the measure to which church members have often felt excluded from the possibility of exercising their role within the ministry of the whole people of God.
Overall Assessment
While the Board acknowledges and notes the critical comments and insights that it received, there can be no doubt that the overwhelming outlook of the responses to its Roadshow presentations and from local discussion groups was positive.  The consultation process broadly affirmed the general direction in which the Board suggested ordained ministry needs to move in order to address the 21st century context.
What emerges from the consultation process is a profile of ordained ministry broadly similar to that which we have seen emerging from our theological understanding of the ministry of Jesus Christ and our sociological analysis of mission in a changing Scotland.  The Church is clearly looking for ordained ministers who can integrate who they are as persons in Christ with their distinctive calling in the ministry of Word and Sacrament; in collaborative and reflective patterns of working and leadership and in ways that enable and empower the people of God for their ministry in Christ.  The Church looks for the fruit of this integration of person and practice, in ministers who sustain a spiritual passion for their calling, a healthy self-awareness and good humour, and an openness to continuing development and supportive appraisal.
Now it is time to set out the profile of the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament that emerges out of the Board’s own collaborative reflection on these three vital perspectives: the one ministry of Jesus Christ, fulfilling God’s mission to the world; the social context of that ministry and mission in a changing Scotland; and the wisdom and insights of the Church and community on the ground, as they participate in God’s mission and work in the world.

2.4	Section B - Profile of Ministers of the Gospel
	2.4.1	In offering the following profile of ministers of the Gospel, the Board does not claim that this is an exhaustive or definitive one, excluding other valid views, concerns and insights into ordained ministry.  Rather, the profile has emerged from a process of reflection, dialogue and revision that will continue as a permanent feature of the Board’s life and work.  However, the Board seeks sufficient clarity and consensus about the theology and practice of ordained ministry to agree a profile that the Church can own and affirm in all aspects of the Board’s work, while always being open to continuing review and revision.

	2.4.2	Ministers of the Gospel – Called and Ordained
	2.4.2.1	The Church is the gathering of people called by the Gospel – where the Word is rightly preached and the Sacraments properly administered (and, the Scottish Reformers would add, godly discipline, or disciple-making, is exercised according to God’s Word).  It is her faithfulness to the Gospel that makes Church the Church and equips it for mission and service.  One essential way of keeping the Church faithful to the Gospel and its ministry is through the service of the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament – Ministers of the Gospel.  Christ calls from his Body mature Christian women and men gifted and ready to give this particular service.  The Church affirms their call, prepares those selected for service and then authorises and enables them to exercise this particular form of ministry in a variety of settings, dependent always on the enabling power of the Spirit of Christ.
	2.4.2.2	Today ministers of the Gospel serve in a range of contexts, not only in parish ministry but also in chaplaincy, community and national mission settings, and within team, ecumenical and world mission partnerships.  The profile of ordained ministry proposed here by the Board is not determined by any one of these settings, least of all the parish ministry as traditionally conceived.  An underlying assumption of all the Board’s reflections on ordained ministry has been that ministers of the Gospel will increasingly work in a range of settings, requiring flexibility and a variety of different skills, not least within changing and diverse types of parish ministry itself.  However, within this range of settings, the Board believes that there is still a distinctive and common ministry of the Gospel that must always be exercised which is distinct from but complementary to other forms of service.  
	2.4.2.3	The call to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament must normally begin in the local context of the congregation as members participate fully in the worship and witness of the Church and as others recognise their gifts and potential for this particular ministry.  Since ordination is a church-wide recognition of this call, the whole Church is involved in discerning from among its membership people whom she feels have the necessary gifts and the potential for growth to contribute to the common life in varied settings.
	2.4.2.4	A call commonly includes three elements.  These are:
A personal call from God to an office of service within the ordered ministry of the Church; marked by a clear and shared sense that God has called someone because of that person’s specific gifts and character traits;
The testing and validating of one's fitness for that particular service – functionally, personally and theologically – by a governing body of the Church, through a recognised process of ministerial formation;
Confirmation of this personal call by means of a public call from a community of God's people, ordinarily a local congregation.
	2.4.2.5	When the Church recognises and affirms that all three elements of Christ’s call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament are present in a person, then the Church ordains that person to the holy ministry of the Gospel.  The word ordination is derived from the word “order”.  In ordination, the Church orders itself for ministry, identifying and authorising women and men with particular gifts to equip and lead it in serving God’s reign in the world, through holding it to the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.  Ordination refers both to the process by which the Church discerns whether someone has been called by God, and the liturgical practice by which he or she is admitted to that office, through prayer and the laying on of hands by the Presbytery.  In discerning whether someone has a call to ordained ministry, the Church seeks to see the integrity of the whole person, manifesting both a mature Christian character and human personality and the gifts and abilities to exercise the function of the ministry of Word and Sacrament.
	2.4.2.6	It is this last point which has emerged from the Board’s collaborative reflection on the theology and practice of ordained ministry, in the context of its analysis of a changing Church and society, as an insight of fundamental importance for its work with enquirers, applicants, candidates and ministers.  It is worth re-stating earlier comments in the report at this point.  What follows turns on the following conviction:
The Board affirms that what is wonderfully joined together in the one ministry of Jesus Christ – person and practice – should never be separated in the Church’s discernment and development of those women and men called by Jesus Christ to serve in the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament.  In Christ, ministers of the Gospel are people who in their person and in their particular service manifest the same life of grace and the same practice of truth.  Ministers of the Gospel share a common humanity with their neighbours and a common discipleship with their fellow Christians.  They are not superior human beings or special Christians, but frail and fallible people always dependent on the renewing grace of God.  And yet, in those called to this particular ministry, the Church should discern a mature and growing integration of person and practice, being and function, as two related aspects of the one life lived in Christ’s grace and service.  It is the degree of creative integration of personal being and functional abilities as ministers of the Gospel which marks out those called and ordained to this particular ministry.

