“Ordination is a communal rite, not an individual right.”
After reading this quote from D. Stephen Long’s Keeping Faith, I began mentally reviewing many of the conversations I have had with candidates for ordination. In my admittedly far from perfect mental scan of tweets, blog posts, and personal conversations, most (but not all) of the comments I could remember fit in the ordination as “individual right” camp. Viewing ordination as an individual right, and not a communal rite, can lead to a sense of entitlement and defensiveness, particularly if the person pursuing ordination feels like the church owes it to them.
But ordination is a communal rite and is not understood as an individual right.
And just in case the understanding of ordination as an individual right is more appealing to you than the approach of ordination as a communal rite, it may be helpful to point out that no denomination understands ordination as an individual right. Even in churches that have a congregational polity, it is the local church community that votes on whether to ordain the person. The individual is not the sole judge who claims their right, which the community is required to give.
So, what is going on? Why do so many people seem to feel entitled to be ordained, rather than viewing it as a process of communal discernment?
While I have two initial thoughts, my broader purpose with this post is to stimulate a larger conversation. I hope you will comment here. You can also connect with me and respond to this post on twitter @kevinwatson. Either way, I hope you will share your thoughts.
At this stage I will offer two thoughts. The first one is much more extended than the second. 1) People view ordination as an individual right more than a communal rite because the church has formed them to think about ordination in this way. 2) Ordination as an individual right may be a litmus test for a broader unwillingness of individuals to submit to the authority and wisdom of a broader community.
First, as I have been thinking about this quote and processing it with others, I have found myself seeing this as a basic issue of formation. Thinking back to my initial engagement with the ordination process, I don’t remember having hardly any expectations of the process beyond an initial desire to serve God and feeling that the local church was the best place to begin to work this out. I was almost completely ignorant of what the process entailed. In fact, in my first conversation with my pastor, I don’t think I knew there was a process. I was formed into a particular understanding of what ordination is and how it works.
One of the main things I initially learned was that I should expect that not only would I discern whether I felt that God was calling me to ordained ministry, but that my denomination would likewise discern whether God was calling me to ordained ministry in their midst. Where ordination is a communal rite, discernment is a two-way street.
I am concerned that many are being taught to expect that the ordination process will be, and for various reasons must be, one where the gifts one already feels one has are simply affirmed and celebrated by others. I wonder if an unintended consequence of the emphasis on being inclusive and accepting has led some people to view ordination as an entitlement. The thought process could go like this: If I feel like I want to be ordained, you must accept my sense of calling and include me in the order of ordained clergy, otherwise you are being exclusive. When this is seen in its most extreme form, even to examine someone’s calling is seen as invasive, unnecessary, and a problematic use of power by the church.
There are at least two problems with an understanding of ordination that demands that it be given as an individual right. First, people who should be ordained have room to grow and improve in the gifts and grace that have been given to them, no matter how gifted they are. Candidates for ordained ministry should be prepared to accept constructive criticism. They should expect to learn more about themselves and to grow in their sense of calling as a result of the process. Everyone, even experienced pastors, has room to grow. And discerning that one is not called to ordained ministry should actually be viewed as a successful outcome, not as a failure. Second, some people should not be ordained. And they may not always agree with the decision of the church. If ordination is the culmination of a discernment process by both the individual considering ordained ministry and the church that will ordain them, both parties must continue to affirm that they are headed in the right direction.
Before moving on to the second thought, I feel compelled to acknowledge that Boards of Ordained Ministry are not infallible. They make mistakes. And sometimes the criticism they give is not constructive, or honest. Making distinctions about when Boards of Ordained Ministry get it right and when they get it wrong gets messy quickly. And yet, as long as our polity understands ordination as a communal rite and not an individual right, we ought to try to correct mistakes and improve the process, rather than resist the authority that is rightly invested in the community.
My second main thought is that ordination as an individual right may be a litmus test for a broader unwillingness of individuals to submit to the authority and wisdom of a broader community. A few pages after the quote from D. Stephen Long that prompted this post, he wrote something that is an even more aggressive challenge to the contemporary idolatry of the individual:
We Methodists find the rites and ceremonies of our church to be so important that openly breaking them should issue in a rebuke, even if that rebuke must be given to a pastor, superintendent, or bishop. The rites and ceremonies belong to the whole church. When a pastor, superintendent, or bishop changes those rites and ceremonies because of her or his individual conscience, she or he violates the trust that the church places in her or him to guard and preserve the faith. (59)
My guess is that Long’s call for individuals to submit to the whole church, (including even their conscience!) would be contested by many. A key question, though, would be whether the disagreement is precisely an assertion of individual rights over that of the community.
