Introduction
The words ‘clergy and laity’ are taken for granted in Anglican church circles today. The Anglican Diocese of Adelaide Vision Statement 2019–2022 honours the ministry of the lay and the ordained person. It aims to ‘discern, equip and sustain lay and ordained leaders to develop and lead within teams’.Footnote 2
The author, as a result of life experience, parish ministry and research on the parish as a learning community, no longer speaks the traditional language of the Anglican Church by using the dualistic term ‘clergy and laity’.Footnote 3 The word ‘disciples’ is preferred. This change in ecclesial language may seem unusual but we live in a strange Covid-19 period of history when many may be pondering anew. For 30 of his 79 years of life in the church the author was a member of the laity. On being made a deacon in December 1969 and ordained priest in February 1971, he became a member of the clergy and still belongs to the laos, the People of God, baptized 27 November 1941.
Members of the worldwide Anglican Communion are discussing discipleship and ministry. My concern about the term ‘clergy and laity’ coincides with the study of discipleship and ministry across the global Anglican Church. The paper was prompted by this happy coincidence and connects the two topics by drawing on an understanding of the church as the People of God. A conversation about discipleship and ministry depends on an understanding of the nature of the church. The paper explores the deep connection between understanding the nature of the church as the People of God and the practice of discipleship and ministry in the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church of Australia.
Discipleship and Ministry in the Anglican Church
Discipleship is a key topic within the Anglican Communion at this time. ‘Growth in Discipleship’ is a main section in the Vision Statement 2019–2022, Action Plan for the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide, South Australia, for example. ‘Intentional Discipleship and Disciple-Making’ is the topic for the worldwide Anglican Communion. ‘Discipleship and the whole life of the whole people of God’ is a main theme.Footnote 4 ‘Equipping God’s People-Going Deeper in Intentional Discipleship’ was the theme of the Anglican Consultative Council in Hong Kong 2019.Footnote 5 ‘Whole-life Discipleship’ is encouraged through Anglican Communion consultations: discipleship in family, work, community and the environment.Footnote 6
‘God’s church for God’s world: walking, listening and witnessing together’ is the theme for the 2022 Lambeth Conference to be held in England, 27 July–8 August. The biblical focus for the Conference will be 1 Peter. A Conference book The First Letter of Peter: A Global Commentary has been published.Footnote 7 The Letter is about Christian identity as God’s People and emphasizes that all members of the People of God have a ministry of service.
The 1 Peter biblical focus for the Lambeth Conference provides an opportunity to remember the literature on the People of God understanding of the Church and revisit the topic through the lens of the learning community perspective and ministry experience of the author of this paper. The paper engages with this significant understanding of the nature of the Church, takes seriously its meaning and implications, and contributes practical suggestions towards the development of Anglicanism in the twenty-first century.
The People of God
The word laos, a people, a people group, is used frequently – 141 times in the New Testament; 12 passages refer to a people of God (laos Theou), for example, Acts 15.14, 1 Pet. 2.9.Footnote 8 The laos, the People of God includes all disciples. There is a basic equality of calling among all God’s people.Footnote 9 The early church understood ekklesia as a gathering or assembly of equals in discipleship.Footnote 10 The church is to be understood as a community of equals through baptism with a diversity of ministries of service, recognizing co-responsibility and servant leadership by all.Footnote 11 Yves Congar and Hans Kung noted that in the vocabulary of the New Testament no distinction is made between lay people and clerics.Footnote 12 John Stott wrote that the ‘overwhelming preoccupation of the New Testament is not with the status of the clergy, nor with clergy-laity relations, but with the whole people of God in their relations to Him and each other’.Footnote 13
Laity (laikos) is not a biblical word.Footnote 14 Hans-Ruedi Weber wrote that ‘The first known Christian usage of the term is found in a letter addressed around ad 96 by Clement of Rome to the church in Corinth’ (1 Clem. 40.5).Footnote 15 In ch. 40, v. 5 of the letter, Clement described church order and provided the information that ‘Lay people are bound by the rules laid down for the laity’.Footnote 16 The term for laity (laikos) gradually entered ecclesiastical language from the third and fourth century onwards ‘usually referring to what is profane, distinguishing the laity from the priests/clergy and deacons’.Footnote 17
Understanding the Church as the People of God, laos, derived from and sanctioned by Scripture, is endorsed by five Lambeth Conferences, mentioned in six sessions of the Anglican Consultative Council and articulated in an extensive literature, both Anglican and ecumenical, through the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church.