	2.4.2.7	In the light of this controlling insight and concern for the growing integration of person and practice in ministers of the Gospel, the following profile should be seen as a dynamic and inter-dependent account of ordained ministry.  It is not a checklist in which various gifts, character traits, abilities and functions can be detached from one another and ticked off.  It is a living portrait born of theological reflection, social analysis, Church consultation and Board of Ministry experience, in which the mystery of one of Christ’s actions and gifts to the Church, the calling and ordination of particular Christian persons to the particular ministry of Word of Sacrament, may be discerned and developed.  The Board is drawn to this profile because of its potential to guide it in its responsibilities to the General Assembly for the discernment and development of those called by Christ to be ministers of the Gospel.  This portrait does not cover all aspects of ordained ministry.  Indeed, it does not do so on principle for the following fundamental reason.  The portrait offered here seeks to identify and nurture the very people with the gifts, maturity and skills to do their own further necessary and vital discernment and development in the work of ordained ministry, always in the context of and in collaboration with all God’s people and their wider ministry and mission.  The following portrait of ordained ministry offers two angles on the same reality: ministers of the Gospel seen first as persons in Christ; and then viewed as those who can integrate person and practice in their distinctive calling and service.

	2.4.3	Ministers of the Gospel - Persons in Christ
	2.4.3.1	Of utmost importance in discerning a call to ordained ministry is the character of the person who would serve the Church in this particular service.  In the consultation process it became clear that while the Church needs a well-educated, well-trained and gifted ministry, it also needs women and men whose life and character are a true witness of Jesus Christ.  What is looked for, therefore, is the integration of the person and his or her functions as a minister of the Gospel.  Those called to be ministers of the Gospel should share the following attributes with all those called to office in the Church:
Maturity of Faith
The Church ordinarily ordains persons whose life, faith and work have been shaped and seasoned by years of discipleship within the community of faith.  Ordination to office is not an appropriate way to involve new or inexperienced believers.  Until a person knows a tradition, he or she can hardly represent or be accountable to it.
Sound Judgement
Ordained persons exercise authority in ways that affect the life and work of the whole Church.  Because their witness and their decisions can build up the community or tear it down, those called to leadership should have demonstrated a capacity for practical wisdom.
Healthy Self-Awareness
Ministry is carried out in the context of human relationships.  Those who lead the Church in ministry need to know who they are, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, and how to function appropriately in a variety of relationships.
Sensitivity Toward the Needs of Others
The capacity to work with others is a gift from God.  Service in office will sometimes require one to lead and direct others; at other times, one must allow others to lead and direct.  Ministers of the Gospel exercise leadership within networks of mutual trust and accountability under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

