What shall be done with the Ministry Study?  The study takes up 32 pages in the DCA and represents lots of time and money and energy.  The hope was that after many other study commissions and years of discussing how ministry should be ordered, this commission might clarify United Methodist ecclelsiology and simplify the process into ministry. 

The study was needed.   The State of the Church report reveals that ministers are frustrated with the process and do not believe they are being well-trained for their calling.    

The result of four years of study?   No forthright recommendations.  A lot of questions asked.  A proposal for further study.  The General Conference might receive the report but there is nothing much to approve. 

This is not United Methodism at its finest.  Before the 1968 merger the Methodist Church had one entry in the index of the Discipline for “Ordained Ministry.”  We now have 140 entries.   In the forty years since 1968 the church has added layer upon layer of bureaucracy with more and more hoops to jump through (the whole idea of candidacy should never have seen the light of day).   In true institutional style efforts to improve strengthen the ministry only added more confusion and frustration.  And for all the effort the church is not seeing better or younger or more numerous candidates for ministry. 

Consider: the church has deaconesses, who are related to the National Division; diaconal ministers, who are commissioned and considered lay; deacons, who were once diaconal ministers and lay but are now “clergy” ordained to Word (except “Word” means something different for them) and service; persons who were once ordained “deacons” in preparation for being elder but who now are “commissioned” (except that too may change) while serving a probationary period. 

Ordained deacons are not to administer sacraments but local pastors can.  Deacons may be ordained as pastors but that does not mean they are licensed for pastoral ministry.  Local pastors (preachers) were once laity but now are clergy, except not elders; clergy are elders but not necessarily pastors.   One needs a computer program to keep it all straight. 

If this sounds confusing it is because it is confusing.   And it is not any better because of all the years of study.   It is probably best that the Study Commission did not bring legislation.  The commission would have moved us toward “our Anglican heritage, and, like the Baptism Commission before it, shuttled the American and revivalistic experience.   This would have meant, among other things, that only ordained clergy could administer the sacraments (sorry, local pastors).   In earlier discussions the commission also wanted to remove requirements that clergy should remain celibate in singleness and faithful in marriage, as if somehow a high view of sexual morality discourages qualified candidates.   

What shall be done with the Ministry Study?   Receive it, of course.  The options are limited.  But we might ask that if a continuing commission if formed it consist of all new members.

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