Tuesday, 19 December 2006
Missionary Order 2
Why do we need something new (or a revived usage of something old) to "enable" mission?
In our diocese, we have people called Ministry Enablers. These work with mutual ministry parishes (where their aren't professional ministers in the traditional sense) to do ministry. I guess this suggests that we think that mutual ministry needs enabling.
Why is missional activity not the natural state of things? Am I right in thinking it's not? The authors of Mission-shaped Church seem to think that mission needs enabling. Where ministry is mostly done in the context of a parish, it can be very hard to start something that involves crossing boundaries. Do we need to distinguish between ministry and mission? I normally think of ministry as what we do for Christians and mission as what we do for other people, whether making them Christians is the overt purpose or not. However, the church also talks abut doing stuff for poor Christians in the third World as mission too.
So, a Missionary Order is a way of enabling missionary activity. It creates a formal structure in which individuals can do things that might otherwise be too hard in the context of a parish.
In our diocese, we have people called Ministry Enablers. These work with mutual ministry parishes (where their aren't professional ministers in the traditional sense) to do ministry. I guess this suggests that we think that mutual ministry needs enabling.
Why is missional activity not the natural state of things? Am I right in thinking it's not? The authors of Mission-shaped Church seem to think that mission needs enabling. Where ministry is mostly done in the context of a parish, it can be very hard to start something that involves crossing boundaries. Do we need to distinguish between ministry and mission? I normally think of ministry as what we do for Christians and mission as what we do for other people, whether making them Christians is the overt purpose or not. However, the church also talks abut doing stuff for poor Christians in the third World as mission too.
So, a Missionary Order is a way of enabling missionary activity. It creates a formal structure in which individuals can do things that might otherwise be too hard in the context of a parish.
Labels: Missionary Order
# posted by Gareth Bezett @ 2:18 PM 
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I think the implication of the necessity of enabling is that something/someone is disabled. The obvious candidate is the Chrisitan. The phrase "a disabled laity" has been used to describe a situation where people rely on clergy/pastors to do everything for them.
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