	2.4.3.2	In particular, those called to the office of the ministry of Word and Sacrament require to manifest the following personal attributes in the fulfilling of their ministry:
Manner of Life That Is a Manifest Demonstration of the Christian Gospel
Those who bear office are not expected to be perfect, for perfection belongs to God alone.  Living in accord with the Gospel is not a matter of building a fortress of personal holiness to protect oneself from others, but of ordering one's life by God's grace in Jesus Christ, willing to follow wherever Jesus leads.
Personal Integrity in All Aspects of Life
The Christian Gospel is grounded in God's unbreakable promise in Jesus Christ.  But the Church lives in a broken world where integrity – congruity between what is said and what is done – is hard to come by.  When the words of ministers of the Gospel are congruent with their deeds, trust flourishes, as does the authority to lead.  When integrity is lacking, trust gives way to cynicism, and the authority to lead evaporates.  The Church's – and the world's – perception of the integrity of the Gospel is affected by its perception of the integrity of those called to embody the Gospel.
Lives Marked by the Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control (Gal. 5:22-23)
Paul's admonition to live by the Spirit, not by the law, applied to all Christians, not just ordained ministers.  Ministers of the Gospel, however, represent the claims of Christ on the world and the Church through their leadership.  It is therefore of special importance that they evidence the fruit of the Spirit – and not just the skills for managing the organisational structures of the Church.
Lives Lived in Communion with God
Those who would lead communities in service to and for God must be women and men of spiritual depth.  Their lives should be marked by a disciplined use of the ordinary means of grace, such as daily prayer and Bible reading; participation and leadership in worship, including the Sacraments; and participation and leadership in the educational ministry of the Church.
Truthfulness
A reputation for truthfulness in every dimension of a minister’s life and witness enhances the possibility that people will recognise and affirm the truth claims that a minister makes in the course of his or her preaching or teaching or pastoral ministry.  It is this key personal attribute of truthfulness in ministers that leads us on to looking at ordained ministry from our second related angle, the creative and healthy integration of person and practice in this distinctive calling and service.

