Angela Tilby, in her weekly column in the Church Times, has claimed that the Church of England is pastoral and not missional. But she can only do this by being highly selective from the ordinal, from the text of John 10, and from the Church’s own theology of mission.
Angela Tilby is a retired Canon in the Church of England, and writes a short weekly column in the Church Times. Last week, her column boldly argued:
Mission of Church of England is primarily pastoral.
She argues this by noting that: within the ordination services in the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship, a primary image of those ordained presbyter (‘priest’) and bishop is of being a shepherd; that this image is drawn primarily from John 10; and that it is about knowing and being known by the flock, rather than engaging in evangelistic mission amongst those who are not (yet) known.
By drawing on these texts at ordinations, the Church of England commits itself to a ministry that is, in essence, pastoral. It is about “the cure of souls”. Priests and bishops are meant to be committed to people and place, knowing their people and being known by them.
Yet, for well over decade, the C of E has been questioning this understanding of ordained ministry. A more mission-focused ministry has been urged in recent years, to counter the falling numbers of worshippers and replace those who are dying off.
She contrasts this historic pastoral orientation with a more recent emphasis on evangelistic mission. And seeks to seal her argument with a critique of schemes to combine historic parishes into unmanageable and unwieldy multi-parish benefices.
Earlier this month, the Church Commissioners considered a scheme that is already being implemented in Truro diocese (News, 1 May). This is to merge 16 parishes, comprising 21 places of worship, into a single giant benefice, with only three paid and ordained area clergy, one of whom, as a pioneer, is to focus on mission, and a house-for-duty priest. Five vicarages are to be transferred to the diocese.
As in other diocesan-led schemes, this represents a takeover of power and resources. While parishes are deprived of paid live-in priests, diocesan staff are increased in number and expected to “run” the diocese from the diocesan office. Meanwhile, more and more local responsibility falls on retired clergy and the laity.
Her argument has drawn lots of comment on social media, and it has been expressed both by her and by others previously, so it is worth engaging with. To do so, we need to reflect further on the ordinal, reflect on John 10 and the image of shepherd, and (slightly separately) consider the situation of dioceses like Truro.
The ordination of bishops in the Book of Common Prayer has some interesting things worth noting. The readings are to be from either 1 Tim 3.1–7 (about the appointments of overseers) or Acts 20.17–35 (Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders, including the fascinating agraphon ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’) and the gospel readings are either John 21.15–17 (Jesus’ recommissioning of Peter), John 20.19–23 (Jesus breathes on the disciples), or Matt 28.18–20 (the great commission). Whilst these readings do have what might be read as static and pastoral images (‘feed my sheep’ John 21.17), they are not without their evangelistic/missional elements.
One of the most striking are in Acts 20.20–22, where Paul reminds the Ephesian elders of his ministry ‘from house to house’ and ‘I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus’—hardly cosy sheep-keeping. And of course the other is in Matt 28.19:
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this has something to do with the ministry of bishops in the Church of England. And to reinforce this, the invitation to the congregation to prayer includes this reflection from Acts 13 (which was key for me in thinking about God’s call to ordination):
It is written also in the Acts of the Apostles, that the disciples who were at Antioch did fast and pray, before they laid hands on Paul and Barnabas, and sent them forth.
This was the beginning of Paul’s so-called first missionary journey, travelling through the south central region of what we now call Turkey, and planting congregations in each town.
There are, of course, many elements of the service which appear to assume a static model of the church, which is hardly surprising given the ‘Christendom’ context of the Prayer Book. And yet the missional elements keep rearing their heads—this one in the prayer immediately before the laying on of hands:
Grant, we beseech thee, to this thy servant such grace, that he may evermore be ready to spread abroad thy Gospel, the glad tidings of reconciliation with thee; and use the authority given him, not to destruction, but to salvation; not to hurt, but to help…
The language of ‘the glad tidings of reconciliation’ is an echo of Paul’s summary of his gospel in 2 Cor 5.19–20:
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
Angela, in her article, quotes from the charge that goes with the giving of the Bible: ‘Be to the flock of Christ a shepherd, not a wolf; feed them, devour them not…’ but then signally fails to continue the quotation:
…Hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring again the outcasts, seek the lost. (emphasis added!)
Even in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, the lost are to be sought.
From the ordination of presbyters (‘priests’) in Common Worship, Angela quotes:
Remember always with thanksgiving that the treasure now to be entrusted to you is Christ’s own flock, bought by the shedding of his blood on the cross.
But they have already been reminded that they are to be:
messengers, watchmen and stewards of the Lord; they are to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for his family, to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations, and to guide them through its confusions, that they may be saved through Christ for ever…
With all God’s people, they are to tell the story of God’s love. They are to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and to walk with them in the way of Christ, nurturing them in the faith.
I wonder where these new disciples are to come from, if this ministry is not as much missional as pastoral?
Angela complains at the Bishop of Truro’s comments she quotes, that ‘a priest-centred model of ministry is not supported by the formularies of the Church of England.’ But he is right in this sense: it is not about ordained ministry being an end in itself. Note this in the introduction to ordination of deacons:
God calls his people to follow Christ, and forms us into a royal priesthood, a holy nation, to declare the wonderful deeds of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
The Church is the Body of Christ, the people of God and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. In baptism the whole Church is summoned to witness to God’s love and to work for the coming of his kingdom.