What do you think? How do you think ordination is perceived by most people discerning a calling to ordained ministry? Is Long right that ordination should be understood as a communal rite and not as an individual right?
Kevin M. Watson 
God’s call upon a person’s life is individual/personal. A person can respond to that call as an individual. None stand in the way. However, if a person who has felt a call desires to live out that call within the context of a particular faith community, to be ordained as a minister of the Gospel within that community, the individual subjects themselves to the polity of that particular body. In this case, ordination is necessarily communal. Jim Barnett
I’ll have to ruminate on that last point. My initial response is that as a whole I agree but I also think that like the Board of Ordained Ministry being capable of making mistakes, so is the larger church (i.e. Central Jurisdiction, Women’s leadership etc.) Those dissensions should not merely be individual but they will be a smaller group within the larger group to speak out and in sometimes act against what is in place in order to preserve the faith instead of merely preserving the institution. I would say those exceptions are few but I think they exist.
The first point, however, I give a resounding Amen. As I mentioned on twitter, I think that it is a two way street. Our current appointment system can often slip into a hierarchy where it becomes about the individual pastor climbing the ladder of their own success rather than being servants for the larger success of God’s Kindom. I have faith in my bishop and cabinet as a whole but there are certainly some appointments that scream of the good ole boy system.
I would agree that it is a communal rite rather than an individual right. But I think I have three points to be made.
1.) Besides BOM’s (and for that matter DCOM’s) being fallible, it should also be said that they are numbers-driven. Ask those in candidate-deprived conferences how many people they pass through, and ask how many in candidate-overstocked areas how many. As to the former, much is overlooked where perhaps it should not be, while the bar becomes exceptionally high in the latter areas, and almost any error becomes worthy of blocking a candidate’s path. In the case of the latter as well, “I know a guy who knows a guy who had a problem with this candidate,” becomes a refrain.
2.) If you want to know more than anything what contributes to the sense of entitlement, look at seminary. Candidates are asked to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree from an institution of higher learning that cares more about its name and its bottom line than preparing students for ministry. After sacrificing 3 years of their lives to seminary and putting themselves in debt for decades to come (which, by the way, is frowned upon by the BOM’s – but what other choice is there?), is anyone surprised that candidates end up seeing ordination as a right? And when you add on all the more relevent hoops that they have to jump through to satisfy the ordination process in the Church, if the candidate ends up NOT being ordained, they’ve just wasted years of their lives for a sense of bitterness and a master’s degree that is completely irrelevent to almost all other lines of work.
3.) It’s hard to see it as a communal rite when there is only a very little “communal” content to it. After the initial steps of ordination at the local church level, the process moves almost completely out of the local church’s hands, and into the hands of the clergy-run boards. This is a necessity, of course, as most laity would be ill-suited to judge theology, and would be heavily biased towards their own candidate. (The charge conference vote each year becomes an “at-a-boy” rubber stamp, after all.) But once the process is out of the hands of the local church, BOM’s (and DCOM’s) become professional certification organizations along the line of bar associations or medical boards, and the path to ordination becomes a series of steps toward a career that is viewed objectively (steps) rather than subjectively (a quest to understand God’s desire for the candidate). I suppose that in this light, it can be viewed as a reflection of modern Western culture. (I would be interested in hearing how it is viewed outside of American/western culture, and if the complaints are similar.)
In my experience so far in the candidacy process, I’ve found the experience, from the beginning of my initial call, to be very ‘communal’.
But I think that I’ve intentionally driven my own discernment process to be that way. The UMC process is so complicated on the service, that the only way to survive it truly is to call in others for help. It’s also clear that the onus is on the candidate to seek that help.
I go into this knowing that being ordained is not a forgone conclusion and that discernment for myself, my family, and my denominations is intended to be constant. As a matter of fact, in all of my paperwork I was quite clear that my first covenant is to my wife, and always will be. A few years ago that would’ve ruffled quite a few feathers.
I personally find my discernment work with my pastors, fellow candidates, professors, mentors, and DCOM members up to this point to be challenging and exhilarating. What this process is intended to foster is an attitude of humility to partner with confidence of call.
I think this is a very necessary counterpoint to a lot of stuff being written at the moment. It is important for those writing diatribes against the denomination that we have signed on for being part of a community.
