What a strange Easter morning it is though, stuck as we are in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown. Much much more to be said about all this, about church, about community – but the inspiration for this post was when I was awoken at about 4.30 this morning.
You see, the more Easters I have, the more I feel that we jump the gun a bit. It took the first disciples a further 50 days before the joy and release of the resurrection took hold. Immediately after Easter, they continued to be in “isolation” – a frightened community hiding behind locked doors, unable to meet in public or understand what was going on, and most of all what part God was playing in it all. Our most reliable sources for Mark’s gospel end at verse 8 of chapter 16. “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.”
In the early hours of this morning, an emergency vehicle siren sounded out over Harrogate. It may have been more than one – it was hard to tell – but it was very eerie, and unusual. As I lay in bed, in semi-darkness, listening, it struck me as being very close to that first Easter Sunday. The tomb was empty. It’s like going to put flowers on a grave, and finding it has been dug up and there’s just a hole. And surely word would have got back to the authorities pretty quickly about the empty tomb, and I’m sure they moved in.
My point is not to diminish just how extraordinary Easter Sunday was and is, and that it is a time of great joy of celebration. Of course it is.
But it is also an event within a much wider story, that ranges at the very least from Good Friday to Pentecost. To be unsettled, scared, in isolation, hopeful but not really sure what it’s all going, or where and when it will end is part and parcel of the Easter story.
To know that something extraordinary is going on, and God is on the move, yet to also have doubts and fears is the walk of faith. As followers of Jesus, we live in the “now” and the “not yet”. With the joy and certain hope of the resurrection, while at the same time living in the occupied (but defeated) territory of sin and death.
So as we continue in lockdown, under the shadow of covid-19, we also know this is not the last word. Easter Sunday of all days gives us hope for the future.
May you all know God’s blessing this day, whether in houses full of joy (and chocolate) or full of tears. May you know the hope of the resurrection, even in the midst of confusion, fear, boredom and isolation.
At my work we regularly have business development sessions, where we review performance, do some forward planning, and so on. We also usually do some organisational development – around teamwork, communication, that sort of thing. Last summer we had a session on culture, and the organisational culture in particular. Now I am lucky enough to work in a company that has a very healthy and positive culture – we have a high level of transparency, trust, encouragement, cooperation, and a low level of passive aggression, sabotage, negativity, secrecy, politicking, and so on.
All good stuff.
But then one of my colleagues observed that if we were talking about computer code then it’s sometimes a different story. It can be opaque, aggressive, trying to catch you out, kick you in the backside and laugh about it (metaphorically).
This notion was something of a revelation to me. He is absolutely right though – computer code does have a “culture”, and I don’t just mean the resulting piece of software. Ok, so most of us have used software that seems straightforward and intuitive – it does exactly what you want, and you get the desired effects without even having to think about it. And I imagine that most of us have also used computer programs that could have been written by Satan himself, seemingly designed to frustrate us and make life miserable.
A similar thing can happen with the actual source code of the program. It can be a helpful and co-operative; easy to understand and maintain, you can have confidence that changing one bit here isn’t going to break something over there. Or it can be obstructive and difficult. A spaghetti tangle of interactions, where it’s almost impossible to understand the logic, and you can be pretty sure that changing one bit is going to have a completely unexpected side effect in an unrelated part of the system.
Park that thought for just a minute, as we move to another thread.
Over the past year in particular, I have been thinking a lot about what it means for me to a minister (or priest) at work. This is absolutely not a liturgical or ecclesial role – I am paid to be there as a software engineer and application developer, not a vicar. Never-the-less, in common with all Christians I believe this 9-to-5 is a part of my calling and vocation, and therefore surely my ordained ministry must/should/could encompass this as well? There are a couple of ‘soft’ answers to this; about being a Christian/priestly presence, about building up my colleagues, about ministry to the structures at work, especially where there is injustice or inequality. About being a prophetic voice. While I absolutely agree with all of these; they would also all be true if I was a fisherman, or a management consultant, or whatever. There are also easy answers around the output of the work; if I were a doctor or a teacher, or worked for a Christian company creating worship software, these are all clearly directly working towards the Kingdom of God.
Is there some way in which I, as a software developer, have a specific ministry?
