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An Exploration of the History and Present Place of Reader Ministry in the Church of England

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An Exploration of the History and Present Place of Reader Ministry in the Church of England 1 The Reader: an exploration of the history and present place of Reader ministry in the Church of England Peter Garner Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Education December 2010 2 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Peter Garner to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. c 2010 The University of Leeds and Peter Garner 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been a pleasure in the course of the research for this thesis to have had the encouragement and interest of many people. At the outset I had the support of my Diocesan Bishop, the Rt Revd John Packer, the Diocesan Training Officer Mrs Elizabeth Williams and the Diocesan Warden for Readers, Canon Ann Helmsley. I wish also to record my gratitude for the generous grants made by the Inglefield Fund towards this research. Mike Cranston, a Reader in the Winchester diocese, provided a helpful start to my work by sending me the bibliography from his MA thesis on Reader ministry and loaning me many of his books. I have returned to and appreciated his website on many occasions.1 Mike Cranston and Chris Metcalfe, also a Reader, and Rodney Wilson, a Methodist Lay Preacher, all offered helpful comments after reading an initial draft of the thesis. The members of staff at Lambeth Palace Library were exceptionally helpful and time only limited the work that I could undertake at the library on the 19th century church and Reader ministry. The generous and open response from Readers and from student Readers confirmed the value and importance of this work in identifying the place of Reader ministry in the church. I am particularly grateful to the members of the Student Reader Cohort who allowed me to interview them over the three years of their training course. I wish to thank especially my two supervisors in the University of Leeds, Professor Miriam Zukas from the School of Life-long learning, now Dean of Birkbeck College, University of London and Dr Alistair MacFadyen from the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. I am more than grateful for their encouragement and insightful comments and for supervision meetings that were for me stimulating and exciting as we engaged with the content and implications of the research. 1 http://www.futurechurchsouthcoast.com/index.htm 4 Finally I must thank my wife Joan, who patiently put to one side plans for a leisurely retirement once I had left parochial ministry, and instead has supported me through the months and years of research and compilation of this thesis. Peter Garner December 2010 5 ABSTRACT A substantial part of the Church of England ministry is provided by Readers, but little information is available about their past or present position in the church. This thesis addresses this absence of knowledge by the exploration of Reader history and its contemporary expression. History is examined using primary and secondary sources. The contemporary place of the Reader is researched through a survey of diocesan Reader Officers and by a longitudinal study of student Readers. Interviews with Readers and clergy from varied backgrounds provide a check on my findings. Reader ministry is identified as a resource used primarily in crises. When there is no obvious need, the church, unclear as to how to use Reader ministry, is ambivalent and expresses this in the uncertain place it accords to the Reader. I suggest that living in uncertainty is the natural environment for the church. From this I argue that the ambivalence of the church to Reader ministry may be a symptom of this uncertainty. The Reader therefore has to be trained for and function in an unpredictable context and the Reader’s effective actualization of this role provided and provides an essential contribution to the ministry of the Church of England. I conclude that the Reader represents a trained and available ministerial resource able to work and live with uncertainty and to respond when specific needs arise. Consequently the Reader may be described as holding a unique and vital place in the Church of England, essential for its wellbeing and for its future ministry. This fresh understanding of Reader ministry provides an opportunity for a reassessment within the church of the place at present ascribed to Readers, together with the identification of appropriate education and training patterns. 