	2.4.4	Ministers of the Gospel – Integrating Person and Practice
	2.4.4.1	Along with these personal attributes, Ministers of the Gospel need to develop certain abilities to be able to fulfil their calling as those gifted by God for this service.  Three at least are essential:
The ability to discern and communicate the Gospel
Ministers are asked to know the text of Scripture and to interpret it with integrity in light of the Church's theological tradition.  But they must also be able to discern where and how the promises and claims of God in Scripture intersect with human life.  This report’s earlier analysis of our changing social context makes it abundantly clear what a demanding and skilled task that is today.
The ability to exercise a personal presence in ministry
Ministers need to embody grace in their relationships to others, hospitality toward the stranger, empathy for the oppressed, and sympathy for the grieving.  Although it can be nurtured, ‘personal presence’ comes only as a free gift of God.  It cannot be taught.
The ability to sustain a disciplined passion in the following of Jesus Christ. 
Ministers' passion to proclaim the Word should be disciplined by the authority of Scripture and tradition, sustained by a life of prayer, and responsive to the voice of the Spirit as it is expressed within congregations and governing bodies.
	2.4.4.2	Ministers of the Gospel are called by God and ordained by the Church to show these attributes and abilities as they fulfil their vocation in:
Proclaiming the Word with Authority
	Central to the task of minister is the informed, truthful and effective announcing of God's grace and God's claim on human life.  This proclamation occurs through preaching, teaching and pastoral care.  It needs to be authoritative, i.e., an honest rendering within the assembly of God's people of what God, the author, would have the world hear and know in particular historical moments.  For this reason, the Church of Scotland insists that those ordained to this office be competent expositors of Scripture and competent interpreters of the Church's theological tradition as set forth in its confession.
Celebrating the Sacraments
Not all ministers of the Word and Sacrament serve in contexts in which presiding at celebrations of Baptism and the Lord's Suppers is a regular ordinary or continuing part of their ministry.  But all ministers of the Word and Sacrament are charged with orienting their ministry around the font and the table.  For example, those whose ministry is primarily pastoral care play a key role in evangelising those whom God would claim in baptism, assuaging tender consciences by reminding people of their baptism, and strengthening or restoring members' participation in the company of believers around the Lord's Table.
Forming Christian Community
	The Church is the community in which people discover what it means to be Christian and are transformed to live a life of discipleship and service.  Ministers of the Word and Sacrament have gifts and character to form such communities and to extend the claims of the Gospel into a world that no longer supports the Church's ministry as it once did.  The leader's task is not to help people accommodate themselves in this world or make the claims of faith intelligible according to the standards of what is currently fashionable, but to form communities whose life and witness are shaped by the story of God's mighty acts in history, interpreted in light of the confessional tradition of the Church, and transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.
Building up the Body of Christ
The Church is not merely a collection of like-minded individuals but a covenant community.  The New Testament stresses that the Church is the Body of Christ.  A core function of the minister of the Word and Sacrament is the ability to build up the Body of Christ and to equip the Body for ministry, with the disciplined passion and personal maturity that can cope with the conflicts, ambiguities, demands and the costs of that ministry.
Leading the Church through its structures
	Ministers of the Word and Sacrament serve as moderators of Kirk Sessions and hold continuing membership in Presbytery.  They are charged with helping to order the Church's life and mission in conformity with God's will as expressed in Scripture and the Church's confession.  Ministers share this task of governance with elders.
Witnessing prophetically in all aspects of life
	A key tenet of Reformed theology is its insistence that the Church is charged not only with forming communities around the Word, but also with labouring for the transformation of human society.  Ministers of the Word and Sacrament are called to prophetic witness to the will and purpose of God.  Indeed, those who neglect this critical function out of the genuine, if mistaken, sense of pastoral concern may cause the people of God to suffer from a lack of purpose in service.  As a result, people may become less likely to follow their minister's leadership.

	2.4.5	Ministers Of The Gospel – Serving In Community
	2.4.5.1	Given such a practical theological profile of the attributes and abilities of the ordained ministry, how is such a ministry of the Gospel to be exercised in practice in the context of the three perspectives on ministry set out at the start: the ministry of Christ; mission in a changing society; and the concerns of the Church?  The Board believes that there can be a principled and working consensus in the Church of Scotland around the following three ‘axioms’ about the practice of ordained ministry in the 21st century.  In the future, it should be axiomatic that ministers of the Gospel will exercise their particular calling in the following three styles:
a collaborative approach
a reflective practice
a commitment to formation.