So my thoughts turned towards the specifically priestly ministry, which Jim Francis draws out of the Ordinal in 3 distinctive strands: “bless”, “reconcile”, and “nurture”. I get these three (and again, think they are common to all Christians) – but what might blessing, reconciling, and nurturing actually look like for me, in my workplace?
Hold onto that thought for a moment as well, as there is one more piece of the jigsaw.
Another colleague recently pointed out that when I write code at work it is not “my” code. I don’t own it. It is the company’s intellectual property, and it may have a lifespan well beyond my time at the company. It is likely that it will not be me who is the next person to edit it. So when I submit a piece of code for peer review, and they suggest some changes, I have to take that seriously because it’s not my code, or my baby (however much it might feel like it). Furthermore, the principal way that I interact with my colleagues (and indeed our customers) is through the code I write. If I write code badly, that causes pain for my immediate colleagues, as well as those to come. On the other hand, if I write code well, that can be a source of blessing to my colleagues. They can pick up a method I wrote, easily understand what it is doing, and why I wrote it that way, and make whatever modifications they may mean to.
It is at this point all these thoughts collide – that the code itself can be ‘nice’ or ‘nasty’; that part of my calling is to be a blessing to my colleagues; and that my code is principally consumed by those colleagues… and you are probably already way ahead of me.
Is it too much to leap to the notion that one of the ways that I can exercise a ministry at work is by writing blessèd code. I don’t mean consecrated, I mean code that it is means of blessing. I mean that when someone I work with opens up something I have written, it can be a pleasurable experience? A joy to see beautiful, well crafted, and elegant code that is a blessing to work with?
And we don’t need to stop there.
The end result (i.e. the piece of software itself) can also be blessèd – a joy and blessing to use. This is potentially a ministry to both our customers, and our technical support team.
Or to move the opposite direction, code can also be “cursed” – again not hexed, but rather a curse to work with, bringing pain and torment. I have certainly seen enough of that code in my career. But even “cursed” code can usually be ‘saved’. It can be re-written or refactored into blessèd code – and might this in turn be a picture of reconciliation and redemption?
And if we are working to create a blessèd environment within which to be joyful and fruitful in our labour, that is something of the Kingdom of God, surely? I don’t think anyone would question that turning a scrapyard full of stinging nettles and old tires into a wildflower meadow, or even an allotment, was bringing about something of the Kingdom of God – order out of chaos, life out of death. I’m not sure that it’s any different for code.
And it doesn’t stop at code either. If you write protocols or instructions, if you run the IT network, if you’re in charge of the laundry – all of these things, potentially never seen by anyone outside our organisation, can be the basis of a ministry to colleagues, a means of blessing and advancing the Kingdom of God.
Or they can be the opposite.
Anyway, apologies for such a long and unstructured post – this concept has been brewing in my mind for many months now, and I am going to write a proper article on it at some point, but I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t put it out in some form!
My new “rules” for the 365 have had the opposite of my intended effect!
I had hoped they would spur me on to take more photos, but actually there have been two times already when I haven’t taken a photo because I alreeady have “today’s”, and at least one time when I haven’t taken on Saturday just because it was Saturday. I think partly as a result I haven’t taken one at all for two weeks!
So I am abandoning the new rules, and going back to my old rules, which is as many as I fancy a week, and if they’re not posted on the right day that’s ok.
As one of my resolutions/intentions this year is to take more photos, I’ve decided to resurrect my 365 to a limited extent.
I’m aiming for 6 photos a week, with one day off (Saturdays), and I will probably use the camera in my phone at a lot more.
As per the original project, it has to be a photo I have taken, and it must be taken on the date it’s posted – but if it takes me a week or to to upload them I’m not too stressed about that.
Over Christmas I watched “Home Alone” with my younger son. I must admit I’ve always wondered why this gets categorised as a Christmas Film, as the only thing Christmassy about it was the fact it’s set at Christmas (a bit like Die Hard), and has some nod to being apart from those you love. Home Alone (I would have said), was a film about at 8 year year old setting traps for hapless burglars (such as bowling balls dropping on their head) for 2 hours.
It turns out the film is not about that at all.
Not even remotely.
The whole “bowling ball on the head” thing (which doesn’t happen either, incidentally – it’s an iron) is about 20 minutes at the end of the film.