6 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 3 Abstract 5 Abbreviations 7 Introduction 9 Chapter One Engaging with the History of Reader Ministry 22 Chapter Two Reader Ministry: A History 39 Chapter Three The Survey: An Overview of Reader Ministry 110 and Training Chapter Four Reader Education: An Introduction to 170 a contemporary experience Chapter Five A Student Reader Cohort 181 Chapter Six Testing the themes 222 Chapter Seven An Update 236 Summary and Conclusion 247 Appendix One Timeline 270 Appendix Two Relevant Parts of the Canons 277 of the Church of England Appendix Three Regulations and Recommendations 283 Appendix Four Survey Form for the Wardens of Readers 285 Appendix Five Survey Form for the Directors of Reader Training 288 Appendix Six Guidelines for Selection for Reader Ministry 292 Appendix Seven The Framework used in the Interview Questions 294 for the Student Cohort Appendix Eight Reader Upbeat Report: Recommendations 297 Bibliography 300 7 ABBREVIATIONS Note: throughout this thesis ‘Reader’ is used for the Office of Reader; ‘reader’ is used for all other meanings of the word ABM Advisory Board of Ministry ACCM Advisory Council for the Church’s Ministry APL Accreditation of Prior Learning: credit given for formally tested prior learning in a recognized education institution (sometimes known as ‘prior certificated learning’) APCL Accreditation of Prior Certified Learning (the same as APL) APEL Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning: credit given for formally tested prior learning in a recognized educational institution and for professional and life experience where it is relevant to the proposed future course of studies (‘prior experiential learning’) CME/CMD Continuing Ministerial Education/Continuing Ministerial Development CofE Church of England CRB Central Readers’ Board CRC Central Readers’ Council GS General Synod of the Church of England IME Initial Ministerial Education LH Lower House of Canterbury or York Convocation LOM Local Ordained Minister. A priest who is not paid and may be in secular employment and who is licensed specifically to his or her home parish MSE Minister in secular employment. The priest or Reader who sees his or her primary ministry within their place of work and who is licensed specifically to this ministry NSM Non-Stipendiary Minister. A deacon or priest who is not paid and may be in secular employment and who at the same time is licensed to a parish or a special post in the church. 8 OLM Ordained Local Minister, the same as L.O.M PCC Parochial Church Council. PTO Permission to Officiate. Usually clergy and Readers are not Licensed to a parish or to a specific post in the church after the age of 70, but the bishop issues ‘Permission to Officiate’ which authorizes them to function as a priest or Reader wherever and whenever they are invited to do so in the diocese RCC Representative Church Council. Formed in 1903 as a representative and deliberative body. This body prepared the way for the Enabling Act of 1919 and the formation of the Church Assembly RTP Regional Training Partnership. The grouping of dioceses, whereby in each group the number of training courses and colleges are limited to a small number of viable units. Where appropriate, combined clergy, Reader and Local Preacher training is provided for the Church of England and Methodist Churches (and possibly the United Reformed Church) UH Upper House of Canterbury or York Convocation 9 INTRODUCTION Reader ministry today occupies a numerically strong place in the ministry of the Church of England. The latest available figures at the time of writing this introduction show that Readers account for 40% of the total Licensed and Authorized ministry of the Church of England which includes Stipendiary, part-time and non-Stipendiary clergy, Ordained Local Ministers, Readers and Church Army Evangelists.2 Despite this significant numerical place in the ministry of the church, there is a wide variation in the use and distribution of Readers across the dioceses of the Church of England. For example there are parishes where Readers rarely assist in the Sunday worship or in parish work, and there are parishes where they are fully involved in every aspect of ministry, apart from that which is legally the preserve of the priest. Occasionally a Reader is appointed as minister-in-charge of a parish. This variation in Reader ministry is reflected in the place accorded to Readers in diocesan policies and structures. (Archbishops’ Council 2008b p. 10, Thorpe 2003 p. 49) Hiscox describes the work of Readers as, a ‘Kaleidoscope’ (Hiscox 1991 p. 3), and supports this by describing situations where Readers are underworked, or have a regular ministry, or where they work in hospital, prison or industrial settings. She also notes that ‘Readers were sometimes a focus of mistrust and resentment from both laity and clergy’ (Ibid p. 34) but she states that by the time of the 1966 centenary of the re-introduction of Readers. Readers in general had moved on from a stop-gap ministry to a lay ministry in its own right, working in partnership with clergy and laity in the service of God.
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