Power in Pastoral Ministry - Another Chapter

This Chapter of my MA dissertation is probably the one which has had most influence on my thinking as a Pastor and leader/servant within the Church.  If I can live out some of the values of acknowledging and sharing power as a Minister/Priest then I feel I have actually succeeded in holding to the principles which I espouse.

The nature of power in Pastoral Ministry
Chapter 3
Power structures within the Church

As the church of the Apostolic and Post-Apostolic eras had to come to terms with a need to change the structures by which they operated, so also there is the need for the pastoral ministers of today to consider the power structures within which they work and the authority which gives them freedom so to do.  The balance between charismatic and institutional power will always be a difficulty, but one which the church has the responsibility to take seriously.  In order to maintain any form of accountability the church needs structures which bind the power a pastor has with the responsibility of representing a larger organisation, and with the ethos of empowerment that Jesus exhibited in his own ministry. [more]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trying to connect the dots, unnecessarily

Image
Another sermon - as seems to be the way of this blog at present! Life is busy and complicated, and good, and bad, and exciting, and challenging, and (in short) not conducive to getting Blog posts written! So, here's my thought for today taken from these passages (Click for details): Exodus 16:1–5, 9–15,  Psalm 78;18–29 Mt 13.1–9 Grace and Meaning In the words of St Paul, or perhaps St John, or maybe St George, or even St Ringo “When I was younger, so much younger than today.” Ah, sorry, couldn’t resist!  No, it’s not a tubby boy story – but just a general reflection that today’s story from the book of Exodus used to cause me great consternation.  Or at least was one of those parts of Scripture that didn’t seem to fit… I knew the story, the mythological story I am now convinced, of the temptations in the wilderness when Jesus proclaims, quoting Deuteronomy 6 ‘you shall not put the Lord your God to the test’. As I moved into the Anglican Church and got to kno
Read more

A Sermon which upset someone

So, I'm not a theological conservative.  That probably comes across in pretty much everything I write, but I thought I should say it.  I believe myself to be orthodox, however, and hold to those things which the Church expresses in the catholic creeds.  I also have a relatively 'high' theology regarding the inspiration of Scripture. But I am not a Biblical literalist, nor do I hold to a doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture. I can't.  The Bible is too rich, too deep, too difficult, too flawed for that.  And by flawed I mean I understand it to be the record of human beings trying to make sense of God at work.  It has the breath of the Spirit blowing through it's words and on every page, but when we try and make sense of God there is a chance we will go awry.... 'Hey lets condemn (and or murder) pretty much everyone who isn't in our tribe, that's obviously what God wants' kind of awry.  And if we study this book carefully then we see that ideas
Read more