Instead it is a film about reconciliation and relationships. There’s an extended section on Kevin learning to live on his own, and making the transition from happy ice-cream eating slob finally free of the tyranny of his family, to scared and lonely child, to master of the house, doing the washing, shopping, cooking, and putting up the Christmas tree, to finally realising he misses his family and wants them back.
There’s a lot about Kevin’s Mum trying to find any means back to him – hours and hours solid on the road (including being stuck in the back of a mover’s van for 11 hours with John Candy and his polka orchestra – classic!)
There’s a whole running thread about the “psychopath mass murderer” neighbour, who of course turns out to be a sweet but lonely old man estranged from his son, and Kevin’s wisdom is enough to bring reconciliation and healing there.
Then – yes – right towards the end of the film, the moronic burglars break in, and fall foul of icy steps, tarred staircases, Christmas bauble shrapnel, glue and feathers, blow torches, irons, spiders, falling from a rope, nails through the feet – before finally capturing Kevin, only to be rescued at the last by the aforementioned non-psycho neighbour.
In the end, Kevin’s Mum gets home, after 48 hours solid travel (or something), then the rest of the family turn up 5 minutes later having waited and got the next direct flight home. Peace is made, apologies offered and accepted. Although I did note that only Kevin and his Mum seem to have been truly changed by the experience.
What is extraordinary to me is that I would have sworn in court that the film was 90% about Kevin being at home on his own trying to thwart (and damage) burglars, and that first maybe 5 or 10 minutes of the film was set up. To be fair it’s probably 30 years since I last saw it – plus I think the sequels where much more heavily stacked to the pratfalls and traps.
So I stand corrected. Home Alone is absolutely a Christmas film – about the importance of relationships and reconciliation, how we are ultimately unable to save ourselves, and that our saviour may be someone quite unexpected. That and shooting intruders with a spud gun.
It is my experience that some books just scratch where I am itching. It might be the writing style, subject, or simply that it has come at the right time for me to “get it”. These are the books you read that just help things make sense, or put into words the things you’ve been struggling to vocalise.
The best example of this for me is Contemplative Youth Ministry – Practising the Presence of Jesus with Young People” by Mark Yaconnelli (SPCK 2006), which is a book that spoke deeply to my heart, and opened up contemplative spirituality for me properly for the first time. In particular I discovered Lectio Divino, and remember thinking at the time “Wow – how come I haven’t ever come across this before?”. The answer was, of course, that I had – I found some notes I’d made on how to do it from 10 or 15 years earlier, but at that point time I just hadn’t got it, and the notes just got filed away.
It’s not so much that these books answer the questions I’m asking (although I am usually driven to read them for answers), but more that they give some insight to those questions, and the framework and vocabulary to explore them – and more often then not to realise that actually I’m asking the wrong question, or that living with an unanswered question is more important than The Answer.
I write this because there are two books I’ve recently read which have really hit the spot, as I continue my exploration/reflection/struggle with ordination, self-supporting ministry, work, and so on, the first of which is “Ministers of the Kingdom. Exploration in Non-Stipendiary Ministry” edited by Peter Baelz and William Jacob (CIO, 1985). While it’s a relatively old book, three really big ideas leapt out and grabbed me.
First of all, the whole question “why did you need to be ordained to be a minister at work” is starting from completely the wrong place. It assumes that parish ministry is normative (i.e. what ordination is for), and tries to make self-supporting ministry fit into that box.
The second is that it started to help me appreciate that being ordained doesn’t mean that ministry will necessarily look any different, but that it may have created more opportunities to minister to the people and structures at work.
Finally, the concept of being an amateur priest – not in the pejorative or unskilled sense, but in the same way you (used to) get amateur athletes competing in the Olympics or at Wimbledon, or you get amateur dramatics or photographers. That is to say those who don’t do those things as their profession/living. I think that even since this book was written “amateur” and “professional” have acquired much more of a qualitative judgement, so amateur now means “a bit rubbish”, and professional means “very good”, which in turn makes it a less helpful vocabulary. However,
“The better connotation is that the amateur is one who plays the game for love not money, and who may well possess a charismatic flair that evades the dour professional. … the amateur usually plays for and stays with his (sic) home tea, without touting his talents around to the highest bidder. He has as inbuilt loyalty to his town or county which he truly represents: amateur Devonians play for Devon.