Scripture
The first People of God originated through Abraham and their journey was described throughout the Hebrew Scriptures where the universal and missionary purpose for God’s people was clarified, to serve God’s purpose for the nations.Footnote 18 The Book of Jeremiah recounts that God would make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and ‘they shall be my people’ (Jer. 31.31-34). Hebrew Scripture passages about God’s own people (Exod. 19.6; Isa. 43.20-21; Hos. 2.23) were fulfilled in the Christian church. In Christ a new People of God formed (1 Pet. 2.9-10). God ‘spoke in a unique and decisive way in Jesus Christ’.Footnote 19 In 2013 Pope Francis said that ‘Being the Church, being the People of God, means being God’s leaven in this our humanity’.Footnote 20
The Lambeth Conference book The First Letter of Peter: A Global Commentary provides many insights about the new People of God. The apostolic author of The First Letter of Peter, in the last quarter of the first century ce, wrote to the God’s people, ‘Christians living in diaspora (1 Pet. 1.1-2, 2.9-10).Footnote 21
Peter encouraged them to be People of hope in their following of Christ even as they suffered for being Christians within their communities in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. They experienced, as Christ did, hostility, rejection and alienation. The Commentary states ‘We have to remember 1 Peter’s context as a letter written to a small group of Christians who are a minority in their culture and who live in an empire that is hostile to them, fearful of their beliefs, worship other gods and view Christians with suspicion’.Footnote 22
The letter is about Christian identity as God’s People. It is addressed to ‘all of you’ (1 Pet. 5.5) and ‘all of you who are in Christ’ (1 Pet. 5.14). It is a single calling. ‘You are… God’s own people’ (1 Pet. 2.9). The elders, men and women, are members of the people of God and are to serve the community like lowly shepherds, following Christ the good shepherd. All members, together, are encouraged to be resilient, to have genuine mutual love, to do good, be hospitable, especially to strangers, live in a counter-cultural way and survive so that they are ready always to share their faith in Christ by example and by speaking to anyone with ‘gentleness and reverence’ (1 Pet. 3.13-16); and to resist evil.
They are all encouraged in Christ to be humble, alert, disciplined and to ‘stand fast’ in the grace of God. The people of God ‘Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received’ (1 Pet. 4.10). Relying on the grace of God is a key theme (1 Pet. 1.2, 1.10, 1.13, 4.10, 5.10, 5.12). Christian people are invited to rest into God’s grace during difficulties and times of suffering. The God of all grace who has called them all in Christ will ‘restore, support, strengthen and establish you’ (1 Pet. 5.10).
The Commentary attends to the matter of leadership and ministry mentioned in ch. 5 of the Letter. It notes ‘that this letter was written before the solidifying of ministry into a three-fold order of bishop, presbyter and deacon’.Footnote 23 The elders are to exercise oversight as members of the People of God willingly and eagerly, not for status or greed, nor by compulsion, but, imitating Christ, with care and for service like a shepherd, ‘keeping the flock together and protecting them so they flourish in the pasture’.Footnote 24 The Letter emphasizes that all members of the People of God have a ministry of service, individually and together (1 Pet. 4.10, 5.1-4).