I am currently going through the ordination process and have been continued several times because they feel like they don’t know me, because individuals in the conference have complained against me for personal reasons, and because my paper trail hasn’t been maintained effectively. In many ways my experience with my DCOM has been rather ridiculous. Yet I am blessed to be serving in my context with other humble servants. And despite the embarrassing things that have happened in my oversight, I am still on the bottom of the hierarchy. I can act entitled all that I want, claiming the right to be treated better, but in the end I just sound like a spoiled white middle class dude.
I think you are right to tie this into the larger issue of institutional distrust. I hope together we are able to highlight the ironic oxymoron of those who claim individual authority while trying to yolk themselves to a corporate institution. I think you also hit the nail on the head when you use words like ‘entitlement.’ Methodism, which started out as a poor man’s religion, has systematically become the upper middle class religion of entitlement, where complainers are heard over those who serve humbly. I pray that your writing might give many who serve humbly the strength to continue forward, and that it might help those who loudly complain to…stop.
In 5 weeks, I will complete the candidacy process begun nearly 12 years ago when I am ordained as a deacon in full connection with the North Carolina Annual Conference. Though the bishop will say my name and lay her hands on my head when she grants me authority, it is a communal rite and there are many people who have shared in this journey with me.
During my candidacy process, I’ve resided in four different states, four different annual conferences, and two different jurisdictions. I transferred my paperwork from one conference only one time, approximately 9 years ago. The opportunity to reside outside my home annual conference only reinforces the communal nature of the process. At one point, soon after being commissioned, I lived in a neighboring annual conference that would not allow me to participate in their residency program because they did not think a phd candidate was a viable appointment. Eventually, I resided in my native state, which happens to be in another jurisdiction than where my home annual conference is, and both conference offices worked together to include me in the residency process so I might make forward progress towards full connection.
Furthermore, as a deacon, who does not always occupy traditional church staff appointments, I am fully aware that my appointment is subject to the review of the BOM and the bishop for validation. The communal nature of my ordination is not simply as a candidate that ends at the ordination service, it continues and is a life-long relationship.
While the pursuit of degrees beyond the MDiv forced the involvement of other conferences, I dare to believe, left without the sojourning aspect (which takes the itinerancy aspect to a whole new level!) of my journey, that my process would be fairly communal anyway as Jarrod noted above. My call to seminary emanated from within a local congregation – I had never considered a theological education for myself until persons in my discipleship group urged me to consider the possibility that God was calling me attend seminary.
Despite my very rich experience, made more incredible by all the people who have spoken into my life, sometimes affirming, often encouraging, but plenty of times offering constructive criticism, I have no doubt there are plenty of candidates who believe ordination is about them and their right to be ordained. The willingness to submit to the broader body as everyone seeks discernment through prayerful testing of the Spirit (I John 4) is very counter-cultural to our contemporary world.
For me, I am grateful that I was pushed to encounter so many others – and from other conferences – to make my ordination process so communal. I am thankful to the connectionalism of the UMC that will allow me to have colleagues from my home annual conference and at least one other annual conference be there with me in June to lay their hands on me, as well as those of the bishop, when I am granted authority to proclaim the word and to lead God’s people to serve the world in the name of the Trinity — pretty communal, indeed!
I see it as communal as I am an Elder in full connection. It is the full connection that allows me to see my ordination as communal and always think of the person who will follow me.
Great article, Kevin. One other thought…in our present culture “ordination” has also become an individual right….and almost “secular” right. It is becoming a more common practice for individuals to become “ordained” on-line….for a fee so that anyone can perform a marriage. This is becoming a more common practice especially among unchurched people. This may fall under your classification of “anti authoritarian”….but many state governments recognize these on-line “ordinations” as acceptable for legal marriages. Maybe this is a third category that could be classified as “secular ordinations?”
In my opinion, a sad commentary on the secular culture and governments accommodation to it.
Thank you all for these insightful comments! I cannot do them justice, but here are a few responses.
@Jim In reading your comment, I felt that you do not give sufficient credit to the way that a person is called to ministry as a result of being formed in a community of faith. A calling is to a person, but your explanation seems unnecessarily individualistic or private.
@Brandon, thanks for taking the time to contribute here what you said that advanced the conversation on twitter.
@Marc Thank you for your amplification of several key points that need to be made. I too have heard of many conferences that “discern” whether someone is called to be ordained based on whether they have room for them in the appointment process. And I agree completely about the difficulty of the discernment process happening alongside of, and even after someone has already invested in seminary.
@Tammie Congratulations on your upcoming ordination. Praise the Lord!