It’s Canada Day and I am more than a little exhausted and disoriented as I write this. Linda and I just got back from New Zealand a day or so ago. We were there on a whirlwind speaking tour for two weeks at the invitation of the Synod of Otago and Southland of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (see synod.org.nz or presbyterian.org.nz). We got linked up with these fine folks through the quadrennial International Rural Church Association meeting held in Brandon in July 2007, where I had been invited to say a few things (irca.is). Something I said must have resonated with the Presbyterian folks attending from New Zealand for we ended up being mentioned in an interdenominational rural newsletter.
The Synod of Otago mission advisor, Bruce Fraser saw it. He came to visit our mission work in the Cariboo/Chilcotin near Christmas that same year, touring during a very busy three-day period. He really hit it off with all of us and was quite taken with what we were up to. Bruce could see all kinds of applications for an interdenominational rural house church ministry like ours working in New Zealand (see cariboopresbyterianchurch.bc.ca for more info about us). Back in New Zealand, Bruce and the Synod of Otago and Southland began working on their first ever rural church conference and yours truly got invited to be the keynote speaker. Prior to the conference, which was held in Balclutha, we visited Auckland, Whakatane and Wellington on the North Island and Westport, Reefton, Greymouth, Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin, Invercargill and Cromwell on the South Island. We addressed rural church groups, led workshops, and spoke to various national, synod and presbytery church leaders. At the end of the conference, I was even able to spend a brief time chatting with Right Rev. Dr. Graham Redding, currently Moderator of the General Assembly and Principal of the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership in Dunedin, which is the sole PCANZ equivalent of our three theological schools. Except for about a thousand bucks for travel and grub to get us to and from Vancouver, which we covered ourselves, our trip was totally funded by the Synod of Otago and Southland.
The above itinerary pretty much explains my Canada Day exhaustion, but let me tell you about the disorientation. Visiting New Zealand was kind of like a through-the-looking-glass experience for me. Everything in New Zealand was very similar to Canada but very often a mirror image. The incredible landscapes of sea, plains and mountains were very similar to Canada but instead of being spread over thousands of kilometers, the landscape was jammed into a small space less than one-third the size of B.C. The highways looked the same and so did the cars but the cars all drove on the wrong side of the road and everything in the cars was a mirror image of ours. The pedestrians looked just like ours but they walked on the opposite side of the street and tended to have absolutely no rights with regards to cars, seemingly being considered little more than moving targets.
Canada and New Zealand share the same queen, have the same parliamentary democracy and both have an economy driven by farming, fishing, forestry and mining but New Zealand is known for being one of the world’s most free market economies and Canada for being one of the most regulated. The difference is palpable everywhere. The bulk of the population of Canada and New Zealand share the same European roots, exhibit the same polite and welcoming attitudes but in New Zealand the entrepreneurial spirit is everywhere; in Canada it seems to be everywhere absent these days. We share the same sun but it hangs in opposite positions in the sky. We both are geographically very close to our magnetic poles, but again they are opposite. Linda and I were so disorientated while in New Zealand we could not get any directions right. We finally chalked it up to the biochemical effect of opposite magnetic poles and a conspiracy involving penguins.
The through-the-looking-glass disorientation was no more pronounced for me than when dealing with the church. In New Zealand, it was the same Presbyterian Church, from the same Scottish stock, with the same theology and polity, but with a mirror image approach to change. In Canada, in my opinion, particularly amongst its ordained ministers, theological schools and General Assembly church offices and officials, the Presbyterian Church approaches the need for real change as though it was of the devil. Anyone with any turf to protect hangs on for dear life. Presbyterians in New Zealand seem to approach necessary change like it is normal and get on with it. Bruce Fraser told me that in his opinion it came out of the Kiwi experience of being isolated and having to make do and make things work. He said that New Zealanders had to adopt the attitude of the Kiwi farmer, that anything could be repaired and made to work with a bit of number-eight wire (Canadian translation: “haywire”). Change in the New Zealand church always relates to need, not style, and when the need arises the approach is the entrepreneurial number-eight wire pragmatism that New Zealanders are famous for.
Joined Congregations
How this pragmatism has affected rural ministry in New Zealand seemed to me to be nothing short of amazing. Most Presbyterian rural congregations now have been joined with several other congregations in order to make a parish ministry with one single administrative council. This makes things administratively very efficient for the rural church.
