About a week ago, I began my studies at Iona School of Ministry as part of my formation to serve the Episcopal Diocese of Texas as a Bivocational Priest. This means that I would minister as a priest once again, but would also be expected to have a full-time career that would sustain my lifestyle and that of my family.
I am often asked why I feel like I should do this when I have already served as a priest for so many years and now have a very demanding full-time job that I love and a family? Why priesthood now? One answer is because I feel called to priesthood – I always have. The second answer is because it provides a discipline, accountability and environment that I know I need. As I have written before, the sacramental life helps me to participate in deeper realities that save me from myself.
However, another question I often receive is why I feel so called to serve through an institution that has seemingly done so much harm? I always begin this answer by acknowledging that the church has done harm.
Archbishop William Temple said, “The church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.”
I have known this to true, and that the church, when lived out well, has the resources to do what others cannot. I recently read a book titled, BiVocational: Returning to the Roots of Ministry by Mark Edington in which he wrote about the difference between empire church and incarnational church. Empire Church, Edington wrote, understands the purpose of the church is found in its own realm, separate and apart from – not to say over and against – the secular world. The Incarnated Church understands the central purpose is not the creation of a separate realm, but a radically open engagement with the world at its doorstep.
This is the Church I want to be a part of: one where the historically rigid division between ordained responsibilities and lay roles is instead understood as different expressions of the same ministry – one in which all are now understood to be ministers of the congregation. This is a church where we discern what have we been gifted to do? Each congregation, as I have known many, will find its own way to remind people that they are fundamentally good; that there is always hope; that the most important questions we can ask are the ones which we will never answer. Church reminds us that we cannot save ourselves, but we can help each other remember that we are worth saving.