Introduction

Women in Ministry:
A Study

Published by Church Information Office
Church House, Westminster, SW1. 1968, pp. 9-13

The Working Party on Women’s Ministry was appointed jointly by the Ministry Committee of the Advisory Council for the Church’s Ministry (ACCM) and the Council for Women’s Ministry in the Church (CWMC) in Spring 1967 and consisted of the following members:

The Rt Rev. A. M. Hollis, BD (Chairman), Assistant Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich (formerly Moderator of the Church of South India)

The Rev. T. Anscombe, MA, Rector of Kirkheaton, Huddersneld (formerly Principal of Clifton Theological College, Bristol) The Rev. Canon J. P. Hickinbotham, MA, Principal of St John’s College, Durham

* + The Rev. Canon G. W. H. Lampe, DD, MC, FBA, Ely Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge

The Rev. Canon G. Paul, MA, MTh, Director of Ordination Training, Diocese of Bristol

Mrs Mary E. Tanner, BA, Lecturer in Theology, Hull University, 1961-67

The Rev. Preb. G. B. Timms, MA, Director of Ordination Training, Diocese of London

* Mrs M. A. L. Friend, BA, Vice-Chairman, Council for Women’s Ministry in the Church Head Deaconess Ann Gurney, Principal of Gilmore House

* Mrs Betsy E. Haworth, Licensed Woman Worker, Diocese of Blackburn

* + Miss Christian Howard, STh (Secretary), Licensed Woman Worker and Secretary of the Board of Women’s Work, Diocese of York

* Member of Church Assembly

+ Member of Faith and Order Commission, WCC

Staff

The Rev. Canon B. S. Moss, MA (ACCM)

Miss Bridget M. Hill (CWMC)

Terms of Reference

The Working Party met five times, four of which were in residential session.

The terms of reference were:

‘What is the proper role of women within the accredited ministry of the Church in parishes and elsewhere?’

Various circumstances led to the appointment of this Working Party. Women’s ministry had been included as one of ACCM’s many concerns by its constitution, and its earlier working parties had constantly to face the question ‘where do women come into all this?’ The publication in 1967 of the report Women and Holy Orders and the Church Assembly debates upon it, stimulated further thought and discussion not only on the question whether women can be ordained to the priesthood, but also on the role of women in the service of the Church. There is considerable confusion about this, both among those engaged in women’s work and those responsible for decisions in the Church. Because of this uncertainty, CWMC and others, both at diocesan and national level, have long been engaged in a search for the right pattern. Further, the forthcoming discussions on ministry at the Lambeth Conference suggests that now is the time to clarify the position in the Church of England.

During the course of the Assembly debates on Women and Holy Orders, a motion in the name of the Bishop of Chester (the Rt Rev. G. A. Ellison) with an amendment by the Rev. N. O. Porter, were not reached, and for convenience sake the Working Party later agreed to accept both of them into their brief. They were:

‘The Bishop of Chester to move:

“That this Assembly hopes that the Working Party set up by ACCM and CWMC will also give consideration to the status and function of deaconesses, and the possibility of a reconstructed diaconate under which men and women would minister on equal terms.” ’

‘The Rev. N. O. Porter to move as an amendment:

“Add at end: ‘and in particular to provide for:

(a) deaconesses to exercise the same liturgical and pastoral functions as deacons, and

(b) licensed women workers to exercise the same liturgical and pastoral functions as are permitted in the new Draft Canons to lay readers’.” ’

Evidence

The Working Party is greatly indebted to the many people who made its task possible. Information was sought and obtained from a considerable number of women working in the field: deaconesses, parish and social welfare workers, those in specialist posts and community sisters, as well as from some clergy and Church Army captains. Most of the evidence was sent in answer to questionnaires circulated to deaconesses and lay workers and by the Church Army to all its sisters. Two groups of workers from north and south respectively gave oral evidence, and they were selected to cover as wide a range of work as possible. Valuable and interesting memoranda were produced at the request of the Working Party covering such matters as the church social worker, the religious orders, the Church Army, etc.

Our discussions on the diaconate have been stimulated by an essay from the Bishop of St Andrews (the Rt Rev. G. W. A. Howe) and we are grateful to him and also to the Dean of York (the Very Rev. Alan Richardson) for a letter clarifying his essay ‘Suggestions for a Lay Ministry’ in Women and Holy Orders.

