A Discussion about the Discernment Process for Ordained Ministry in the Episcopal Church

On February 23, 2010 The Christian Century magazine published an article entitled "Seminaries Under Pressure." The article explore the problems of dropping enrollments and falling income at most seminaries, suggested that seminaries would need to rethink their approaches if they wanted to be around to train the next generation of church leaders. I couldn't agree more, but I think the problem is broad and deep: not just about educational methods at seminaries, but about the whole process of discernment and training for ordained ministry. So I posted a comment on my Facebook Profile and very productive exchange of ideas ensued. I am posting the exchange here on my Curb-Your-Dogma blog in the hopes of continuing (and broadening) the conversation.

Feel free to join in...

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Ken Howard (2/19/10 - 5:41am)

I believe it is time to rethink not only seminary structure, process, and content, but the entire process of discernment and formation for ordained ministry. I think it would be hard to demonstrate that we doing any better at discerning, selecting, and educating candidates for ministry today than we were when potential candidates only had to "kiss the bishop's ring."

In fact, we may have -- with the best of intentions -- created a process that guarantees auto-immunity against to the kind of innovative, entrepreneurial (risk-taking) leaders that the church needs to survive, screening them out -- or driving them out -- of the process. And what we seem to be screening in people who know how to move through bureaucracies without alerting the "white-blood cells" to their presence: people who keep their heads down, don't reveal too many weaknesses, keep their own council, are competitive with other clergy, and above all don't take too many risks.

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Tracy E. Longacre (2/19/10 - 5:46am)

Hmm, in general I think you are on target, although your definition of who we are getting is, I think, a bit off. The biggest lack? What we don't even try to train/form them for? Which the next several generations are screaming for? -- how to actually have direct experiences of God and create an environment/liturgy, etc. which makes that possible for other people.

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Ken Howard (2/19/10 - 6:17am)

Actually, I didn't say "what we are getting"... but rather "what we are screening in (or for)." Innovator do get through (hey, the got you and me, right?), but often in the face of great challenge and sometimes at great personal cost. Many wonderful candidates get screened out or put on hold or get obstacle after obstacle thrown in their paths by anxious systems who are not sure how to pigeon-hole them (Sarah Dylan Brewer) and many decide the cost to their integrity is too high and create their own alternate pathways (Brian McLaren).

I believe that fewer and fewer in future generations will subject themselves to the process we have set up.

I do agree with you about what they are screaming out for. But I think people who are learning to provide those experiences today are often learning that in spite of their seminary education.

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Tracy E. Longacre (2/19/10 - 6:46am)

>> in spite of their seminary education <<>

And mostly outside their day-to-day roles and responsibilities. Which is why fewer and fewer of the younger generations, though just as spiritual as the rest, refuse to consider themselves "religious" (see the recent Pew survey).

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Tammy Wooliver (2/19/10 - 6:48am)

I'm so with you!!! Let's rewrite it!!!

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Bill Doggett (2/19/10 - 7:28am)

Amen! And let's start with three goals: make the discernment of the church reflect what we believe about the working of the Holy Spirit, let the process always lead to the affirmation of a person's vocation rather than a yes/no decision about one particular vocation, and (in obedience to the national canons) let the discernment of call for every person be the ongoing work of the church.

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Bruce Robinson (2/19/10 - 8:11am)

It seems like this is a task that gets announced in some corner of the church every 10 years or so. And for good reason, certainly. It seems to be fairly easy to find new models for "education." However, the absolutely essential task, "formation," which truly needs to take place over time and in community, seems a harder task to find new models for.

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Tracy E. Longacre (2/19/10 - 8:20am)

@Bruce -- I dunno about that. I was "formed" at the School for Deacons and it truly was formation. Problem with Seminaries is that they are focused on turning out theologians, not working priests. (IMHO)

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Bruce Robinson (2/19/10 - 8:41am)

I agree of course that *every* process will provide formation. The question is, as you say, Tracy, what kind of formation. For 500 years Anglicans have believed in the formation of learned clergy, "theologians," and not sacramental or pastoral ministers only. This founded I suppose in a reaction against the theological illiteracy of reformation-era Roman parish clergy. But it's the academic curriculum that forms us theologically. It's the community we live and pray with that forms us spiritually.