Historical Perspectives
The explosion of literature, from the 1950s, 1960s to 1970s and beyond, on the biblical understanding of the Church as the whole People of God, the laos, and on the vocation of the laity, is worth remembering and rediscovering to benefit the contemporary Anglican Church. In that literature the reaffirmation of the laos had ‘become an assumption of the discussion’.Footnote 25
In the 1950s Hendrik Kraemer and Congar wrote on the laity. Kraemer’s work on A Theology of the Laity provided an early and comprehensive outline of a theology of the whole people of God.Footnote 26 Kathleen Bliss, John Robinson, Simon Phipps, John Stott and John Macquarrie and others wrote on the revival of the vocation of the laity and the need for a theology of the whole church as the People of God.Footnote 27 The Roman Catholic Lay Apostolate movement initiatives were fostered through the World Congresses of the Lay Apostolate in Rome 1951, 1957 and 1967Footnote 28 and through Vatican II, 1962–65.Footnote 29
The World Council of Churches (WCC) Assemblies in Evanston 1954 and New Delhi 1961 included reports on the church as the laos, the vocation of the laity in daily life (ninety-nine per cent of the Churches’ membership) and the WCC Department of the Laity.Footnote 30
The Roman Catholic Documents of Vatican II described the Church as ‘The People of God’ a term ‘solidly founded in scripture’ and referring to the ‘total community of the Church, including the pastors as well as the other faithful’.Footnote 31 The term laity was ‘understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in a religious state sanctioned by the Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and established among the people of God … and by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God.’ The document on the Church emphasized that ‘the laity are here defined not only negatively (as those not ordained and not in a religious state) but positively, in terms of their baptism and their active role in the People of God’.Footnote 32 The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, 18 November 1965, re-emphasized the importance of the vocation of the laity.Footnote 33 More recently Pope Francis called for an end to clericalism and encouraged the development of a church culture where clergy and laity worked collaboratively, becoming co-responsible for the ministry and mission of the church.Footnote 34
Anglican Documents, 1958–98, Endorse a Whole People of God Understanding of the Church
Bishops from around the worldwide Anglican Communion attend the Lambeth Conferences in UK approximately every ten years. The Archbishop of Canterbury invites them to participate.
The Renewal of the Church in Ministry section of the 1968 Lambeth Conference stated that ‘The whole people of God exists as the Church for God and for the world, not for the sake of the Church’ and that ‘All ministry is sacred ministry’. The Church is equipped by Christ with leaders and ‘By their ministry they are to equip the whole Church for ministry, so the whole church, in all its lay members serving the world in their daily work, may become an effective sign and instrument of God’s purpose to renew his whole creation’. The total ministry of Christ was described as the ‘varied ministries of lay men and women, of deacons and priests, and of the episcopate’.Footnote 35
The 1968 Conference report commented that ‘The various patterns of ministry, ordained and lay, are thus equal; we cannot rightly speak of an “inferior office” if that office is where God wants his servant to be’.Footnote 36 The equality of ministry was also mentioned in the 1958 Lambeth Conference. ‘Ministry and laity are one. There may be a difference in function but there is no difference in essence.’Footnote 37
The ministry of the whole people of God, the laos, was endorsed in other official Anglican documents. Section 2 ‘The people of God and ministry’ in the Lambeth Conference Report 1978 reiterated the importance of lay ministry.Footnote 38 A section on the ministry of the whole church is included in the 1988 Lambeth Conference Report.Footnote 39 The 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution III.22 on Discipleship Part (a) reads that this Conference ‘affirms our trust in the power of God’s Spirit to ensure that all persons are made full disciples and equally members of the Body of Christ and the people or laos of God, by their baptism’.Footnote 40
The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) serves the needs of the member churches, the 41 autonomous provinces of the Anglican Communion. ACC comprises members of the laity, bishops, priests and deacons, meeting approximately every three years.
The Anglican Communion, Anglican Consultative Council 1996 report, Being Anglican also emphasized the ministry of the whole People of God, the laos. The report discussed the growth of that ministry and how best to equip the laos.Footnote 41 The theology of the ministry of the whole people of God was seen as ‘the foundation of all other particular ministries of the Church’ and ‘the function of the ordained ministry is to serve, equip and enable that ministry of the baptised to take place’. That ministry is not chiefly ‘sanctuary or churchly ministry, but rather a matter of being a Christian parent, employee, employer, unemployed person or a voter, etc., with integrity’; world-focused ministries after the pattern of ‘Christ who had a world-focussed ministry’. The report lamented the tendency in the church today that we start with the ordained ministry and see lay ministry as in some way derived. The report asserted that ‘the opposite is the better approach, with the ministry of the whole people of God coming first’. When we think of ministry as derived from those who are in ordained ministry ‘our theology and practice can be stifled and inhibited’.Footnote 42
Discipleship and Ministry Further Consideration
The word disciple is a key word in the Christian faith. People who are Christian are followers or disciples of Jesus Christ who sent his disciples to disciple others (Mt. 28.19-20). As the Anglican Communion Discipleship Guide states ‘to be a disciple is to follow, and the nature of that discipleship is defined by the One we follow’.Footnote 43 The word disciple has its origin in the Latin word discere (to learn). A disciple is a follower of Jesus’ teachings and way of life. The Greek word for disciple mathetes means learner or apprentice. Christian disciples are learners in the Christian faith and life.