Union Congregations
In some places, out of a failed attempt at organic union in the 70s between five different denominations, where there were perhaps two or more rural congregations of different denominations running side by side in some rural areas, and where it is pragmatic, they have formed Union Congregations. These congregations will often have one building in a village and one minister, but still relate to all denominations, usually Methodist and Presbyterian. In Reefton we visited one such congregation and I could not get over how the interdenominational nature of the Union church allowed the congregation, and especially the pastor and his wife, to function as a chaplain for the whole community, from school to tourist facility. It was amazing and very touching.
Cooperating Parishes
Where there are several struggling congregations of various denominations in a rural area they often form Cooperating Parishes—folding several congregations, ministries and administrations into one, but operating in several locales with one administration and pastor. The PCANZ is involved in around 118 Union and Cooperating Parishes, with the Anglican Church, Associated Churches of Christ, the Congregational Union and Methodist churches. On paper the cooperating parish idea seems like a recipe for an administrative nightmare and in some senses I am sure that it is, but on the ground in rural communities, New Zealand pragmatism somehow makes it all work effectively. We spent a day with the pastor and people of St. Andrew’s Cooperating Parish in the South Canterbury region serving the communities of St Andrews, Pareora, Makikihi, and all the surrounding areas inland to the Hunter Hills. This Cooperating Parish was formed primarily between Anglicans and Presbyterians back in 1975 (see www.chch.anglican.org.nz/main/standrews). It is in a rural area that is rapidly changing as many of the small family sheep farms are transitioning to huge dairy holdings dedicated to the overseas milksolids industry. In this Cooperating Parish I was amazed by the depth of understanding and the concern shown for the stresses their changing community was experiencing. They did not talk about church survival in the midst of change, but rather how to serve people whose lives were in tumult because of it. They were deeply interested in how a house church model might facilitate their serving. Just another example of the efficacy of number eight wire pragmatism.
Local Ordained Minister
In rural Presbyterian parish areas where there is a person with the sense of call and gifts for ministry but without the qualifications of the national church for ordination, presbyteries are able to ordain this person as a Local Ordained Minister. This person is ordained to Word and Sacrament only in one particular parish. This person normally receives in-service education from the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership that is especially designed for Local Ordained Ministers.
National Ordained Minister
The LOM can eventually go on in training, if the call and gifts are there, to enroll in the training for National Ordained Ministry. NOM also has a direct route of a three-year theological degree and two years of internship. NOM applies across the church when it is completed. When one is going into it from Local Ordained Ministry, this education is largely an in-service model. I met a number of pastors who had started out as Local Ordained Ministers and over time had completed their educational qualifications for national ordination. They all were deeply appreciative of the effectiveness of being able to develop their call and their education while they served.
Local Ministry Team
Some rural parishes opt not to have an ordained pastor but rather to have a voluntary Local Ministry Team, groups of parishioners to take care of all three areas of ministry: administration, worship and pastoral care. The LMT is a kind of corporate pastor and will often function, at least for a time, under the care of a Resource Minister or advisor. The Local Ministry Team will have ordination applied to it with certification by presbytery given to one or more of its members to perform the sacraments, but only as part of the whole team’s ministry. The Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership also provides training for LMTs. I made the mistake of asking two people who served on a LMT if this was just an interim arrangement to tide their churches over until they could once again afford a real minister. After they finished scraping the sheep dung off their boots on my teeth, they adamantly stressed that most congregations that went the route of forming Local Ministry Teams wouldn’t choose to go back to ministers.
Authorized Elders
Where it is needed, the assembly has also given presbytery the power to authorize elders to serve the sacraments in any parish, for that parish only, regardless of whether or not there is a NOM, LOM or LMT. The parish requests this of the presbytery. The authorization lasts for a year and needs to be renewed.
Amorangi Ministry
There is also a fifth strand of ordination in the PCANZ, similar to the LOM, and it applies only to the Maori Synod, Te Ako Puaho. It is called the Amorangi Ministry and training is developed especially for it. (For more information on New Zealand’s strands of ordained ministry visit presbyterian.org.nz/1567.0.html.)