Amateur clergy … are indigenous to an environment and/or comparatively stable. At least there is no professional ladder to climb, no career structure to follow or hope for. They are amateurs playing for the home team, whether situated in town, village, school, office or factory.” (Martin Thornton The Ministry of Prayer in Ministers of the Kingdom. p 66)
The other book is “An Altar in the World” by Barbara Brown Taylor, but I’ll do that next time…
While I don’t fully agree with the idea of New Year’s resolutions, there is something about intention and accountability which helps to get things done.
So, in that spirit, over the next year I hope to:
Try surfing
Spend time with both my sisters and step-Dad.
Weigh less than 75kg and be generally fitter:
Walk at least 30 mins every day.
Go for at least 1 hour’s walk every week.
Avoid snacking/eating between meals
Some form of calisthenics several times a week
Take more photos and resurrect my 365:
Take a photos every day for 6 days of the week, with one day off.
Possibly take 2 photos on the day before the day off.
Finish reading at least one book every calendar month.
Post a blog entry at least once a every calendar month.
Since DynDns announced they were withdrawing their free offering, I have been looking for an alternative.
Turns out Microsoft’s Azure DNS has a REST API, and python library. While not free, it is very cheap – so far my DNS costs with Azure are running at 1p/day (although I only incur 5k queries a day).
Setting up Azure and a DNS zone is pretty straightforward, getting the authentication and python script working as a bit more tricky, so here’s what I did.
First set up the DNS zone in your Azure Portal
Now Create an App:
Go to Azure AD, then “App Registrations”, then “New Registration”.
Name it something meaningful for you, like “autodns”
I chose “Single Tenant”
The next page gives two of the magic ids you need:
Application/Client Id
Directory/Tenant Id
Then on the left menu, go to “Certificates and Secrets”
Create a new client secret – choose the expiry you want
Copy and store the client secret – this is the only time it’s show in in full
Then you need to give this app permissions to edit DNS records:
Navigate to your DNS Zone
Go to Access Control (IAM)
Add Role assignment
Choose “DNS Zone Controller”
Type in the app name you create above (autodns, or whatever).
Back in the DNS Zone Overview, make a note of the Resource Group and Subscription – you’ll need these later.
That’s it for the Azure side, and you’re ready to write the script to do the update.
My script is python – you’ll need the “azure” libraries
$ pip install azure
First job is to obtain an access token for the API, using the ServicePrincipalCredentials.
import adal
from azure.common.credentials import ServicePrincipalCredentials
client_id = '<value from app registration page>'
client_secret = '<secret from certifications and secret>'
tenant = '<value from app regsistration page>'
def authenticate_client_key():
credentials = ServicePrincipalCredentials(
client_id = client_id,
secret = client_secret,
tenant = tenant
)
return credentials
This can then be used to interact with the Azure api – in our application it’s the DNS Management we are interested in:
from azure.mgmt.dns import DnsManagementClient
resourceGroupName='<Value from DNS Zone page>'
subscription_id='<Value from DNS Zone page>'
dnsZone='yourdomain.com'
dnsRecord='yourhost'
cred = authenticate_client_key()
dns_client = DnsManagementClient(
cred,
subscription_id
)
# Get the 'A' Record
res = dns_client.record_sets.get(resourceGroupName, dnsZone, dnsRecord, 'A')
print(res.arecords[0].ipv4_address);
# Update the A record
dns_client.record_sets.create_or_update(
resourceGroupName,
dnsZone,
dnsRecord,
'A',
{"ttl": 300, "arecords": [{"ipv4_address": '1.2.3.4'}]}
)
In my application, I’ve got a server running behind a NAT router on my broadband, and when my public IP address changes I want to update a DNS record to this address.
