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Intramont Conference Endorses New Testament Ministry Style

Diocesan Press Service. February 10, 1975 [75056]

Isabel Baumgartner, Editor, The Tennessee Churchman

HENDERSONVILLE, N. C. -- The seed idea from which the early Church grew spontaneously appears ready to produce a new harvest.

Evidence of the second-time-around fruitfulness of the first-century ministry method came clearly to light January 14-16 at Kanuga Conference Center near Hendersonville, North Carolina.

The occasion: a conference sponsored by Intramont, the ministry-training arm of the Episcopal Church's interdiocesan Appalachian People's Service Organization (APSO).

Talk revolved around presentations by Bishop William J. Gordon, Jr., who resigned his Alaska jurisdiction last summer and now travels here and overseas as head -- and total staff -- of Project TEAM: Teach Each A Ministry.

Present were 25 Episcopalians who are working in dioceses from Albany to Upper South Carolina to re-center church life in the New Testament principle that every baptized Christian is called to minister.

"Except for the sacramental functions," Bishop Gordon told them, "there ought not to be any difference between the ordained and the unordained. Our Lord calls all His people to go out in mission and ministry. We seminary-trained clergymen ought to take as our prime function the equipping of lay people to minister. "

In contrast to first-century practice, when the sole function of the ordained man was sacramental, he said, "today we expect our clergy to do, supposedly as experts, any number of tasks which rightly belong to all the people. Priests can't possibly excel in all the functions we've delegated to them, and, tragically, we tend to judge these men in terms of their greatest insufficiency. "

"At the same time, " he continued, "thousands of lay people drop out of the Episcopal Church each year because we give them no meaningful way to respond to the Gospel. " He noted a third flaw in today's system. "We lock small missions into a pattern of dependency, keep them forever on a kind of spiritual welfare roll, needing outside people and dollars to stay alive. We make mercenaries of our clergymen, paying them to do for us ministry tasks everyone should be sharing. And the mission which can't afford to support a full-time priest feels trapped because it can see no prospect whatever of becoming financially self-sustaining. "

In contrast, the TEAM concept proposes that a diocese become a kind of ongoing seminary, making its most able people -- ordained and lay -- available to train each lay person continuously to do, competently, one ministry task of his or her own choice: preaching, counselling, visiting the sick, evangelizing, teaching. It proposes that established seminaries revitalize curricula to include methodology as well as content, and offer training for ministry to everyone: those who don't intend to be ordained as well as those who do.

"This can be an affirming change for everyone," the Bishop said. "The lay person grows in faith as he finds a fulfilling ministry. The clergyman is freed from his sense of inadequacy. And even a small congregation finds it can stand on its own feet. "

Since 1966 the Diocese of Alaska has ordained more than 30 sacramentalist priests under Title III, Canon 8. These local men, chosen by their own congregations, receive first-class training in the theology and the administration of the sacraments. After passing examinations in only these two subjects, they become priests whose sole task is to preside at the altar. They are not placed in charge of a congregation. They work without pay, and under the constant supervision of an accessible seminary-trained priest.

"The sacramentalist priest idea has been the key to unlock many doors in Alaska," Bishop Gordon said. "But it's only one facet of our plan. At the same time one man studies for ordination, others in the congregation prepare to minister in other capacities; the benefits of this segment of the TEAM plan are immeasurable, whether or not a diocese wishes to use the sacramentalist priest option."

Bishop Gordon envisions the plan as fruitful everywhere, across the Church. " It's Biblical. It works. And I believe it to be God's plan for His Church right now. "

Intramont people at the conference, who have been working in these directions for over a year, discussed with one another the progress they see and foresee. The Very Rev. George Kahlbaugh of Albany, head of Intramont and conference chairman, saw signs of encouragement in the reports. He works with nearby St. Paul's, a mission whose people are "identifying things missing, and learning that all that needs doing they must and can do themselves. "

At Rutherfordton, in Western North Carolina, the Rev. William Austin of St. Gabriel's mission has two candidates ready for Canon 8 ordination. "Five lay people are trained to be licensed as preachers," he said, "and I've stopped preaching entirely; I called my last sermon 'Never on Sunday.' Thirteen different aspects of ministry are being handled by lay people now. "

The Rev. Billy Burns described how the old/new plan is working in Valle Crucis, in Western North Carolina. "One man is in the process of seeking candidacy for ordination," he said. "He's highly educated, with a master's degree. Our Commission on the Ministry hasn't decided yet whether he should follow Canon 10 and become non-stipendiary in the familiar sense, or follow Canon 8. We hope to show that the sacramentalist priest concept fits a corporation president as aptly as a person with very limited schooling; it doesn't matter. "

The Rev. Peter Fulghum and the Rev. Ed Bushong told about their work with three Washington County, Maryland, missions. With a consultant trainer, they have begun a three-year team effort to enable the congregations to become self-sustaining in ministry and in money. Each mission, by self-study, will determine its own path toward this goal.

The Rev. Hugh Cuthbertson said that, in West Virginia's McDowell County, work is developing under the wing of the Atlanta Training Center. Two missions are involved; one, in Northfork, is made up in the main of native people with little formal education, while the second -- in Allandale -- consists of mining company executives and their families. National church grants provide the services of consultants in the experiment and "things are beginning to move, " he said.

These and two additional missions will observe Lent jointly. One great worship service is planned for the whole county on the Sunday after Easter, at which each communicant will have the chance to place in the alms basin a written pledge to undertake some specific ministry.

Other encouraging reports came from Capt. John Haraughty, C.A., of St. Paul's in Amherst, Virginia; from the Rev. John Rivers of Cherokee, North Carolina; and, by way of APSO executive the Rev. R. Baldwin Lloyd, from Grace House on the Mountain and St. Stephen's, Nora, both in Southwestern Virginia.

The second half of the conference was shared by members of Commissions on the Ministry from several APSO dioceses. At its conclusion, next steps were mapped out.

The Rev. Mr. Burns described a summer internship program which Intramont will sponsor June 2 - July 31 for seminarians who wish to immerse themselves in community life and the church's work in Appalachia. They will live and work at one or more of the Intramont training centers - mentioned above. Details are available from him at Box 45, Valle Crucis, N.C. 28691.

And so old seeds sprout again. If Alexander Pope didn't mind, one might sum up:

"Be not the first by whom the new are tried,

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. "

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