Ministry, Order and Ordination: Continuity and Change in Ordained Ministry in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.

Abstract

Current and historic Anglican texts definitive of ministry, church order and ordination in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia were analysed in this study to discern points of continuity and change in the way ordained ministry has been described across the time period these texts span. Ordination rites contained in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1989 A New Zealand Prayer Book were examined together with a handbook, Developing Local Shared Ministry in the Diocese of Auckland, which sets out the principles and organisation of Local Shared Ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Auckland, New Zealand. A specific concern was to discern the purpose and relational place assigned to ordained ministers in each text. Purpose was addressed as both a proximate and ultimate end. The relational place of ordained ministers was characterised in terms of authority, power and responsibility. The ordination rites examined in this study describe church order in different, but not incompatible ways. There is little discontinuity in the approach either text takes to ordination and the purpose and place of ordained individuals in the church. The approach to ordained ministry in Developing Local Shared Ministry in the Diocese of Auckland differs from the pattern discernible in the Anglican ordinals surveyed. The greatest point of variance occurs in relation to the purpose and place of priests ordained within Local Shared Ministry Units. In the Anglican ordinals surveyed, priests are individuals who have been authorised to exercise a multifaceted, responsible work within a national or provincial church. Developing Local Shared Ministry in the Diocese of Auckland limits a priest‘s role to the performance of a narrow range of functions, principally those associated with the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, and forbids priests ordained within Local Shared Ministry Units from being in charge of the congregation of which they are a part. These differences raise issues in light of the practice of ordaining priests in Local Shared Ministry Units according to the Ordination Liturgies in the 1989 A New Zealand Prayer Book. Two potential remedies to this conundrum are discussed.