The missing piece here is to determine my public IP address – I’m currently using “ipify”.
from requests import get
currentIp = get('https://api.ipify.org').text
Glueing it all together, you end up with:
import adal
from msrestazure.azure_exceptions import CloudError
from azure.common.credentials import ServicePrincipalCredentials
from azure.mgmt.dns import DnsManagementClient
from requests import get
client_id = '<value from app registration page>'
client_secret = '<secret from certifications and secret>'
tenant = '<value from app regsistration page>'
resourceGroupName='<Value from DNS Zone page>'
subscription_id='<Value from DNS Zone page>'
dnsZone='yourdomain.com'
dnsRecord='yourhost'
def authenticate_client_key():
credentials = ServicePrincipalCredentials(
client_id = client_id,
secret = client_secret,
tenant = tenant
)
return credentials
currentIp = get('https://api.ipify.org').text
print('Current Public IP is {}.'.format(currentIp))
cred = authenticate_client_key()
dns_client = DnsManagementClient(
cred,
subscription_id
)
# Get the 'A' Record
res = dns_client.record_sets.get(resourceGroupName, dnsZone, dnsRecord, 'A')
dnsIp = res.arecords[0].ipv4_address;
print('Current DNS record for {}.{} is {}.'.format(dnsRecord, dnsZone, currentIp))
if dnsIp != currentIp:
print('Updating IP Address')
dns_client.record_sets.create_or_update(
resourceGroupName,
dnsZone,
dnsRecord,
'A',
{"ttl": 300, "arecords": [{"ipv4_address": currentIp}]}
)
else:
print('No update needed')
The code above also may well have syntax errors, as I’ve just typed it in – but the approach is pretty clear.
Obviously for production code, you’d need to add exception handling, logging, and notifications. You are also effectively trusting “ipify” with the ability to set your DNS A Record!
Then you can drop it on your server wrapped up in a crontab, or task schedule, or whetever takes your fancy.
Oh yes, and I’m not sure what the API limits are for Azure, so you could always cache the ‘dnsIp’ or do an nslookup rather than hitting Azure every run.
I’ve been reading a book called “Marathon: A Manual for Bivocational Ministry” by Doug Black Jr, which has raised some interesting ideas, and is making me revisit some of my assumptions around ministry.
The thrust of his book is that Self Supporting Ministry (which he calls Bivocational) is better than ’employed’ ministry in his case. Or to put it another way, that he has become a more effective minister/pastor since he stopped doing it as his employment and started doing it unpaid while in full-time (secular) employment.
This is quite a radical notion. (At least to me).
It seems to me that the often unspoken assumption is that ‘full-time’ ministry is the ideal or gold-standard. In my case, my presumption is that if I were stipendiary then I would be more effective in ministry than I am on my one day a week. Of course the key phrase here is “one day a week”, as this immediately limits ‘ministry’ to when I am in the parish. That aside, it otherwise seems self-evident – surely doing 6 days a week must be more effective than doing 1 day a week? But I think it is this that Black is pushing against; he argues that I might actually more effective in ministry (even if you limit it to just parish ministry) on only one day a week than I would be if I were full-time!!
I wouldn’t be comfortable going that far myself – but it has given me some serious food for thought. The notion that I might be as effective in the parish as I would be if stipendiary hadn’t even crossed my mind, if I’m honest.
Now, we need to tread carefully with words like ‘effective’ and ‘better’ in the context of ministry, not to mention the word ‘ministry’ itself. And there is also a translation piece to be done; as Black is writing in a North American context, which has many differences from the parochial context of the Church of England. However, there is common ground, and some of the principles and arguments have something to say to us on this side of the pond! I’m not saying I agree with everything he says; but it has made me stop and think, which is almost always a good thing.
Accepting the likelihood that I am misrepresenting his arguments, this is my understanding of what Black says in his book, which I’m putting in terms of time, money, and ministry. There is of course overlap between these categories.
Time
As an employed SSM you don’t have as much time available in the parish, that much is indubitable. However, there are some significant benefits this limitation brings:
It is well established that work expands to fill the time available. If you have all day (or all week) to do a certain task, it may end up taking all week. If you only have 2 hours, that’s how long it will take!
You can’t do everything – hence you have no choice but to identify and focus on the core, and furthermore:
You have to delegate to and empower others.
You have to disciple others.
You have limited opportunity to view yourself as indispensable.
It is only fair to highlight some of the drawbacks – relationships (and pastoral care) take time, and this is something I feel keenly when it comes to visiting and funerals. I simply don’t have the flexibility or availability to go and visit someone at the drop of a hat. I suppose Black’s argument is that I would therefore have to empower, equip, and release a pastoral team to do this, but I am not convinced.
Either way, the fact does remain that procrastination and “wasting” time is in the human condition – and it is much harder to resist this when your working pattern is unstructured with little accountability or visibility, as is the case for most stipendiary clergy.
