ORDINATION #7 - Just ordain everyone!

Grant Sandercock-Brown on belief, the role of officers and ordination

Ihave a question for fellow Rubiconers: How can it be that people I know and respect as Salvation Army officers see themselves as ordained clergy, somehow different to lay soldiers, when I do not?

The view that an officer’s commissioning produces some ontological change in them is not one I share. And to me, this is not merely an academic question. Speaking with one voice on this issue is vital to our effective mission, maybe even our future. There is something rotten in the state of ministry (a Shakespearian paraphrase, but you knew that) - ordained and lay ministry is the symptom, and we need to fix it.

Harold Hill has literally written the book on leadership in the Salvation Army. It is called, unsurprisingly, Leadership in the Salvation Army. The sting, however, is in the subtitle: A case study in clericalisation. Essentially, it is the story of how a movement full of signed-up, full-on missioners became a church, and its officers, originally the ministers to the ministers, became clergy.

Near the end of his book, Harold has posited three possible views on clergy and laity:
1) There are priests/clerics/people in orders in the church, with a status distinct from that of the laity, but we do not have them in the Salvation Army.
2) There are priests/clerics/people in orders in the church and we do have them as officers in the Salvation Army.
3) There are no priests/clerics/orders in the church, and the Salvation Army does not aspire to any.

I suspect that many of my officer friends hold to the second position. I hold to the third.

We need to remember that the Church, throughout its history, has built extraordinary structures on a very small amount of biblical material. The two New Testament examples of people being prayed for and having hands laid on them in some sort of ordination for a particular job are found in Acts 6:6 and Acts 13:3. It’s a pretty simple event, and one would think that it would be impossible to build elaborate ideas of ordained ministry and apostolic succession on it, but build them the church has.

As to the word “ordained”, it appears rarely in Scripture and is a translation for a number of Greek words, none of which carry the meaning of initiation into a new caste or ontological change (”I am different now that I am an officer”). And of course, the very term “lay Salvationist” has no basis in Scripture. “Laos,” the word from which laity is derived, simply means “the people.” I reject any notion that there are “lay” Salvationists and “clergy” Salvationists.

Based on the New Testament record, it would appear that the Salvation Army commissioning ceremony in vogue until 1978 was a pretty biblical concept. In the very first commissioning ceremony in the church, recorded in Acts 6, the brothers choose seven men and appointed them to a particular ministry, and the apostles put their hands on them and prayed. That is all. There is no promise of a new status in the church, no hint that they are now priests and different to the people they are appointed to serve.

I am not trying to bring officership down. I am not saying that officers are not the equal of ministers in the other churches. In fact, quite the opposite. Remember, I hold to Hill’s third position. All believers are equal in status; all are called to mission and ministry. The whole concept of clergy and laity as it exists in many churches today owes far more to church tradition than to the New Testament record. I can, with biblical warrant, defend our view of the ministry of all believers. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Milton said: “New presbyter is just old priest writ large.” The Reformation had supposedly done away with the power of the priests, had recovered the practice of the “priesthood of all believers.” But before long, even though shorn of popish practices, the new pastor was often indistinguishable from the old priest. My fear is that our longing to see ourselves as ordained ministers of the Church of the Salvation Army has a great deal to do with settling back down to security, status, power and prestige and very little to do with mission and practice as we find it in the New Testament. Perhaps I am wrong.

But even if I am wrong, the disastrous effect on mission is a burning issue for me. I honestly think that unless we can recover in some significant way our founding practice of the ministry of all believers; if our officers go on desiring to be ordained clergy (and acting like ordained clergy), the current rapid decline in our congregational life, at least in the West, will only pick up speed.  Without an underpinning concept of all Salvationists engaged in mission and engaging the world, our missional structures become mere bureaucracy; uniform becomes dress-up clothes for worship, and - the killer - all ministry is done by officers.

Many soldiers already see corps officers as Captain-Priests. Pastoral care only counts if it is done by the officers; officers must officiate at all ceremonies; if (God forbid) a drunk wanders into the hall, you need to summon the officer; soldiers no longer pray in worship - they leave it to the professional; evangelism is the Captain’s job. We were a movement that was once egalitarian in mission and service, hierarchical in organisation. We are now elitist in mission and service and bureaucratic in organisation. That is not a change for the better.

Phil Needham wrote on the theology of officership some time ago and concluded that officership was best understood as a function, that any difference between a soldier and an officer was one of role and responsibility, not status. I believe he is correct. And while that might sound a little mundane, the truth is that while officership may mean a great deal to an individual personally and spiritually, its great virtue is its convenience to the Army’s mission. That is, it is necessary and useful to have a pool of Salvationists who have given up secular employment to commit themselves to ministry in the movement full-time, Salvationists who are able to go wherever they are sent. It is a glorious, sacrificial and a God-honouring convenience, but a convenience nonetheless.

