Being ‘lay’ is not second best – or a vocational ‘waiting room’

Dec 16, 2024 | Extra Articles (For everyone), Features

Ministering from the space between

Ben Martin encourages us to understand that being ‘lay’ is not second best or a vocational ‘waiting room’, but an important calling in itself.

[This article is from our Winter 2024 back issue. To read back issues dating back to 2015, please activate your subscription]

On March 27th, 2014, I was sitting in my living room in Chesterfield fighting back tears after the phone call came from the Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands. The letter from my Bishops Advisory Panel had come back, and it was a ‘not recommended’. He couldn’t understand it, and neither could I. Trying to explain this to my wife was heartbreaking. I had felt a call to the Church of England at 19 years old, and this was the path! She had left her church tradition to support me as I discerned my vocation, and I had failed.

Ten years later, almost to the day, and I was licensed as a Licensed Lay Minister (Reader); four months into my new role as Lay Ministries Officer for the Diocese of Derby.

So, what changed? Well, as is typical of the way in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives, it not only took time but a series of events which gradually shifted the way in which I think not only about vocation, but also about ministry and the Church of England.

The Company of Pioneers

When I first moved to the Diocese of Derby in September 2012 it was to begin working for and with The Order of the Black Sheep, one of the first twenty Bishops’ Mission Orders. Reverend Mark Broomhead, who was leading the community, invited me to join him at a gathering of pioneers from across the diocese, known as the Company of Pioneers. The make-up of the group was primarily ordained, with just two lay people: myself, and a Church Army officer. This company had a shifting membership especially with curates coming in and out, but one thing remained the same: from 2012 until it stopped gathering during the pandemic, I was the only lay member without a licence.

Something else remained the same, however: an attitude, specifically, my acceptance by ordained colleagues. None of them looked down on me, or thought that my voice was less valuable because of my lay-ness (or my age!). They genuinely valued me, listened to what I had to say, and encouraged my ministry. There was difference between us, but not that of superior knowledge or experience. It was a difference that settled me. I felt at home, not because I was with people I wanted to be like, but because I was with fellow ministers who held a particular sense of sacramental call.

I battled with my desire to be ordained. What was it about sacramental ministry particularly which so captivated me? The conclusion I came to was this: Why am I not allowed to do that?

Liminal space

As I moved away from Chesterfield towards the north of the diocese to Derby towards the south, I became increasingly interested in liminality and its interaction with theology and my own emerging understanding of Anglican ecclesiology. I tend to describe liminality as ‘the space between spaces’. The origin of the word comes from the Latin ‘limen’, meaning ‘threshold’. As a result, I grew fascinated by the narthex (entrance porch) of St Alkmund’s, the church where I was working. I recall standing in the middle of it; out of the corner of one eye I could see through the glass doors towards the estate opposite, and out of the corner of the other eye I could see the cavernous space we call the ‘worship area’, with the huge communion table on the dais. This physical space, between the wider community and the worshipping community, felt to me like home, albeit a slightly uncomfortable one.

We moved our Sunday evening service into this space as a symbolic gesture that we were not to be shut away, but that our worship took place on the threshold, the space between ‘the church’ and ‘the world’. It was in that space where we discovered the Spirit-filled discomfort of the inbetween. Silence was interrupted with noise (and occasionally police sirens), unexpected friendships began, and new people joined.

We eventually outgrew the narthex, so I made the decision to move back into the worship area. Looking back, it was a shift to comfort. We tried to make the space feel different with big umbrellas, gazebos and lights, but the consequence was a separation between those who felt more affinity with one space than the other. And, as ought to be expected, the ‘inherited’ won out.

The young lads who had been coming effectively became a youth group in the hall on the other side of the church, becoming separate from the worshipping community.

It was easy to see how people struggled to exist in that liminal space, on the threshold between ‘the world’ and ‘the church’, but increasingly I found myself needing to lead in that space, and encourage others to occupy it with me. Not presiding at the communion table, but dwelling in the space between church and world. The space which the laity occupy.

Contentment and identity

The Church of England is a clerical church. Or is it? I want to argue that we must rethink the narrative of our ecclesiology. Unfortunately, this argument can often be misinterpreted as an attempt to undermine the three-fold order of ordained ministry: Bishops, Priests (Presbyters), and Deacons. This is far from the truth. I absolutely affirm this order – I wouldn’t be an Anglican if I didn’t! However my concern with the narrative is that the threefold order of ordained ministry has become something for people to aspire to. As it had become for me.

The nature of being lay – a common member of Christ’s body – felt, for me, not enough. I wanted to be more. However, the vocation journey for me so far has been one of realisation. Realising that my discontentment with being lay was not a call from God, but a practical response to a social phenomenon, I began to understand that vocation to ordained ministry was not a higher call, simply a different and distinct one. To be distinctively lay, which by virtue of our mutual baptism we are, means to be distinctively Christian. The call of the Laity is not to aspire to ordination, but to be the people of God in the world, seeking His kingdom first, sharing in the prophetic, priestly, and kingly ministry of Christ. And our call as Readers is to be leaders, teachers, and enablers from that place.

When we preach, not from chairs or pulpits but from the lectern, it is a privilege. We stand in a place that our ordained colleagues cannot, in the fullness of our persistent calling as ordinary people of God, with the ordinary people of God. Lay is not a vocational waiting room, for it is in the ordinary places and spaces where the Holy Spirit moves, waiting for us to join in. As we, as lay ministers of all shapes and sizes teach, enable, and lead, may we do so in the confidence that Christ has not called us to second best but has called us to the richness of our current vocation.