	2.4.5.2	A Collaborative Approach to Ministry
	2.4.5.2.1	Seen from the perspective of Christ’s ministry, it is clear that ministry in the 21st century will be the work of the whole Church and every member and particular ministry.  This will require a shared ministry of all the gifts.  Therefore, in making their own distinctive contribution, ordained ministers in the 21st century must be gifted and skilled in working well in the collaborative setting of such a shared ministry.  This was the strong wish of many Church and community members who expressed their views in the Board’s autumn consultation process.  But, shaped by a theology of Christ’s ministry, what will a serious commitment to collaborative practice in ministry look like?  As set out helpfully by Malcolm Grundy, a recent Church of England report on collaborative ministry offered this working definition:
… we should like to return to its roots in the Latin, collaborare, meaning ‘to work together’ and further to extend the concept of collaborative ministry to include not only ‘doing’ together, but also ‘being together’, such that collaboration implies a true partnership and sharing a common task.  (Malcolm Grundy, Understanding Congregations, p.61)
	2.4.5.2.2	This commitment to being together in a true partnership, as well as working together in a common task, is not an easy one to realise in practice.  Here are some pointers to what a truly collaborative ministry involves, taken from another recent Roman Catholic report from England and Wales, as cited by Grundy (pp.59, 60):
Involvement in collaborative ministry demands conscious commitment to certain values and convictions;
Collaborative ministry begins from a fundamental desire to work together because we are all called by the Lord to be a company of disciples, not isolated individuals;
Collaborative ministry is committed to mission.  It is not simply concerned with the internal life of the Church.  Rather it shows the world the possibility of transformation, of community and of unity within diversity;
Collaborative ministry does not happen just because people work together or co-operate in some way.  It is a gradual and mutual evolution of new patterns;
Collaborative ministry is built upon good personal relations;
Collaborative teams, where personal relationships are important, highlight the importance of emotional maturity;
Collaborative parishes and teams generally place a high priority on developing a shared vision, often expressed in a mission statement, or in regularly reviewed aims and objectives;
The courage to face and work through conflict, negotiating until a compromise is found, and even seeking help in order to resolve it, are not weaknesses but signs of maturity and commitment;
The desire for shared decision-making is the natural outcome of working collaboratively;
Teams need to work very hard at how they communicate, and enable different members to take responsibility for what they think and feel.
	2.4.5.2.3	From this brief overview of some of the issues involved in authentic collaborative ministry, it can be seen that it requires commitment, a range of skills and a level of maturity from all involved in the process.  It involves a willingness to learn new models of authority and leadership within the Church.  But how else is the shared ministry of the whole Church to be realised and exercised in the 21st century, except through the development of such a collaborative approach?
	2.4.5.2.4	Drawing on Existing Good Practice
	2.4.5.2.4.1	We can, of course, draw on existing good practice.  Within a Church of Scotland and wider ecumenical context in Scotland, there are already many examples of working towards a more collaborative style of ministry.  Team ministries operate in various settings and involve a diverse range of colleagues in full- and part-time ministry, including ordained ministers, deacons, readers and other specialists.  Parish ministers seek to work in a collaborative ministry with Kirk Sessions and elders, and office-bearers and church members.  Congregations too are seeking to realise a local vision of a shared ministry and mission through a collaborative approach, often in partnerships with other churches and denominations.  Chaplains are also committed to a collaborative way of working with colleagues in various institutional and community settings.  Given a theological commitment to a shared ministry in Christ on the part of the whole people of God, and given these welcome trends within current patterns of ministry in the wider Church, ordained ministers in the 21st century will exercise their own particular gift and calling in a collaborative ethos and practice.

	2.4.5.3	A Reflective Practice of Ministry
	2.4.5.3.1	Mission prompts questions about social change.  Seen from this sociological perspective, tomorrow’s ministers will have to be capable of working in a climate of uncertainty and change, as our social analysis indicated.  Fresh insights from the Gospel, new ways of being church and more appropriate ways of serving others will have to be found, time and again, in many different situations.  Ministers will need training in leading congregations through change, which is often experienced as a grief process of loss, before renewal.  The Church will require ministers who are able to help it think creatively, reflect critically and act wisely, in collaboration with others - in the light of the Gospel and in response to a changing Scotland.  At the same time, authentic pastoral ministry alongside people in suffering and loss will always call for constancy in prayer and love.
	2.4.5.3.2	But what will such ‘reflective ministry’ look like in the new century?  A leading American advocate of reflective ministry, Jackson Carroll, has offered this working definition of reflective leadership on the part of ordained ministers:
I mean by it the capacity, in the midst of the practice of ministry, to lead the church to act in ways that are faithful to the Gospel and appropriate within the situation.  To [minister and ] lead reflectively involves a kind of hermeneutic [interpretation] of practice.  It entails the capacity to ‘read’ situations, and, in the midst of them, draw on resources of knowledge, experience, and skills - often by inventing new ones - to construct faithful and appropriate responses.  It means also having an identity and personal style that inspire trust and confidence among those with whom one shares ministry.  [Ministers] who function as reflective [practitioners and] leaders function with authority - not in a top-down, asymmetrical fashion but in partnership with laity.	(Jackson Carroll, As One With Authority, p.122)
	2.4.5.3.3	Again, we can see many encouraging examples in the Church today of such reflective ministry and leadership, as ministers and Kirk Sessions, church members and office-bearers, and those in other recognised ministries develop new ways of being parish churches and more appropriate ways of being congregations and ministries in mission in the community.  Those who are serving in a chaplaincy or UPA ministry, for example, have long and rich experience of such reflective ministry and practice, in institutional, industrial or community settings where their role and contribution have to be continually re-defined and re-thought in a changing working environment.
	2.4.5.3.4	If ordained ministers are to respond to the changing context of the Church’s mission in a changing Scotland and wider world, then they will have to be the people with the capacity and gifts for such reflective practice and leadership, exercised in the collaborative setting of the shared ministry of the whole Church.  Therefore, the process of recruitment and selection, education and training, and support and development for tomorrow’s ministers must recognise these key dimensions.  This leads us on to our third working axiom for ordained ministry, that of formation.