Disciples are on a spiritual journey with Christ individually and collectively. There will be various stages on the journey as people grow in their faith. Across the continuum there may be degrees of growing in faith: little, some, much, very much growth. But all disciples are on the journey. There is an equality amongst disciples. Some disciples are ordained ministers licensed by the bishop as a deacon or priest. Other disciples are authorized office bearers, lay readers or communion assistants, for example. In the early church community disciples were encouraged to carry out their ministry, diakonia (2 Cor. 5.18; 2 Tim. 4. 5). Some disciples were appointed to a diaconal ministry (diakonia) and exercised leadership with ‘authority and responsibility’ for ‘the work of ministry’ (Eph. 4.12, Acts 1.17, 25; Acts 6.3-6).Footnote 44 All disciples were urged to serve one another with whatever gift each received (1 Pet. 4.10). For example, in Australia, all disciples are part of the laos, the People of GodFootnote 45 fulfilling their various distinctive ministries in a pluralist, multicultural and secular society.
Thinking about the discipleship and ministry of all church members began many years ago.Footnote 46 One concern expressed in the Anglican Church, and other churches, during the twentieth century was the need to nurture all Christian people as disciples in all the contexts of their lives, on Sunday and all week, at work and in daily life.
A former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, recognized this issue of discipleship ministry responsibility in 1942 when he wrote, ‘Nine-tenths of the work of the Church in the world is done by Christian people fulfilling responsibilities and performing tasks, which in themselves are not part of the official system of the Church at all’. Temple mentioned specific achievements like the abolition of the slave trade and reforms of the penal system where individuals and groups appealed to Christian principles; people who carried with them ‘something of the Mind of Christ, received from Christian upbringing, from prayer and meditation, and from communion’. The influence of Christian principles on social problems caused Temple to conclude with others that the most important task and contribution of the Church ‘is to make good Christian men and women’.Footnote 47
In the 1964 God’s Frozen People: A Book for – and about – Ordinary Christians, Mark Gibbs and Ralph Morton argued for an equality of calling and equality of ministry, rather than hierarchy and clericalism which represented inequality, first-class (clergy) and second-class (laity) Christians.Footnote 48 Gibbs and Morton made an important but not an absolute distinction between the majority of disciples, ‘worldly laity’, who focused on life in the world, and a small percentage of disciples, ‘churchy laity’, who involved themselves in Church activities.Footnote 49
In 1971, Gibbs and Morton, from the UK, named another book God’s Lively People, a more optimistic title than the 1964 God’s Frozen People, in the hope that church leaders still had ‘a good chance of producing, not a submissive, but an educated, alert, critical and lively laity’.Footnote 50 Forty years after God’s Frozen People, Australian Anglican theologian Scott Cowdell referred to the Christian laity and their ministry as a ‘sleeping giant’.Footnote 51 He emphasized the importance of lay vocation in the secular world of work and everyday responsibilities. He reflected on ‘how to wake the sleeping giant’ so that, in the emerging church, the ‘laity are awake, vocational, at work with God in the world’.Footnote 52
Hans-Ruedi Weber, from the World Council of Churches, distinguished (not separate) three different categories among the laity, the large majority of Christians: (a) professional church workers; (b) a few lay Christians using their free time in church activities – Sunday School, choirs, parish council; (c) most Christians spending life in worldly environments and work – families, neighbourhoods, politics, industry.Footnote 53
Prayer Books
Anglican Prayer Books suggest ways of describing discipleship ministry and provide insights into strengthening that ministry in the cause of God’s purposes through Jesus Christ.
