If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him.

What an excellent title for a post. It bespeaks the tyranny exercised by unrealistic models of ministry romantically recycled from a previous age. I can understand why someone in holy orders should find it comforting; I too have been in that place of feeling crushed by the romantic expectations. Paul Roberts articulates it well (again) in writing about the culture changes that have been taking place and the way that they make impacts on those called to ministerial priesthood (for those not accostomed to CofE-speak, that term contrasts with 'the priesthood of all believers' as a way to negotiated between Catholic and Reformed understandings of congregational and pastoral leadership).

The transition from one mode of priesthood to another is difficult for the Church to negotiate. It is even harder on priests themselves, who have to live with the competing pressures of the demands of the present moment, the apostolic call towards effective proclamation and disciple-making, and the old pastoral archetypes of Christian England, with their implied methodology. Perhaps this is why Sam finds great healing and help in the saying, ‘If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him.’

It really does seem to me that the tension between what the traditional role is morphing into and what is really required in the more frontier situations that are emerging at the cultural and social edges and at which increasing proportions of our societies find themselves, is growing, and it is hard to see how it can remain simply a tension rather than becoming a snap. The trajectory of the traditional parish vicar or rector is heading towards a role more marked by being an area manager where the gifts of teaching and pastoral care become subservient to administration. The Vicar is becoming a clerk in the sense of a secretary/administrator. Now I don't have a down on admin: it is necessary and should be done as well as may be. However, when it becomes the main preoccupation of those who have other callings, such as teaching, pastoral care, community building, community theologian, visionary leader etc etc, then the very gifts that are needed will start to leach away as those who have them and exercise them have to find other ways to honour the gift that is within them.

I have said before that I think it would do the churches well to take time to listen carefully and discerningly to the senses of vocation articulated by those in leadership, entering leadership and leaving it in order to get a sense of what the Spirit is saying to our churches. If God truly communicates then I can't help feeling that most fundamentally, this is where we will learn some important insights.

In another, related, post Paul states what has stared me in the face for several years as the process he describes in this post has bitten deeper.

a priest who really wants the time to pray deeply, form seriously transformative relationships with people, preside over worship and teach the Faith, and still have quality time left for their own human and family development is going to have to seek a ministry outside the formal and stipendiary structures of the Church of England.

This is precisely why I felt that my own vocation was not leading me to go into the 'normal' sort of parish ministry. I couldn't see how my own lead gifts and sense of calling could be really properly valued and given chance to flourish. I could only see self-supporting ministry (tentmaking) as a way forward unless there was a particularly interesting and creatively minded church out there ...

Paul outlines the dynamics pretty well.

Both received models, ‘priest’ and ‘parish’, have proved very ineffective at bringing about a genuinely apostolic turn by the Church in this country. The thing is that they ‘work’ in their own terms. A solitary priest can serve a parish church, keep it going, and in some cases help build up that church either by being very gifted and charismatic, or by adopting good policies of nurture (Alpha courses etc.) The problem is that this does not work across the whole. There are points and places where the demands of the situation are just too much (inner-urban contexts, for example) or the church has dropped in numbers and effectiveness to the point where it cannot be turned around. Yet this model is the one that most people in churches cling onto or crave.

There's lots in this post that deserves reading and reflecting on if you are interested in the future of Christian mission in England, perhaps the west ...