To serve this royal priesthood, God has given a variety of ministries. Deacons are ordained so that the people of God may be better equipped to make Christ known.
And note this in the ordination of presbyters:
Will you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place?
In other words, this evangelistic ministry belongs to the whole people of God—but the ordained have a particular responsibility to enable them to do this.
In relation to this, it is worth reflecting a little on the image of Jesus as the good shepherd in John 10. Our chapter divisions do not help us in this regards, since most ordinary readers of the fourth gospel often see John 10 in detachment from John 9. But the monologue by Jesus about the good shepherd, starting at John 10.1, in fact is a continuation of his dialogue with the Pharisees, which has been provoked by his healing of the man born blind in the previous chapter.
Although the discourse about the good shepherd might at first be seen as an intra-community dispute (between Jesus and the Pharisees, an intra-Jewish disagreement), it cannot be separated from the seeking of the lost to join the community of the Messiah.
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him (John 9.35–38).
Within the ‘good shepherd’ discourse itself, there are distinctively missional elements. Drawing on the language and practice of sheep-rearing in the first century, Jesus describes his work as the good shepherd: ‘he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out’ (John 10.3). This is not merely pastoral care for an already-existing flock. There is an act of separation and reconstitution. In Johannine theology, Jesus gathers people out from existing religious and social structures into a new messianic community centred on himself.
Even more strikingly, this messianic community is going to draw others:
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd (John 10.16).
This is a clear reference to the Gentile mission, later expressed as Jesus dying ‘not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad’ (John 11.52). The language here is very similar to Paul’s language of ‘those who are near [Jews] and those who are far off [gentiles]’ being formed into ‘one body by the cross’ in Ephesians 2.16.
And the very next chapter in John is the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. So it is hard to see how we can separate off being ‘shepherds’ from [evangelistic] mission, when for Jesus it meant making the blind see, gathering those who are far off, and bringing life to the dead.
It can hardly be surprising, then, that in Luke’s ‘parables of the lost,’ the first person we meet is a shepherd who leaves his flock of 99 in order to search out the lost sheep (Luke 15.1–7). And Jesus tells this parable precisely because the Pharisees were complaining at Jesus spending time and energy with those on the outside, who were clearly less deserving than the flock!
Angela’s final complaint is of quite a different nature—the loss of clergy in each town and village, and the amalgamation of benefices.
This is to merge 16 parishes, comprising 21 places of worship, into a single giant benefice, with only three paid and ordained area clergy, one of whom, as a pioneer, is to focus on mission, and a house-for-duty priest. Five vicarages are to be transferred to the diocese.
As in other diocesan-led schemes, this represents a takeover of power and resources.
What has led to this dire situation? There are two, or perhaps three, causes.
First, according to the attendance figures (which you can download here), since 2009, Truro diocese has seen a fall of 42% in its average weekly attendance upon to 2024 (see this article on growth in the C of E for an explanation of terminology), a rate of decline of 2.8% per year, significantly highly that the C of E overall which has declined by 35% overall in that time period. And since 2019, prior to Covid, the decline has been 22% in just five years, a rate of 4.4% per year.
So one reason why action is needing to be taken appears to be that, overall, people in the diocese have been following Angela’s line, and believing that we just need to be pastoral, and not at all missional. As a result, we have here failed to pass the good news of Jesus on to either our children or our neighbours. The crisis that Angela is complaining of is created precisely by the strategy she is advocating.
Secondly, as I have previously reported, we are facing a catastrophic collapse in vocations. So even if the money were there, there would be no clergy to be employed. And related to this is the question of finance.
These issues are neatly summed up by someone in the diocese, responding in the Church Times letters to her kind of criticism.
We have lived in Cornwall for more than 30 years. When we came, there was a priest, it appeared, in every village and town in our deanery—possibly more than 20. One would have hoped that this would lay the foundation for thriving churches. Sadly, it was not so. When we came to look at the fruitfulness and sustainability of our deanery in the present day, we discovered that we could afford only three oversight ministers and one house-for-duty priest. How do we cope with that reality?
Clergy in the past have not enabled the thriving of churches. And clergy in the present are short on the ground. Why? In part because, instead of ‘remembering always with thanksgiving that the treasure now to be entrusted to you is Christ’s own flock,’ the House of Bishops has both neglected clergy wellbeing and inflicted on us a decade of demoralising dispute about sexuality.
Angela’s selectivity from both the ordinal and the New Testament symbolises for me the selectivity that so much of the Church of England has been guilty off in recent decades. We will choose to do the things that Jesus calls us to which we find less challenging—caring for those who already come—but select out those things that we just find a little too difficult—being sent on evangelistic mission, planting churches, making disciples, teaching them all that Jesus has taught us, seeking the lost.
We confess at every point that ‘the Church of England is part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church,’ and the requirement that we are apostolic—messengers sent out with a message to proclaim to those who have not yet heard it—is not something we can simply ignore by the false claim that we are merely ‘pastoral.’
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Well said.