Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams sends a video greeting to the Vital Church Planting Conference on September 5.
At around 2:00, Williams remarks upon what the realities embraced by the Fresh Expressions initiative will have to say about the next generations of clergy and their formation:
…rethinking a bit of what we expect of ordained ministry. Because for these new styles of church life to flourish, we need something of a new style of ordained ministry. We need people with pioneering skills, with entrepreneurial skills, people perhaps a little bit more willing to take risks than some traditional clergy might have been in the past.
He’s naming an obvious new reality … or perhaps something that’s been the case for a while, but only a few have been willing to truly embrace it.
Anyway, it begs at least four questions.
1. Who is this “pastorpreneur”? (This is a term that’s been in the air for years, by the way, but hasn’t been applied with as much force to smaller congregations.)
2. What additional skills or training must he or she possess in order to help the church be effective?
3. What must happen within church for there to be enough trust between priest and congregation to allow such a role to come forth?
4. Under this schema, what in the world happens to “preach, teach, and administer the sacraments”?