	2.4.5.4	A Commitment to Formation in Ministry
	2.4.5.4.1	How are people formed to exercise such a collaborative and reflective ministry, in the context of the shared ministry and mission of the whole Church in Christ?  The common ecumenical term for this process is ministerial formation.  Those called to be ministers of the Gospel must be open to continuing formation in the attributes and abilities that their office and service require.  They must be formative, in the dictionary definition of that word, being people who are capable of development and growth.  They must also be open to mutually supportive and accountable appraisal in the educational development and exercising of their own ministry.  The Church’s understanding of the education and training and the support and development of ministers must be shaped by this commitment to collaborative and reflective ministry at all stages in their formation.
	2.4.5.4.2	But where does this process of continuing formation in the attributes and abilities of ordained ministry begin?  Clearly, those called to the ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament should normally discern that call and have it affirmed as they take part in the shared life and service of the Church as members; it cannot be a matter of an exclusively private call and an individualistic pursuit of either formation or the practice of ministry.  A commitment to ministry as a process of shared formation in the life and work of the wider Church puts recruitment to the ordained ministry in its proper perspective.  It is as the local Church nurtures the formation of all its members in the Christian life (as those called to serve Christ unconditionally at their baptism), that it should discern which of its members may have the gifts and maturity of life and faith to serve Christ in this particular ministry.  From this perspective, recruitment is the fruit of the shared formation of all church members in the wider ministry and mission of the whole Church (the same could be said of recruitment to all other recognised ministries in the Church of Scotland, including the diaconate).

	2.4.5.5	Ministers of the Gospel
	2.4.5.5.1	As those called and ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, ministers of the Gospel in the 21st century must be reflective practitioners, collaborative leaders and formative learners.  That is not to restrict ministers to a certain mould.  The Board affirms and welcomes the range of personalities and approaches to ministry among those whom Christ calls into this particular service.  However, the theology and practice of ordained ministry affirmed here by the Board and the wider Church requires a clear capacity and commitment among all ministers of the Gospel to deep reflection, genuine collaboration and continuing formation as persons in Christ and practitioners in ordained ministry.

2.5	Section C - Policy on Ordained Ministry

	2.5.1	In the light of the perspectives and profile set out above, the Board is already considering some of the policy implications for its work.  In particular, it is addressing the impact of owning this profile of ordained ministry for its remit in the following key areas:
?	Recruitment and Selection
?	Education and Training
?	Ministry Support and Development.
	2.5.2	As a preliminary exploration of some of the policy issues raised by its profile of ordained ministry, the following comments are offered as concrete examples of how the Board might begin to implement this report’s findings in its present and future work.  In making these preliminary comments, the Board is mindful of the responsibilities of Presbyteries and the General Assembly in considering wider issues in ministry such as ministry deployment.

	2.5.3	Recruitment and Selection
	2.5.3.1	The new ‘Enquiry Process’ being developed by the Board of Ministry’s Vocational Guidance Committee is a good model for a collaborative and reflective process in recruitment and selection.  Enquirers explore a sense of vocation through guided theological reading and reflection and opportunities for service within the supervised setting of the local church, before coming to a Selection Conference.  However, this model has even more radical implications for the selection process.  Reflection and collaboration are long-term and life-long processes.  To discern whether someone has the gifts and aptitudes for such a ministry cannot be established in one short residential conference.  Therefore, in the future, it may be that the Church has to recognise the Selection Conference as only the access point to a continuing assessment process.  A review of the educational standards and psychological profile of those entering a course of education and training may also be required, to assess applicants for their suitability and potential for a ‘reflective, collaborative and formative’ ministry.  That assessment process would then continue throughout the candidate’s period of education and training (including the new ‘fourth placement’ after university).