Terminology

It is important at the outset to distinguish various ways in which certain words are used:

‘ACCREDITED Furnished with credentials: authoritatively sanctioned, cf. ACCREDIT ... to authorise an envoy’ (Shorter OED).

We use the phrase ‘accredited ministry’ to cover all those men and women whom the church recognizes as its agents in carrying out any part of its ministry either to its own members or to the world. In the setting of the Church of England, we take it to refer to those to whom such recognition is given at the level of the diocese or above. This does not by itself confer any right to exercise a ministry in a particular place or sphere. Accrediting, normally at least, implies a commission or licence, specifying the office or work entrusted to the person concerned and the limits of his or her authority to act or speak in the name of the church. Accrediting involves three things:

1. The church accepts a real measure of responsibility for what the accredited ministers say and do, within the terms of their accrediting, and will give them proper counsel and support.

2. The accredited ministers recognize the duty to speak and act with a proper sense that they are not just individuals but responsible agents of the church.

3. Those outside are entitled to regard the church as, in a real sense, responsible for the words and acts of its accredited ministers.

ORDAINED is used in the report sometimes to distinguish ‘a clerk in holy orders’ (bishop, priest or deacon) from all other persons: and sometimes to distinguish a deaconess from a licensed lay worker.

LAY is used to describe a person who is not ordained, and can mean either that he or she is not a ‘clerk in holy orders’ or that she is not a deaconess. In this report it is not used as an equivalent of ‘amateur’.

PROFESSIONAL is used to distinguish the ‘fully qualified and paid worker’ from the ‘untrained voluntary worker’.

The Report

With a considerable volume of evidence before us, we found ourselves united in our aim: to seek the best possible opportunities for women to share in the church’s total ministry. We are convinced that such participation is of God, and should be encouraged and not, as has been sometimes suggested, simply dropped.

We came to our task at a time when the whole ministry of the church, ordained and lay, has been subject to searching and continuous questioning. Three questions, in particular, influenced our discussions: Can women be ordained to the priesthood? What is the diaconate? What part is there for lay participation in ministry? Although our terms of reference did not specifically include the ordination of women to the priesthood, it soon became clear that we could not discuss the role of women within the church’s ministry in any meaningful or constructive way without considering this question. Nor was it part of our task to survey the diaconate; but the many proposals currently being made for a reconstructed diaconate in which men and women might both serve, as well as the existence of the deaconess order, obliged us to consider the whole question of the third order of ministry and its relation to lay ministry. Again, we could not discuss accredited lay ministries as if they were only open to women, since Church Army captains suffer from some of the same uncertainties about their positions as do licensed women workers.

Our consideration of these matters will be found in Chapters VIII and IX and in the Detached Notes at the end of Chapter VIII, which are contributions of individual members of the Working Party. For reasons which are there set out, the Working Party has not felt able to be dogmatic about the form in which women’s ministry will ultimately be organized. We have, in particular, been urged to suggest one order of ministry for women. That we were not able to do so is due largely to the unresolved questions raised in Chapter VIII. Our answers to these questions would not be unanimous and some are set out in the Detached Notes.

The earlier part of this report is descriptive and attempts to give a picture of the present situation and the recent historical background which has so largely formed our present pattern. No attempt has been made to set out the biblical or theological arguments nor the early history of the deaconess order, of widows or of the religious orders, since this has been admirably done in earlier documents.(1)

In Chapter VI we draw attention to many of the problems which hamper women’s ministry: some of these are taken up again in Chapter IX with suggestions for immediate action.

In the Appendix, we have included much material which is not elsewhere found in one place. It is intended both to assist the understanding of this report and to be of value for reference purposes.

We do not pretend that we have reached any final understanding of women’s role in the ministry of the church: indeed, it is possible that there may be no final answers, no neat and tidy pattern for all ministry in the church. The Lord is the Lord of his Church: he calls men and women in each generation to serve the needs of the world and the church in ways which are relevant to their own times. Those of us who have been involved in the selection of women workers for training have been faced with the inescapable fact that women are being called by God to share in ministry.

(1) Reports on Ministry of Women 1919 and 1935; pamphlet on The Order of Deaconesses 1948.

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