We would certainly in any case say that for 500 years the pastoral model has been central to Anglican life and ministry. As we experiment with new patterns of formation, we would simply be aware that there will be consequences far down the line in all areas of ecclesial life. Used to be doctors and lawyers were "formed" in apprenticeship, but those old patterns have been replaced with a much more structured model. The issues arising will ultimately be the same for the church as they are for medicine or the law in terms of institutional coherence.

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Tracy E. Longacre (2/19/10 - 8:46am)

Hmm, I think "institutional coherence" may be overrated.

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Elizabeth Apgar Triano (2/19/10 - 9:45am)

I suspect that this conversation is too rich for my blood, but I agree with the desire to fix the process, as there are too many creepy and/or incompetent and/or unhelpfully ambitious practicing clergy out there, which gives a bad name to the really really good ones who are also out there!

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Margaret Pollock (2/19/10 - 1:05pm)

I can't comment on recent years, but not too long ago my opinion of the process was that it was hostile to the movement of the Spirit, hostile to the one in whom the Spirit moved. Result was pathological; best-learned skill was passive aggression (except for those of us who lay down on the tracks, willing to get run over if that kind of overt rebellion were the alternative. I have observed many cases in which passive aggression became the learned behavior to get through seminary & win ordination, Of course, PA also became the guts of priestly "leadership" in the parish.

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Bruce Robinson (2/19/10 - 2:44pm)

Believe me, from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, "institutional coherence" is overrated only until it slips out the door. In general, healthy bishops beget healthy dioceses, healthy clergy healthy congregations. Emotional maturity, a steady moral compass, stability, intelligence, sociability, compassion, a lively and sincere and time-tested personal faith grounded in the scriptures and sacraments and greater life of the church. An ability to enjoy people. A sense of being connected. A sense of humor. And especially the ability not to take him or herself too seriously. All that is to say, you can't begin to design a "process of formation" for the wider church unless there is some consensus about what the "finished product" is supposed to look like.

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Mary W. Matthews (2/19/10 - 3:07pm)

When my father died, I phoned my parish priest at 8 a.m. and wailed, "My daddy's dead!" She said, "Do you want me to come over?" and I said "Yes!" And she was wonderful.

I had been attending my seminary for about two weeks when I realized that if someone called ME during my off hours to wail at me, MY first impulse would be to say, "Take two psalms and call me in the morning." I switched from M.Div. to M.T.S. later that day, & have never regretted it.

I can't speak for all seminaries, as some of the commenters here seem to do, but in the late 1990s Wesley Theological Seminary was FAR more interested in creating pastors (ca. 94%) than in creating theologians (ca. 6%), and I have no reason to believe they've changed dramatically.

I think it would be valuable for a prospective priest to attend an accredited seminary for some other denomination than her own, as I did. Priests ought to have some notion of WHY they are teaching and modeling their spiritual and theological values.

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George Werner (2/19/10 - 9:07pm)

We are rightly concerned with "professional standards" but need to also be concerned with vocational, relational and historical perspectives- Is anyone teaching "community" these days? And in a country and moment of history where so much is marinated in venom, could we radiate grace, sacrifice and love as necessary marks of a Christian community? Thanks for doing this.

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Tammy Wooliver (2/22/10 - 7:52am)

As a CPE Supervisor I am noticing a lot of burned out clergy who seem to be unprepared for the realities of parish life. I'd like to see more practical theology and less historical theology taught in the seminaries. But as for the discernment process, I wonder if we really know what we are looking for in a potential priest? Can people/committees... See More discern when someone, for instance, is on a tract of power, serving their ego; as opposed to someone who has a sense of openness and willingness to be formed - who can talk about their vulnerabilities (something we now don't support). The anxiety that is present with potential candidates sets up a dynamic of trying to guess the right answers - losing a sense of basic self to give to the gods the right answers - and this is present usually up until ordination. I'm big on Bowen System's theory and how anxiety gets played out in these processes.

Thanks for the discussion;

Tammy

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