The American Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer 1979, describes the ministers of the Church as ‘lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons’. The ministry of lay persons ‘is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church’.Footnote 54
A New Zealand (Anglican) Prayer Book 1989, describes the ministers of the Church as ‘lay persons, deacons, priests, bishops; all the baptised’.Footnote 55 From baptism, the vocation of lay persons ‘is to witness to Christ in the world using their gifts the Spirit gives them. Within the Church they share in the leadership of worship and government’.Footnote 56
In A Prayer Book for Australia, The Anglican Church of Australia 1995, those being ordained priest are asked the question ‘Will you encourage and enable those committed to your care to fulfil their ministry and mission in the world?’Footnote 57 Clergy disciples (1 per cent of the church membership) collaborate with others to enable and equip all disciples (99 per cent of church membership) for their ministry and mission in the church and the world.Footnote 58
In the concluding section of The Holy Communion Second Order Service in A Prayer Book for Australia these two headings attract attention: ‘The gifts of God for the people of God’, and ‘The Sending Out of God’s People’.Footnote 59
During the sacrament of Holy Communion disciples receive God’s gifts of bread and wine as effective signs of the reality of Christ’s living and real presence. Christ offers himself to the church, the People of God, to nourish and strengthen them for ministry.Footnote 60 Through worship in prayer, fellowship, Scripture, theological reflection and communion ‘God’s people are gathered, taught, fed and equipped for ministry’.Footnote 61 God’s People are then dismissed and sent out to ‘go in peace to love and serve the Lord: in the name of Christ’.Footnote 62 As Richardson and Varcoe wrote: ‘Our worship together is not primarily for our own sake, but for strengthening for the mission to which God sends us in life, in our homes, schools, work and leisure places’.Footnote 63 Ministry discipleship is set within the context of God’s mission, missio dei.Footnote 64
Discussion – Church Practices
Church practices are now discussed in light of understanding the church as the people of God: ecclesial language in relation to the words ‘clergy and laity’; parish ministry and mission; the processes of Anglican Diocesan Synods; and potential outcomes for the 2022 Lambeth Conference.
The following characteristics of the People of God, laos, derived from the literature presented in this paper, serve as criteria by which to reflect on church practices:
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A common calling by God in Christ invites all disciples to be the People of God.
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Disciples rely on God’s grace and serve others with their gifts and abilities.
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An equality of discipleship exists through baptism into Christ.
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An equality of calling and ministry is practised; there being a variety of ministries.
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All members make up the People of God and share the ministry of Christ as disciples.
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Leaders are members of the laos and serve the community like lowly shepherds following Christ the good shepherd; enabling ministry.
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The vocations of ninety-nine per cent of disciples, who represent Christ wherever they may be and share in the worship and governance of the church, are essential for the ministry of the whole People of God.
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All disciples need to be nourished, equipped, helped and sustained for their particular functions and ministries as everyday disciples, local leaders, deacons, priests and bishops.
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The People of God participate in the missio dei, God’s purposes in and through Jesus Christ.
Implications for Ecclesial Language
The words ‘layman’ or ‘laywoman’ in the church context are misnomers and undervalue the vocation of a Christian disciples who constitute ninety-nine per cent of church membership. For a lawyer, a layperson is someone who has not been trained to understand or practise as a lawyer; someone who is an amateur, a ‘bush lawyer’, not an expert and without credible understanding and education in the law. Dictionaries define a lay person as a person who is non-clerical or not a member of the clergy, and a person who is without professional or special knowledge of a particular subject.Footnote 65 In ‘the common language of today lay/laity mean the non-specialists’ Weber wrote.Footnote 66
Even though laity may be highly respected in the church context, the language used still suggests that the laity are unqualified and unordained.Footnote 67 There is a danger of having first-class disciples (clergy) and second-class disciples (laity) in the church. As stated in one consultation report on the laity, ‘In the course of church history the laity usually were seen as Christians who were not clergy’.Footnote 68 Inequality may exist among disciples who have a variety of roles and fulfil essential tasks. Let us define the discipleship and ministry of ninety nine per cent of the church membership positively, by what it is, rather than by what it is not; not qualified and not clergy. Such a negative description exposes clericalism in the church where laity are compared with clergy in order to have discipleship ministry responsibilities. Clericalism elevates clergy above laity.Footnote 69
Members of the Anglican Church need to be liberated from clerical language. In Paulo Freire’s terms a process of ‘conscientization’ is needed,Footnote 70 an awakening of consciousness by local leader and everyday disciples, an increasing awareness through praxis (reflection and action) of their vocation as disciples and ministers of Jesus Christ in their own right.
