Tide of History Favors a Servant Church, Bishop Argues
Episcopal News Service. January 25, 1990 [90023]
Ray Waddle, Religion Editor of The (Nashville) Tennessean
The "old world" of clergy domination of church life is dead and must yield to a "servant church" of all baptized persons, rejecting hierarchy for participation, according to the Rt. Rev. George Reynolds, bishop of Tennessee.
Speaking to diocesan convention delegates in December as democratic renewal was sweeping across Eastern Europe, Reynolds declared that the "tide of history" is forcing Christians to seek more "participative" ways of running churches and finding a sense of mission in everyday life.
"In the old paradigm, the ordained clergy are the producers of ministry, and the laypersons the consumers of ministry," said Reynolds. "It is the paradigm of hierarchy in the church, and its time is past. In the new paradigm, all baptized people, clergy and laity alike, are the ministers, making up the servant church. It is the paradigm of total ministry.... Total ministry is a new way of dancing, and the dance is marred by any person sitting it out or any person dancing the old way," he continued.
The bishop's address raised a few eyebrows, particularly when a headline in the local newspaper the next morning rather pointedly announced, "Bishop says clergy domination of church dead." But in interviews later with Reynolds and priests, it was plain that no one intends to jettison the ecclesiastical hierarchy and canons of the church.
Instead, the bishop said that he hopes to provoke laypeople to take their baptismal vows seriously as a way of renewing their Christian witness in the workplace, at home, and in their marriages -- and discovering a sense of empowerment in the parish.
"We're talking about a problem the Christian church has struggled with from the very beginning," the bishop said in a later interview.
"Ministry gets concentrated in the hands of the clergy, and the laity become dependent helpers at best. Every once in a while, the full power of whole ministry blossoms -- the Reformation, for instance. It changed the face of Europe."
Reynolds said laypeople should take advantage of existing lay ministry training programs, come together in small groups for prayer and discussions of faith, and start new "apostolic congregations" in private homes, particularly in the 21 middle Tennessee counties where there is no Episcopal Church presence.
Reynolds said that he also believes priests should muster the courage to give up their role as parish "quarterback" and adopt the more rewarding model of a "coach" who "presides over and enables a vital community of ministry." He warned that burnout likely awaits clergy who refuse to give up a self-image of centralized administrator who holds all the keys to "real" ministry. "The clergy are as important as ever, but I think all of us have to experience this changing role," he said.
"The priesthood is shaped by the world we live in, and that world is changing. We can't lord it over people. Instead of being the main organizers and initiators, we need to learn to give shape to structures of renewal and preside over them -- structures like Education for Ministry or Cursillo. Instead of ending up as burned-out administrators, clergy will find that this new role is more satisfying and actually the reason they entered the ministry in the first place," Reynolds said.
In one sense, argued Reynolds and others, the "servant church" is simply an extension of a theme embedded in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer -- an insistence that laity are first in the order of ministry by virtue of their baptism.
Reynolds acknowledged that this new model for ministry means rethinking the nature of his own position as bishop, the epitome of traditional hierarchical power and authority. "In saying this I begin with me," he told the delegates. "During these several years I have seen myself as an advocate of a participative style of diocesan life, yet even though I believe in it I find myself at times a barrier to it in spite of myself. . . . The old hierarchical paradigm is very seductive. It's dead, I believe, but it is tempting to try to whip that dead horse back to life."
Reynolds said he espouses a "situational" style of leadership. "When a situation calls for taking control, then do so," he said in an interview. "But it also means getting out of the way for others or sharing leadership as things evolve."
The bishop told delegates that the death of old models of hierarchical church arrangements is symbolized in the secular tumult in Eastern Europe and South Africa. "Is it too much to claim that God is acting to recreate our life on this planet? . . . My belief is that the name of the power God is using to open up the new world is participation -- participation by all in the life and decisions of the world," he said.