Alaska Adopts Radical Ministry Style
Diocesan Press Service. December 21, 1973 [73284]
Isabel Baumgartner
Fifty years ago, a housewife at her kitchen sink washed and rinsed a single coffee cup, then placed it upside down at the near edge of the drainboard.
Against that cup she propped next the newly washed saucers, butter plates, salad plates, dinner plates.
She called that first cup "the minister -- the one all the others lean on. " Few Christians today wince at the metaphor; it describes a simple fact of life in their parishes.
Not so, however, in the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska where a radical change in ministry is taking shape, radical because it is rooted in New Testament practice.
As did their first century counterparts, Alaska's mission congregations may now choose one of their own number to preside at the altar. After appropriate preparation, that person is ordained a "sacramental minister " or "sacramentalist" with one specific task: to celebrate the sacraments.
He has no authority, is not placed in charge of the congregation, and receives no salary from the church.
The other aspects of ministry -- preaching, leading prayer groups, Bible teaching, youth work, visiting, involvement in social action, counselling -- are divided among other members of the congregation.
Alaska's Bishop William J. Gordon, Jr., puts the goal this way : "To have as many persons as possible share the ministry in each congregation. "
To date, 18 sacramentalists have been ordained. The program is relatively new; the Diocese will test its efficacy carefully, at regular intervals, as it develops.
Bishop Gordon poses repeatedly one key question. "Are we in holy orders intended to minister to our people, or to enable them to minister?"
The Bishop comes down strong on the side of enablement.
"Christianity would have been doomed from the start if its first leaders had locked themselves into specific congregations forever and made themselves indispensable in a certain few places. The worst mistake St. Paul could have made would have been to settle down. "
Bishop Gordon is convinced that today, as then, "all the functions of ministry can arise from within the congregation. " With help, of course, and lots of it.
We're beginning to picture each congregation as a miniature seminary," he points out, "where everybody receives constant training and spiritual empowerment and renewal, and from which nobody ever graduates. Our seminary-trained priests will serve as roving faculty, equipping lay persons for ministry. "
His Diocese sends some of its Indian and Eskimo people to Cook Christian Training School in Tempe, Arizona, sponsors Faith at Work conferences at home, and offers seminars at strategic spots for one or several congregations. One-to-one guidance supplements these group occasions.
These old/new concepts not only turn upside down today's accepted pattern of parish life. They also call into question the role of seminaries and the ways the Church goes about mission.
" For generations now," Bishop Gordon says, "we've been using a tunnel kind of education for ministry. We put a certain few persons through three seminary years and then ordain them, expecting each one to be good at all the skills ministry requires. This just plain hasn't worked. Instead of requiring one full-time priest to be good at 20 things, let's help 20 people each develop one ministry skill."
He wishes seminaries could become Christian training centers in the broadest sense, equipping lay people as well as theologs for mission. "I'd like to see every new Christian assume responsibility, from the outset, for a particular variety of ministry, and have the chance to learn to do it well. Then the ordained seminary graduate could focus on one effort: to teach lay people everything he knows, working himself out of a job in one place so he can move on to another. "
Bishop Gordon himself has done a complete turnabout, in buying into these concepts.
"When I became bishop here in 1948," he recalls, "I set out to gather as many seminary-trained clergymen as I could. I thought I'd reached the high point of my episcopate when Alaska finally had 34 priests in 34 places, each ministering to as many people as possible. 'Ministering to,' you notice I say." In ordaining several native Alaskans deacon and priest during those years, the Bishop says "we were simply superimposing a brown face on a white style of ministry. "
Despite devoted and fruitful work by many priests through the years, flaws inherent in the system persisted.
"Almost without exception," he continues, "when the full-time resident priest was withdrawn from a congregation, work came all but to a standstill. Without this outside prop, the congregation ceased to function. There had to be a better way, and I hope we've found one now. "
The seeking began in the mid-1960's when the Rev. Dr. H. Boone Porter, Jr., of Roanridge, invited to Alaska as a consultant, introduced to a clergy conference the book, Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?, written in 1912 by Anglican overseas missionary the Rev. Roland Allen. This slim and venerable paperback (Eerdmans, about $2) turned out to be a powerful catalyst. Some months later the Diocese decided to risk a change of course.
The new missionary design, tried first in scattered Indian and Eskimo villages, is beginning to spread to city parishes. There, sacramentalists will release priests to serve from time to time on the Diocese's travelling task force of trainers. Coordinating the program under a two-year United Thank Offering grant of $25,000 is the Rev. Mark Boesser, former rector of Juneau's Holy Trinity parish.
Alaskans intend in no way to diminish the concept of holy orders. Their sacramentalists are ordained to a function, not to an office. After instruction and examination in the theology of liturgy and the proper ways of officiating, the man is ordained under the special provisions of Title III, Canon 8.
"We're not creating a second-class priesthood," Bishop Gordon says, "but simply designating people to do one task, by commission of the bishop, in specific places and under the direct supervision of a priest. They serve in this function reverently and with dignity. We need fewer priests than we did, but the 18 we now have are proving even more valuable in their new roles than they used to be. "
No one is salaried except the trainers/enablers and "the priests of congregations which still want -- and can afford -- a full-time ministry centered in one person. " Even a small Alaska mission is going to be able to become self-supporting relatively quickly. "We're freeing our limited resources," the Bishop says, "for mission rather than maintenance, and discarding the everlasting dependency the old system used to build in. "
He gets upset when he hears it recommended that an overseas missionary diocese become independent of the U.S. Episcopal Church by managing to find, within itself, the same number of dollars it has been getting from the Church back home.
"We seem to cling to the wistful dream," the Bishop says, "that some great upsurge of sacrificial giving overseas will make self-support possible under the present system. That's just never going to happen, in Alaska or in a lot of other places, and it's unrealistic to expect it. No matter how limited their money may be, our people are rich in time and talents. Let's enable them to offer these in the Lord's service, and we'll reach self-support in the real sense of that word. "
Bishop Gordon urges the Church "not to introduce overseas any ways of doing mission which the Lord's people there can't assume full financial responsibility for, within a stated time." He will welcome the day when church methods copied from those at home disappear, overseas.
"It's not the church we knew at home, but the Lord we came to know there, that we're called to reveal to the world. Not buildings or systems. Not even the exact forms of worship. Let's not transplant these; let's sow the Gospel seed and nurture the new indigenous forms which emerge. "
And so, under the banner of enabling people to minister, the Church in Alaska is starting down a road not recently travelled.
"Our promised land may be a long way off, " the Bishop told Alaska's 1973 convention, " but despite obstacles and problems, I hope no one will say we should go back to where we were. We do believe we're moving forward toward a glow on the horizon. "
(Note : A photograph will be made available either through Jeannie Willis' Pix-Pack or in a separate DPS mailing soon.)