Church leaders may consider that the church has successfully and positively redefined the term laity by regular explanation about and usage of the word. Even so, the negative definition of lay – meaning not trained, not qualified and not ordained – remains to the detriment of understanding the essential vocation and ministry of ninety-nine per cent of church membership.
The percentage language distributes our attention to the discipleship realities more equitably. That language continues the discussion of discipleship in the manner of Temple’s discourse, using percentage language (nine-tenths) and incorporates the categories of discipleship outlined in the Prayer Books. A People of God perspective would suggest a different way of describing church membership.
Ninety per cent of disciples relate to daily life in many contexts. Nine per cent of disciples relate to official church life, for example, parish councillors, wardens, Synod representatives, lay assistants. One percent of disciples are clergy in their leadership ministry role. The role of the ordained disciple and member of the laos is to mobilize the whole community of faith as an enabler and facilitator rather than a one-person leader; more like conducting an orchestra than a one-person band.Footnote 71 All disciples need to be nourished, equipped, helped and sustained for their particular functions and designated ministries as everyday disciples, local leaders, deacons, priests and bishops.
Lest the percentage language is misunderstood, be clear that this paper advocates an integrated, inclusive and holistic approach; a both/and perspective rather than an excluding either/or distinction. The whole church, all the People of God are responsible for discipleship and ministry. The percentage categories are fluid and not meant to be exclusive. The ordained person, the one percenter disciple, also relates to daily life, for example. As Gideon Goosen mentioned, all disciples work for the Kingdom of God ‘everywhere and everywhen’.Footnote 72 The percentage categories are an integrated and general way of describing the discipleship life realities. The percentage language draws attention to the knowledge, understandings and practice of Christian discipleship and the competencies, capabilities and skills required in the various ministries of service within the People of God.
The proposed change in ecclesial language to the more appropriate word ‘disciples’ represents a shift, from a clerical perspective with a ‘clergy and laity’ dualism, to a laos, whole People of God perspective.
Implications for Parish Ministry and Mission
The parishes and congregations within the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide provide the context for the author’s ministry work as a retired minister who is a learning community practitioner and researcher with an ecumenical outlook.Footnote 73
A learning community practitioner and researcher understands that the opportunity for all learners to participate in learning is a hallmark of a learning community approach. There is equality of access to learning. All disciples, as learners, are equipped for ministry, learning to participate and contribute. Equality of discipleship is a characteristic in a learning community in a parish context.
The ninety percenter disciples represent Christ and his Church, bearing witness to Christ wherever they may be in the world. This aspect of ministry has been less well articulated and underestimated during conversations on discipleship in the Anglican Church of Australia.Footnote 74 A change in resourcing is needed. An increase in the time and resources devoted to worldly ninety percent discipleship is required.Footnote 75 Some resources are already prioritized towards churchy nine percent discipleship, people who share in the worship and government of the church. Most resources go towards one percenter disciples, the clergy, to equip them for their ministry of leadership.Footnote 76
Parish discussions on faith and work are essential for ninety percenter disciples. On being a Christian at work, in the family, in community engagement, in civic participation and response to social issues are key topics for a parish to consider. From a laos perspective ninety percenter discipleship ministry requires as much attention in parishes as other aspects.
Gibbs and Morton recommended five ways that a person should exercise discipleship at work: serve your neighbours, the people you work with; serve your customer; serve the organization you work with; serve the community where you work and where you live; serve your calling – be the best teacher or mechanic or ….Footnote 77 Being biblically literate, theologically reflective, ethically intelligent and a member of a worshipping community could also be recommended.