	2.5.4	Education and Training
	2.5.4.1	If the selection process is to continue through the candidate’s period of education and training, then progress would be dependent on a formal annual review and assessment for all candidates.  Only those who showed clear evidence of a positive meeting of the criteria for development at that stage would then be allowed to proceed to the next year of education and training.  This would allow the Church to guide those candidates who did not show such satisfactory evidence of progress into other paths in Christian service, at an early stage.  Such a developmental and ‘gated’ process of selection would fulfil the spirit and criteria of a collaborative and reflective ministry.  It would be fairer to candidates who did not show the expected and required level of development in the education and training process.  By identifying this situation at the earliest possible opportunity, it would allow them to leave the process as part of a standard annual procedure for all candidates (rather than through the more stressful ‘special case’ process operating at present).  This highlights the importance of further discussion in the Church about the question of the termination of candidature, a matter that the Board is currently addressing.
	2.5.4.2	Again, the new interim ‘education and training scheme’ offers a good model of a reflective and collaborative process, with great potential for further development.  The Board’s Education and Training Committee is now running a ‘degree, placement and conference’ programme which is committed in principle and in practice to developing a reflective approach to integrating theological study and practical training.  The initial weekend orientation conference for all new candidates for the ministry, and the residential eight day conference for all candidates, exploring the theology and practice of ministry in the Church of Scotland in a collegial setting, are encouraging steps in the direction of ‘formation in collaborative and reflective ministry’ – as are the training placements with trained supervisors.
	2.5.4.3	However, the Church’s commitment to a reflective and collaborative ministry raises questions about the timing and terms for entry into such a process of formation.  Research into education for ministry highlights the need for an extended period of sustained formation for ministry.  This raises questions about ‘late accept’ or ‘shorter supplementary course’ candidates, especially those who come with little experience of the life and ethos of the Church of Scotland.  Formation is a process that takes time.

	2.5.5	Ministry Support and Development
	2.5.5.1	In reflective and collaborative ministry, ‘formation’ is a life-long process.  Therefore tomorrow’s ministers will need to be open to continuing appraisal of their development in the knowledge, skills and personal growth required in ministry.  This can only be effective within an ethos and programme of mutual support and accountability, between the minister and the Church (congregation, Presbytery, colleagues, Board of Ministry advisers and mentors).  The Board’s Ministry Support and Ministry Development Committees have established excellent support resources and conference programmes to address these issues and meet these needs.  The new pilot voluntary appraisal scheme for ministers is also a welcome initiative in developing an ordained ministry open to continuing formation.  However, in the future, tomorrow’s ministers may well require a more formal commitment to appraisal and continuing education in ministry.  This has implications for the stipend structure and the terms and conditions in which ministers serve in the Church.

2.6	Conclusion
	2.6.1	The Board of Ministry is encouraged by the theological and practical insights gained by its preliminary study of the ordained ministry.  In particular, it is persuaded of the need to integrate person and practice in any profile of ministers of the Gospel that is relevant to its work in the recruitment and selection, education and training, and support and development of ordained ministers in the opening years of the 21st century.  The Board asks the General Assembly to endorse the theological perspective and profile of ordained ministry set out in this report and to sanction their official use in shaping its policy and practice in its areas of responsibility for ordained ministry.  It also seeks the General Assembly’s approval to continue this process of theological reflection as an integral part of its own work as a Board, particularly in relation to its responsibilities for the diaconate and for questions of stipendiary and non-stipendiary ordained ministry.  The Board commits itself to developing policies in all areas of its work in line with this report’s findings and yet in ways that are open to further reflection and collaboration.  Above all, it commits itself afresh at the start of the 21st century to the ministry of the Gospel, in the company and service of Jesus Christ.