As we move into a new millennium, with its many unforeseen challenges to the mission of the church, we need to consider carefully how we shall order ourselves to meet these challenges in a manner that lives up to the high calling of the gospel. Like the early church, we are seeking practical solutions in ordering our congregations for mission. Approaches such as direct ordination, total ministry, mutual ministry, and lay presidency point to a variety of solutions that call for church-wide conversation and sharing of experiences to discern what builds up the faithful people of God and the kingdom.
Although we have sometimes resisted or been slow to embrace them, Anglican tradition has never been closed to innovations. In the sixteenth century, Richard Hooker emphasized the importance of the continuity of apostolic Christianity and the inheritance of Catholic polity, but he also argued that God allowed Christians freedom to arrange expressions of polity in ways that best proclaimed the Gospel and built up the church. Yet canonical revision can be a responsible process only in light of sound criteria, based in a clearly articulated and comprehensive theology of ministry. The Standing Commission on Ministry Development offers to the Episcopal Church this document, “Toward a Theology of Ministry,” as another step toward widely affirmed theological criteria to guide the revision of Title III.