The Anglican Consultative Council Report 1971 emphasized lay training and stated, ‘Very seldom will the puzzled builder or bank manager find the specific problems of [their] professional life tackled simply by going to church and listening to sermons’.Footnote 78 Cowdell wrote ‘All Christians, not just priests, need to be “formed”’.Footnote 79 Mark Gibbs argued that Christians working in the secular world ‘need opportunities for growing theologically and spiritually in the same serious way in which they continually develop their secular expertise and skills’.Footnote 80
Many work-based people like chaplains are available to consult. Chaplaincies exist for the police, schools, industry, retail, business, prisons, universities, hospitals, aged-care and Anglicare for example. Worker priests or bivocational ministers serve in the workplace.Footnote 81
Parishes as learning communities nurture all disciples through a culture of learning which encourages conversations about the practice of whole-life discipleship. Findings from a research project conducted in the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide, 2013–2014, demonstrated that a learning community approach enhanced faith learning when leaders took time to intentionally assist individuals and groups to apply the Christian faith to daily life (for example, at work, school, college, family or …).Footnote 82 In The Church as Learning Community, Everist included a practical section on missional learning where the ministry of the laos connected with life in the public and pluralist world.Footnote 83
The discipleship of parishioners in the workplace and in the community might be mentioned regularly in the Sunday public prayers, addressed through sermons and parishioners’ talks about their Christian faith. Occasions for theological reflection about ethical issues at work and in society stretch the minds and move the hearts of disciples through respectful conversation. Recognition of the societal activities of parishioners in a parish time and talent programme is very uplifting. Sunday Worship Services might include topics debated in society like water conservation, the environment, renewable energy, with reflection upon such topics in the light of biblical themes. Instead of prayers being asked for the Bishop of the Diocese; Clergy and People, prayers could be asked for the People of God in a Diocese, then particular roles and ministries mentioned.
Worker priests or the self-supporting ministers have a role alongside ninety percenter disciples,Footnote 84 encouraging by example and enabling through collaboration, theological reflection and conversation. In Adelaide, St Paul’s City Ministry, 1984–2010, collaborated with ninety percenter disciples and many others in the city work places, creating space for reflection and the consideration of ethical choices.
Charles Davis, God’s Grace in History, distinguished between the direct and indirect mission of the Church; direct mission through the work of the visible Church community; indirect mission ‘in relation to the latent presence of grace’ by Christians working with many others in a secular society on the issues facing humanity. Ninety percenter disciples are involved in this exceptionally important indirect mission.Footnote 85 More emphasis on ninety percenter discipleship ministry harnesses the contribution potential of many more members of the People of God in the cause of God’s purposes in Jesus Christ.
Implications for Diocesan Synods
Some disciples gather together for an annual Diocesan Synod. For the worldwide Anglican Communion Bishop-in-Synod is a key aspect of polity. Polity is a form or process of governance; ways of organizing the church. In 1978 the Lambeth Conference affirmed the ‘guardianship of the episcopate in synod as instrumental to the working of authority in each church’.Footnote 86 A parliamentary model is generally used in Anglican Synods, three houses – the Diocesan bishop, the clergy and the laity – with the bishop having a power of veto in certain circumstances. The parliamentary model for Synod has so far served the church well by involving church members in decision-making. However, the time may have come to reconsider this democratic parliamentary model for Synod. The Anglican Consultative Council Report 1981 asked this question. ‘Do our parliamentary methods of procedure and debate come to grips with other methods of arriving at a consensus?’Footnote 87
In A Polity of Persuasion, Jeffrey Driver suggested that Synods may need to change from a parliamentary system of adversarial debate as a dominant way of doing formal business in favour of the greater application of consensus building modes of being together as Synod, like the small step of introducing group discussion and studies.Footnote 88
A shift to a laos, People of God-community of faith model for church polity is suggested in this paper. In the 1970s Christian educators like John Westerhoff in the USA sought to de-school Christian education. They wanted to move the discipline of Christian education away from a dominant schooling-instructional teaching model towards a community of faith model in parishes, maintaining the view that the whole life of a congregation offered times and places in which Christian learning may occur.Footnote 89 This educational approach was indigenous to a community of faith.Footnote 90 Just as Christian educators moved to a community of faith understanding, so, leaders of a Synod, might consider moving from a parliamentary model to a laos-community of faith model for conducting the business of Synod.