Money
The money thing is interesting, and doesn’t directly translate from the American model of ministry. Never-the-less, Black makes some interesting observations:
If the ministers/staff are unpaid, it means the church has more money for mission (by which he really means helping the poor, it seems to me).
Being paid is a right of a worker, therefore to not be paid is a spiritual act of service.
Not being paid helps with the sense of “being” rather than “doing” – it’s hard not to feel you should be “doing” if you’re being paid.
The comparison breaks down a little, in that in Black’s context him taking a secular job was a cut in pay and security – whereas the opposite is likely true in the Church of England. Certainly it’s not normal for C of E vicars to fly around in private jets! So to cast not being paid for ministry as a spiritual service doesn’t ring entirely true.
But it is interesting to reflect upon the double impact of not being stipendiary on the church’s budget – not only am I not drawing a salary/stipend, but my regular giving is almost certainly greater than it would otherwise be.
Ministry
This is perhaps the more interesting consideration. I touched on this already above under “time” with the observation around empowering and discipling. This is foundational to Christianity and Christian ministry – we are called to make disciples. If the option to “just do it all myself” is removed, it sharpens the thinking somewhat!
However, there are further benefits, some of which you may find as surprising as I did:
You spend your days actually on the mission field.
So on my ‘parish’ day it is not unusual for me to have no contact with any non-Christians. The other 4 days of my working week, my contact is almost exclusively with non-Christians.
You are modelling mission and discipleship in your life and work.
You are also modelling it from a more comparable starting point to those in the congregation.
It helps to challenge the secular/sacred duality.
It gets you out of church, both physically and in terms of world-view.
It helps bring the world-view into the church / church leadership.
It takes “the church” out into the world/workplace.
It is a better modelling of the priesthood of all believers.
You understand first-hand the pressures the congregation are facing.
I was particularly struck my whole sacred/secular divide thing, and I haven’t completely grasped Black’s argument here. I think it’s around challenging the notion that you are either “a minister” OR “a worker”. That those “in ministry” work for the church and exist in sacred space, while everyone else has to get by in the secular space, and never the twain shall meet. To be both a minister and in secular employment explodes this fallacy.
There is also a bit of an assumption that the members of the congregation are themselves employed – but you can perhaps start to see how the benefits from a ministry perspective start to weigh up against the limitations of time and availability…
There is also something extremely powerful in the message that ‘ministry’ is something we do full-time, and the business of the church and the parish is something we do alongside it, to enable the ministry. It is an antidote to the ever present danger that ministry is something which is ‘done’ to the congregation by the clergy.
Finally, I love the prophetic/liminal edge here, in terms of both the secular workplace and the church. I have a real sense that just being an SSM unsettles and challenges both worlds (in a good way).
So, in conclusion, I am not disputing Black’s personal experience of being ‘better’ for going bivocational. But neither do I think it’s a blanket principle. So much of it hangs on what is meant by ‘ministry’ and ‘parish ministry’. Or more specifically which aspects of ministry you are talking about. I am very obviously nowhere near as present or available as the traditional parish priest, and this severely inhibits pastoral and occasional ministry. Likewise I am simply not ‘around’ for discussions, meeting, strategy, leadership. And lest we forgot, I have no first hand experience of stipendiary parish ministry to compare with.
However, if you are talking about the aspects of ‘ministry’ such as being Jesus to the world, and making disciples, the picture changes somewhat. I’m not for a moment doing parish or stipendiary ministry down. And I certainly not claiming that I somehow do as much on 1 or 2 days a week as stipendiary clergy do in 6. But I am perhaps starting to appreciate a bit more the contribution I can make as an SSM to the parish context, and how I think I may have been undervaluing it.
Exciting times on the curacy front, as my training incumbent has now moved on to a new post, leaving us in a vacancy at the church.
We are blessed to have a “full time” associate minister, another training curate (who is “full time”), and several other “part-time” clergy kicking about, so in terms of both supervision and workload it’s not a insurmountable stress to have lost the vicar. Obviously it’s not ideal, but on the plus side it will be really good experience to go through a vacancy and appointment process, and I’m fascinated to see what happens both over the few months, and once the new vicar has started.