I am not against ordination. I think it’s nice. And in fact, the way we can reclaim the concept is to ordain more. By which I mean ordaining everybody who is involved in ministry. Ordain your singers; ordain your local officers, youth workers, guitarists, Junior Soldier sergeants, receptionists. Define their roles, get them up in front of their community, commission them and pray for them.  If we ordained everybody possible for their ministry, we would get the point.

I love being an officer. It is not my intention to in any way belittle officership. Signing my covenant was a sacred moment for me. The officer’s covenant is a sacrificial and meaningful one. But I have honestly never thought it conferred any special spiritual status on me, brought about ontological change, made me one of a priestly caste. We must reject such a view and we must reclaim the practice of the ministry of all believers. Our cause is too urgent to do otherwise.

I say “we,” but of course all of this is merely my story. I believe we need to get this right, to rediscover mission as the responsibility of all Salvationists. But, as I have discovered, I cannot presume to speak with any certainty on what “we believe.” The tragedy is, at least in seeking resolution on vital issues such as these, that I’m pretty sure no one else does either.

Writer: Captain Grant Sandercock-Brown is a corps officer at Chatswood Corps in Sydney, Australia. He was a secondary school music teacher for 10 years and loves theology, rugby and golf. His first book From a Middle Aged Dad to a Teen Aged daughter has just been published. His claim to fame is that as a singing telegram man he once sang to Elton John. He and his wife, Sharon, have three children.

4 Comments to ORDINATION #7 - Just ordain everyone!

1. Great word Grant (as always!)

   I don’t think you’re belittling Officership here, but rather increasing the emphasis upon soldiership. I agree that the “ministry of all believers” will be a necessary concept to reclaim for the future of the Army.

   I’m not sure I agree with the concept of “ordaining” everyone. I personally think we need to move away from ordination language altogether. However, the use of “commissioning” language could fit very well with what you are suggesting.

   Commission everyone in our corps for the roles that they are appointed to (guitarists, receptionists, toilet cleaners etc). I think if we were to “ordain” everyone then the next question for me is “Who has the right to ordain?” Presumably in that case it’s the Officer - in which case we fall straight back into the problem of have a priestly caste within the corps structures themselves, with those who have the right to ordain others and those who do not. Although, on reflection, I’m not sure we avoid that problem by using “commissioning” language either…

   Needless to say, for me ordination for ministry is part and parcel of conversion. Every believer is called, commissioned and ordained for ministry by Christ… How we display that within our church structures and ceremonies is secondary, but nonetheless an important consideration. If we get the “Priesthood of Christ” (Hebrews 8 - not all believers) right and fixed in our minds, and realise that he “ordains” all (if we even want to use that language), I suspect the “how to” problem will resolve itself.

   Adam Couchman
Adam Couchman on December 10th, 2009

2. As a newly commissioned and ordained officer here in Canada, I’m proud to be one of the blurred-out faces in the Rubicon illustration.

   Many good points have been made in all the articles. Like many, I tend to see officership as an extension of one’s soldiership. I think Booth did not want his officers to be seen as clergy, or in the context of his day, as spiritual leaders quite far removed from the laity.

   Still the role of a spiritual leader is important. While ‘ordinands’ should not be set apart in terms of purpose and even calling, they are set-apart in terms of function. For instance, my function as an officer requires me to be available to people for spiritual and physical care, pretty much on a daily basis (with some boundaries of course). Setting my schedule around the needs of people (be they congregation members or members of the community) could be considered a unique function of ordinands.

   Teaching and preaching the word on a regular basis is also part and parcel of ordination, in most pockets of the Christian church. I think a strength of the Army however is that while we see a difference in function between soldiers and officers, the ‘priesthood of all believers’ is strongly emphasized. We have many lay ‘pastors’ in our church when you think of it: the Corps Sergeant Major, the YPSM, LOM SEC, Bandmaster, Recruiting Sergeant, etc, etc.

   I think all Salvationists should be encouraged to see their function within the Army as a calling to ministry. It’s probably still okay to only use the language of ordination when referring to those charged with pastoral leadership of a congregation, but I agree with the previous commentator when he said that all people can be ‘commissioned’ into God’s service.

   Rob J
Rob Jeffery on December 20th, 2009

3. Interesting thought, Rob, but I wonder how your delineation treats these two classes of people:

   1) Lay soldiers (or other!) who are filling the role of corps officer in a corps; and

   2) Officers who aren’t in ‘pastoral’ ministry. For example, doing 9-5 work in the finance department at THQ.

   The first does the preaching and the teaching, and is probably available for physical and spiritual care. It might be quite different for the second.

   Of course, both roles are sanctified by the fact that it is God who called the relevant people to them. What the ontological difference signified by the colour of the eppaulettes is completely baffles me!
Cameron on December 22nd, 2009

4. Hi everyone

   Tend to agree with most of what Grant has to say here.

   How about a category 3)an ordinary member of the Church (corps) who has the time, skills and opportunity to teach, preach, and care?
Heather on January 31st, 2010

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