The processes of a Synod could be natural for a People of God-community of faith model rather than derived from a democratic parliamentary model. Equality of opportunity for access to learning, participation and making a contribution has developed in church life over many years. In 2021 equality among disciples may be better expressed by the participation of many disciples in a community of faith approach to the functioning of Anglican Synods. Generally, a parliamentary model may discriminate in favour of the decision-making power of the clergy and the bishop in a Synod, even though local leader disciples may outnumber disciples who are deacons, priests and bishop. There may be an inequality among disciples. A Synod may not be an assembly of equals in discipleship.
Driver saw the need for ‘providence within the process’; where there is ‘genuine openness and grace from all involved’ in Synod.Footnote 91 Driver proposed a broad but bounded space for grace, an opportunity for reflection, consultation and dialogue.Footnote 92 Driver’s suggestion about the need in Synod for reflection, discernment and ‘space for the presence of grace’ is, in effect, a People of God-community of faith approach.
The years 2021–22 may be the time to consider and plan to take another step in Anglican polity in relation to Synods. The processes of Synod could move from a parliamentary model to the processes of a Synod becoming more aligned with a community of faith model. Synod would be seen as a community of disciples where all have an equal vote after participating in a communal discernment process together. There would be no right of veto for a bishop, no voting by the three houses as a general rule. Examples of a synodical communal discernment process and a one vote per person are readily available.Footnote 93
With a communal discernment process Synods would enact a community of faith approach and be a learning community, with holistic, collaborative and theologically reflective processes. For example, to select one diocese in the Anglican Communion, Synod in the Diocese of Adelaide, overseen collaboratively by the bishop, as at present, with diocesan leaders, would involve local parish leaders/disciples elected and appointed according to the Ordinances of Synod, and have space to ponder and discern the presence and guidance of God-in-Christ through the Spirit. Synod could deliberate as laos, one whole community of people, with each formal member having one vote, the majority vote being decisive. A laos, People of God understanding of the church provides a biblical foundation for the gathering of disciples in a Synod.
Implications for Lambeth Conference 2022
The biblical focus for the Lambeth Conference will be 1 Peter. A Conference book The First Letter of Peter: A Global Commentary has been published,Footnote 94 previously outlined above.
The image of people of God describes those who would be listening to the letter. ‘The phrase rendered “God’s own people” (1 Pet. 2.9) aims to communicate that the audience is a people who belong to God.’Footnote 95 Whatever their difficult circumstances the audience is encouraged to stand firm in Christ strengthened by God’s grace.
Through their study of 1 Peter the bishops at the Lambeth Conference will have the opportunity, in conjunction with the theme of intentional discipleship, to explore and discuss the theology and practice of the church as the People of God. Then on returning home share the fruit of their conversation with others for the benefit of their part of the Anglican Communion.
Conclusion
The journey of the Anglican Church towards prioritizing a theology of the laos, the People of God, the whole faithful community, as the basis for discipleship and ministry practice, must continue.
Five challenges are contained in this paper.
First, discipleship and ministry are to be based on an understanding of the church as the people of God, a laos perspective rather than a clerical perspective.
Second, church members are invited to stop using the ‘clergy and laity’ language and instead use ‘discipleship’ language, referring to disciples of different kinds who have a variety of designated responsibilities, leadership roles and functions.
Third, parish ministry is to be far more inclusive of all kinds of disciples and their ministries of service. The ninety percenter disciples, the nine percenter disciples and the one percenter disciples are to be equipped for their respective ministry responsibilities.
Fourth, members of a Bishop-in-Synod are encouraged to change the processes of Synod, from a parliamentary model to a laos People of God model, one whole community of faith, discerning and voting together as disciples, with one vote for each person and, in general, the majority vote would decide the issues before the Synod.
Fifth, the 2022 Lambeth Conference participants will have an opportunity to explore and discuss the inclusive, holistic and serving nature of the Church as the People of God and invite the Anglican Communion to put it into practice even more.
The People of God’s understanding of the nature of the Christian Church provides a strong biblical foundation for discipleship, ministry and mission ‘in the name of Christ’.Footnote 96 The Anglican Church is challenged to move further towards practising a Laos-People of God, community of faith perspective, to better serve and enhance God’s universal and missionary purposes in Jesus Christ.