Ben Martin is an LLM and Warden of Lay Ministries in Derby Diocese, and a member of the CRC Advisory Group.

[This article is from our Winter 2024 back issue. To read back issues dating back to 2015, please activate your subscription]

Left out or a new direction? Coping with a new incumbent

Aug 12, 2023 | Extra Articles (For everyone), Features

When your vacancy eventually ends, the problems won’t necessarily all go away. Or they may be replaced by new ones. Timothy Lee encourages us to be flexible in our thinking.

[This article is from our Summer 2023 back issue. To read back issues dating back to 2015, please activate your subscription]

A new incumbent arrives – it’s a particularly difficult time for Readers or Lay Ministers. The new incumbent has so much to think about. The Reader’s needs may not seem all that important in the grand scheme of things. Often she or he has been virtually carrying the church in the vacancy. Suddenly we feel sidelined, and no-one seems to have noticed. It might look a bit like this.

Difficult adjustments

Clive has been a Reader for twenty years at St John’s, now licenced as Lay Minister. His preaching is respected. After a long vacancy, the parish now has a new young incumbent, Reverend Becca. Throughout the vacancy Clive and the other LLM, Sue, kept services going at St John’s, and found priests for eucharistic services. Clive looked after the family services. Sue took care of most of the others in the church as well as services in the local care home. Now Becca has arrived, she has taken the lion’s share of preaching. While Sue is content to work with the older people, Clive has found himself almost left out of the rota, preaching mainly at evensong. Then there is St Jude’s. St Jude’s is a traditional country church that the bishop asked Revd Becca to take on. Apparently they have not had a vicar for a long time and, the word is, they are ‘a bit of a handful’. Sue is alright about going there but Clive feels his place is at the main services at St John’s, as he is well known there. He is annoyed that Becca has barely mentioned his hard work in the vacancy, and she doesn’t seem interested in his ministry now. He doesn’t think she really understands the way they do things at St John’s. She seems really slow to get going as well. He has been talking to people about her and several seem to share his concern.

From another viewpoint

Let us take a look at the situation from Revd Becca’s perspective. She had a wonderful time as a curate, and couldn’t wait to get her own parish. St John’s shows great promise for family services – numbers have grown since she arrived. Apart from Clive, most of the leadership team are very supportive of her. Her old incumbent told her just to listen and observe for the first six months, and try to really understand things before making any big changes. The bishop asked her to take on St Jude’s because of a reorganisation. Apparently there was a problem with their previous vicar – many people there seem still to be very hurt by what happened. St Jude’s seems to demand a lot of her time and prayers. But St John’s is the town church with many young families, so it will have to take priority. After four months, Becca feels she is only just beginning to understand the scale of task confronting her. It is so very different from being a curate. But she has just started on the diocesan incumbency training course, and she now has a peer group of other new incumbents to share ideas with. She has two Lay Ministers. Sue is a dream, so helpful, she has been down to St Jude’s, bringing love and calm. What a blessing. Clive … well – he only wants to preach at St John’s. He really seems to have a high opinion of his own preaching – but his gifts are really not with young families. He would probably be fine at St Jude’s. But he seems contemptuous of their faith and tradition, and refuses to go. Apparently he is stirring up trouble with a few of his friends. We seem to be having problems all round! So how might things have been different?

Imagine if …

What if when Revd Becca arrived, Clive had noticed her style was different – how, he wonders, does she ‘tick’? We can understand more about personalities through Myers Briggs, the Enneagram or the Insights colours:

• ‘Fiery Red’ people are positive, assertive, decisive, deal quickly with the present situation.
• ‘Sunshine Yellow’ – are creative, social, expressive and have masses of ideas.
• ‘Earth Green’ – are calming, sharing, patient, focus on caring and growing relationships.
• ‘Cool Blue’ – are cautious, analytical, use logic, plan things carefully, and think before they act.

You can view more on Insights colours on YouTube.

But we have to understand ourselves first. How well do you know yourself? How do others see you?

For by the grace given to me I say to every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12: 3).

Becca is clearly different from the last incumbent. Clive decides to pray for her. He begins to notice her strengths, her gifts. She is attracting new families to the family service. Her preaching is actually not bad. She seems to know what she is doing. He arranges a meeting with her. He talks about the vacancy and his working agreement, and what he likes doing best. She listens patiently. She explains her priorities – and about St Jude’s. That is quite an eye opener for Clive. Sensing the need, he offers to go and preach there. When he goes there, he is warmly welcomed – to his great surprise – and his sermon goes down well. After a few weeks of this he begins to realise they do indeed have a faith, perhaps more often expressed in deeds rather than words. He gets a book on rural ministry and starts to understand them a bit more. Clive and Becca work together on a plan to restore confidence at St Jude’s. Becca really appreciates his contribution; at the same time Clive is sensing a new direction in his ministry.

• Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.
• Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. (Psalm 143: 8).

A new incumbent can bring huge challenges to Readers and LLMs. Our needs may not be top priority in the great scheme of things, but our ministry and gifts are valued more than we may realise. The first need for Readers and LLMs in this is prayer, openness and positive engagement – not moping on the sidelines. At such times we stand at a crossroads in our personal journey: where is God calling us now?

Timothy Lee is an LLM (Reader) in Chelmsford Diocese.