There will be a serious shortage of active clergy in the Episcopal Church beginning in about 10 years, according to information given in this magazine [TLC, Nov. 10]. Such a threat raises serious questions and deserves further consideration.

According to the article cited, the majority of Episcopal clergy today are more than 45 years of age, and many clergy now opt for early retirement. We can hence anticipate a massive block of retirements a few years into the next century. The number of ordinands projected to graduate from our seminaries in the next few years in no way matches these estimated vacancies. We must add to this picture the fact that many of today's seminarians are in their late 30s and will have only about 25 years of active service before they may choose to retire. Meanwhile, significant numbers of clergy, for a variety of reasons, opt to transfer to secular work.

How may we respond to this possibly ominous picture? First, we may consider the retirements and secular employment. If these factors actually precipitate a serious shortage, it may force many dioceses to adopt a creative and responsible strategy for using the massive resource of talent, skill and experience embodied in these clergy now classified as non-active. It may surprise lay people to learn that most dioceses now have no such strategy. Most of these retired and non-parochial clergy would be glad to serve the church one Sunday a month, many for two, three or even four Sundays, if they were assured they were not to be saddled with administrative and office work in a parish. The latter can often be done, and done better, by lay persons. This means running a parish differently, but it can be done effectively. Dioceses could show leadership and adopt appropriate policies, and such regional leaders as archdeacons, rural deans, or canon missioners can negotiate and implement such policies at the local level.

Many of these clergy possess particular skills or talents in some aspect of ministry, perhaps as preachers, or Christian educators, or visitors of the sick. Is reluctance to use them in some areas prompted by a fear that in some phases of ministry they might outshine the parochial clergy?

Let us turn to the question of seminary enrollment. Large theological schools, like so many profit and nonprofit agencies in our society today, have to downsize. This is a stubborn fact of our economy. A good theological education costs so much that few can consider it. The cost of maintaining buildings, paying salaries, meeting the demands of accrediting agencies and requiring necessary books and equipment all goes up, up, up. Even the student receiving substantial scholarship aid may still have to pay more than $10,000 per year.

Many graduate with $20,000 or more in debt for student loans. Younger students may enter seminary with such a debt from loans for college still hanging over them. To pay off such debts from the slim salary of a newly ordained deacon or priest is virtually impossible, especially if one has a family to support. Meanwhile, it must be recalled that tuitions paid by students and added income from endowed scholarships still do not meet the actual cost of operating a seminary. The school must constantly receive gifts and contributions from graduates, churches and other benefactors.

This is a tough picture. But what could happen if larger schools actually did downsize? A more intense program could be offered, with closer contacts between professors and students. Admission could be limited and selective, as in law schools, medical schools and other graduate institutions. Scholarship aid could be offered to students of particular promise. (And, of course, students should be required to rake leaves, mop floors and wash dishes.) Future seminary graduates, having received a tougher and more challenging theological education than has been customary in the past, would be prepared for tougher and somewhat different jobs in the future.

Some clergy are trained in an acceptable manner in diocesan schools. Meanwhile, as more dioceses follow canons and ordain significant numbers of local priests and deacons, we may no longer take it for granted that clergy are seminary graduates. Many will have been trained in the field, where their ministry takes place. Most of these clergy are excellent people. They lack the academic edge of seminary graduates, but they have what the seminary graduate lacks: a long-standing and deep knowledge of their community and its people.

An ideal situation, in many regions especially difficult to staff, it may be suggested, is for a number of local clergy to be working in close partnership with a few skilled and versatile seminary-educated clergy serving as trainers and resource people. It should be remembered that in the Episcopal Church we already have a well-established agency for training the latter in such responsible roles, namely the Leadership Academy for New Directions (LAND). Where such a pattern is now effectively operating, it has required vision, decision and clear pursuit of policy at the diocesan level.

This does not solve the problem of obtaining a better balance of younger clergy. What the church needs to do to inspire younger persons to offer themselves, and "the causes which hinder it," fall outside the scope of the present discussion, but they need to be considered.

Speaking theologically and practically, it appears what we need is no longer the old view that clergy simply appear out of nowhere and fall into a parish (as in English novels), but rather that persons are called by God for his service and recognized by the church in the community they serve. As the missionary prophet Roland Allen said long ago, God will raise up such persons in every place and in every generation. The question is whether the church is willing to recognize them and have them ordained. q

The Rev. Canon H. Boone Porter is senior editor of THE LIVING CHURCH and is currently teaching in Berkeley Divinity School at Yale in New Haven, Conn.