One interesting side effect, is that our SSM associate minister is going to take over my supervision. He has been ordained for 25 years, and has always seen the workplace as the main focus of where he is called to minister, and as an SSM myself this is a great opportunity to reflect together and for me to learn from him and sharpen my thinking a bit.
In case the acronyms don’t mean anything to you; SSM is “Self Supporting Minister/Ministry”, which is the current term in vogue for ordained ministers who are not paid by the church, and who therefore usually have a secular job to pay the bills. This is contrasted with both stipendiary ministry (which is typically parish based – a stipend is paid to the minister so they don’t need to earn money, and can therefore minister “full time”) and chaplaincy (where the minister either has a stipend, or is paid, to minister in a non-parish context; such as prison, hospital, airport, football club, …). In both these cases “ministry” is that person’s occupation and income; as opposed to the SSM, where it not their income, and usually not their main occupation.
There is a further distinction in SSM between those who feel their primary ministry/calling is to parish ministry, and those who feel the primary focus of their ministry is the workplace while they do their (secular) job – usually referred to as Ministers in Secular Employment, or MSE. An MSE is not paid for their ministry (unlike chaplains), and don’t usually have an official position as an ordained person in their workplace. In terms of job roles and function they are indistinguishable from the person in the next seat – i.e. paid the same amount to do the same job. Of course, it would be perfectly possible to be an SSM and also work unpaid in a voluntary position (e.g. for a charity, or being a house-wife or house-husband). The point is that you do not have any income from your ministry activities, hence you are – purely in the financial sense – “self supporting”.
So far in my curacy I have been mainly focussed on parish ministry and church life, and have not really thought too much about what it means to be an ordained minister at work. To some extent this is only right and proper – I need(ed) to “learn the ropes” of parish ministry, whether or not it ends up being my main occupation. But at the halfway point of my curacy – 2 years in, with 2 to go – it seems to fit very nicely to refocus my thoughts and reflections on the 4 days a week I spend in the office writing mapping software, and more widely what non-parish based ordained ministry looks like and means.
One of the things that has been tripping me up is that I have a high theology of baptism, and a relatively low theology of ordination and the priesthood. I have been a Christian and a minister at my work place ever since I joined 11 years ago – and I would hope that every single baptised believer sees themselves in full time ministry as Christ’s ambassador to whichever context they are called to. This incidentally is why I put quotes around “full time” and “part time” above. To that end, there is a sense in which ordination doesn’t change anything.
However in many very real sense it does change things, and it is part of ongoing reflection to try and identify and explore these. From the “better ask the vicar” office banter, to genuine questions of faith and church life, I have had conversations with colleagues as a direct result of being ordained that probably wouldn’t have occurred otherwise.
I’m also trying to develop a better theology of work as worship – that when I’m sitting at the computer writing code, or in meetings, or whatever, this is somehow good and an offering to God. It’s very easy to see that being a doctor, or a teacher, or a vicar is a godly vocation – I find it a bit harder to see this connection about writing mapping software, or being in banking, or mining, or being a pilot… I suppose I’m not willing to accept that office work is just about provision (i.e. making money), or even just about having opportunities to be good news. Both these things are good and true and important, but I think my sights are a little higher.
Anyway, what really prompted this post (500 words later!) was an article in this week’s Church Times about worker priests. The worker priest movement is slightly different from SSM, in that with worker priests there is the definite sense of being a priest in manual labour and the working class. Never-the-less many of the principles still apply. One quote in particular grabbed my eye:
“The expression of religion in daily life is not an extra, but is of the essence of Christianity. It therefore seems right that some clergy should be fully in the strains and stresses of daily life to the extent of earning their living in secular work.” (Worker Church Group Statement, 1959. As reported in Church Times 8174, 6 September 2019, p. 20.)
My thinking so far has probably three aspects:
First, there is no doubt that working in an office 4 days a week gives me a different perspective from my stipendiary colleagues in all sorts of ways. And equally, perhaps I can relate a little more readily to people in the congregation who are out at work all day? To my mind there is immense value in this, and one I am still learning to recognise.
Second, Paul in the New Testament used secular employment (tent-making) in order to fund his missionary endeavours. The SSM tradition therefore is as old as the church itself.
Third, there is also something about being – and being known as – a priest in the secular workplace. It is this aspect which perhaps most intrigues me, especially as I am not prepared to accept SSM as just being about the above two aspects.