The above pragmatic approaches, particularly as they apply to rural mission and ministry, are revitalizing the church in the rural areas of New Zealand. One key to all of this is the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership. Another key seems to be the revitalization of the eldership in the church. They are leading the way in facilitating change in ministry and in preparation for ministry for rural areas.
Cariboo/Chilcotin
So what were we up to in New Zealand besides getting disoriented by all this through-the-looking-glass stuff? Well it turns out that what we are doing in the Cariboo/Chilcotin with a regional, rural, interdenominational congregation of house churches and the extensive thinking that has gone into its development is thought to be quite innovative by the Kiwis. They have yet to really try a congregation of interdenominational rural house churches and have not really developed any extensive theology around it. And so they looked to us, and our 20 years of experience.
Presenting what we do in our rural congregation of house churches in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the thinking behind it to a large sector of rural church leaders who actually are interested in replicating what we have done, was the high point of my experience in the church. The people were as keen and as receptive as any speaker could ever hope for, but more that that, eager to put wheels under our ideas in their own context. In the end, what was really disorientating for me, not to mention disheartening, was why I had to travel all the way to New Zealand to do what I did. Our ministry of rural house churches is well loved and sacrificially supported by the people and structures of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as long as it is “not in my back yard.” For the main part, the leadership and scholarship of our denomination have ignored our modeling of rural ministry.
So here I sit and ponder, What did I bring back with me from New Zealand? I didn’t catch the swine flu but I think I caught a full dose of Kiwi pragmatism towards change in the church. If we are going to remain faithful in bearing Christ in the diversity of rural areas of Canada, whatever else has to happen, it seems to me change in the following three areas has to be addressed by the church.
Act and Think Interdenominationally
The first is we have to begin to think and act interdenominationally, and by using the word interdenominational I am not talking about the mainline church but the whole of the Christian church. There is absolutely no room for fierce denominationalism in Canada’s rural areas. Interdenominational cooperative ventures have to become the norm and to do this it takes a huge amount of humility and love. In my context of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, especially within the close quarters and intimacy of house church, we have had to learn to love and respect and work together for Christ, in spite of a wide variety of greatly different Christian theological perspectives and practices. My theological training not only did not prepare me for this but actually trained me against it. To get through theological school, I had to toe the line of liberal theological scholasticism, and adopt the attitude that anything substantially different was not only wrong but also intolerable. As one of my contemporaries put it just before I tried to throttle him, “It is better to have no theology than the wrong theology.” To minister in an interdenominational rural setting I had to work hard to step out of this liberal fundamentalism and to learn to understand and appreciate and communicate with a wide variety of people with widely differing theologies. To do interdenominational ministry in rural Canada we need theological institutions that are dedicated to teaching theological diversity and respect to those who will be leaders on the ground.
Develop Rural-based Theological Training
The second thing that has to change is related to the above. Rural people need to be practically equipped for ministry in their rural context. We desperately need our theological schools to begin to address this. But in addressing this what is needed is a complete shift in thinking and practice. This shift is best summed up in the following phrase: Theological schools and institutions need to begin to think in terms of training the whole people of God, the laos, and as they do this, they need to think in terms of “in service education” rather than “distance education.” The difference between “in service education” and “distance education” seems profound and obvious to me. It is a huge difference in attitude and practice that sees the center of learning as being the rural context, not the theological school or institution. This means that the one who has to transport and translate itself is not the rural person but the educational institution.
Equip the Laity
The third change that is absolutely necessary for rural ministry has to do with how we approach the ministry of Word and Sacrament. Many times, and for many different reasons, now and especially in the future, the rural church will not have an ordained minister leading it. New Zealand has met this reality head on by developing five streams of ordination, four of which address the laity. I would suggest in Canada we should go a different route. I can find no clear warrant in scripture for the practice of ordination to Word and Sacrament as we now practice it. I can find no place in scripture that even obliquely says that the one who is ordained to the office of minister is the sole celebrant when it comes to the sacraments. We need to appreciate that baptism is entry to the Table, and baptism is all that is necessary to be the celebrant with regards to the Table. It does not seem to me to be a big job to adequately equip faithful baptized Christians to be able and good celebrants with regard to the sacraments. It is a much more biblical and a more difficult job to adequately train overseers (episkope) as well as equip the laos to be preachers and teachers, and this is where most of the hard work needs to be done.
