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Changes in one area of church life affect others, and the participation of women in ministry is no exception. We mention four factors which could materially influence its future development.
Group and Team Ministries
Many specialised ministries which may include women are already operating on a team basis: what we are now witnessing is the growth of such an approach in deanery and parish. The Pastoral Measure 1968 for the first time provides a proper legal status for such ministries and for the clergy members of these teams. However, the deaconess or licensed lay worker in such teams has not yet been given a clearly defined status (see Appendix p. 74). We understand that many ordinands are looking forward to working as members of team and group ministries. If this trend were to continue and increase, it would inevitably affect women’s share in ministry. For the position of a woman working in a specialist team ministry is often easier than that of a woman working in the traditional parochial pattern, and we believe that the growth of group and team ministries would enlarge the opportunities for women. This would, however, depend on the willingness of the clergy concerned to share their ministry not only with other clergy but also with deaconesses and licensed lay workers.
'Partners in Ministry'
The Morley Report, if implemented, would introduce far-reaching changes into the appointment and tenure of the clergy which would inevitably alter the present somewhat ‘monarchical’ position of the incumbent. This would, in the first instance, affect his relationship to other clergy who are not incumbents, but it would also open the way for a new relationship to deaconesses and lay workers provided that they too were taken ‘on the strength’. Among the recommendations in the report that would affect the ministry of women are the following:
(1) The Central Ministry Commission (following the present constitution of ACCM) is ‘To keep under review different forms of ministry of men and women, ordained and lay, ... to be responsible for the supply of men and women for the ministry, including their selection, recruitment and training’ (page 58).
(2) The Central Payment Authority is to ‘keep the pay of all clergy, deaconesses and accredited full-time lay workers, under constant review and study . . . determine, in consultation with the Central Ministry Commission, how the money it can make available from its funds for paying clergy, deaconesses and accredited full-time lay workers in dioceses, should be distributed between the dioceses in the form of augmentation grants’. For this purpose it can obtain information from dioceses on its payment systems and resources available to them for the payment of clergy and lay workers (page 92).
(3) The Central Ministry Commission will superintend the distribution of clergy, deaconesses and accredited lay workers in the various categories between dioceses’ (page 93).
(4) Reference is made on page 93 to the money made available by the Church Commissioners for paying ‘clergy, deaconesses and accredited lay workers’.
(5) Chapter XIII is concerned with ‘Other Ministries of Men and Women’ (pages 99-100). It envisages ‘full partnership between the clergy and all other forms of ministry interpreted as widely as may be desirable, with deployment based on partnership’. It recommends that the Diocesan Ministry Commission be responsible for the deployment of deaconesses and accredited full-time lay workers, that there should be adequate payment schemes, and, so far as possible, similar conditions of service to those of the clergy on the strength of the diocese.
(6) It recommends that the legislation should contain provisions ‘enabling the clergy and laity to have conferred upon them such share in the bishop’s cure of souls as is appropriate to their respective offices’ (page 102) (our italics).
Anglican-Methodist Unity
The main effect of such unity would be at Stage II when the uniting Churches would need to decide how to unite their somewhat differing patterns of women’s ministry.(1) But if the period between Stages I and II were to be a period of growing together, much of the working out of this unification would begin then. We note the following matters in the present Methodist pattern which would need to be taken into account:—
(1) Resolutions of the Methodist Conference concerning the ordination of women, and in particular that passed in 1966 at its Representative Session:—
‘This Conference affirms its conviction that women may properly be ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacraments. Recognising that it would not be wise to take unilateral action at this time, it desires to discuss with representatives of the Church of England the implications of this principle for the Ministry of both our Churches and for our recognition of the validity of the orders of women so ordained in other branches of the Christian Church.’
These matters are primarily the concern of the joint Anglican-Methodist group concerned with the ordination of women and we have therefore pursued this matter no further.
(2) There is one order of ministry for women in the Methodist Church, the Wesley Deaconess Order. The deaconesses’ salaries, which are generally lower than those for Church of England workers, vary but little from person to person.
(3) The Methodist Church grants a dispensation to administer (i.e. celebrate) the sacrament of Holy Communion to a limited number of lay persons, including 36 deaconesses. The Report of the Anglican-Methodist Unity Commission recommends that after entry on Stage I, no further dispensations should be granted, and those already authorised should be carefully reviewed, at the statutory three-year interval, in the light of local conditions then prevailing, in the hope that the conditions which have made dispensations necessary may soon be removed (pages 59-61 of the report).
New Forms of Training
(1) Joint training for men and women Theological faculties of universities have long been open to women but joint vocational training for ministry is more recent. The Church Army has trained its men and women students together since 1887 (i.e. since the beginning) and this has now developed into a fully integrated training. Josephine Butler College, originally a women’s college specialising in training for church social work, admitted men in 1967. The College of the Ascension, Selly Oak, which was formerly the women’s missionary college of USPG, became a mixed college in 1965 and CMS will integrate its men’s and women’s training into one college in the autumn of 1968. William Temple College has been a mixed college for most of its life. Other training houses for women have shared with men in lectures and teaching at universities and theological colleges but the first theological college to be recognised for the training of women workers for the IDC was Cranmer Hall, Durham, in 1966. This experiment, which is in many ways a pilot scheme, is full of promise. The evaluation of their experience will be made at the very time when the Church begins to consider the whole theological college scene.
It will be for those who appointed us to consider, in the light of. our whole report, what further steps should be taken to widen the area of joint training. The fundamental question to be considered is how much of the training for the accredited ministry, ordained and lay, should be done jointly. Here, the experience of Cranmer Hall and the Church Army Training College should prove invaluable. Evidence from the Episcopal Church in America which has admitted women to some of its seminaries for a number of years might also be useful.
(2) Ecumenical training Josephine Butler College has for some years trained students from other churches but further developments in this field would seem to depend on the establishment of some form of ecumenical college, a matter which is discussed in Theological Colleges for Tomorrow.
(1) For a full exposition of these patterns, see Anglican-Methodist Unity. 2. The Scheme (pages 67-73).
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