MINISTRY MATTERS by Michael Plekon presents Christianity in the United States in stark terms: “Congregations are shrinking and in decline.” By way of response, it offers a compendium of commentaries on authorised public ministry in a range of church traditions.
The focus on authorised ministry is an interesting approach to the assessment of decline. It sees the life of the Church through the eyes of her ministers. Theirs are the spiritual anxieties, theological exigencies, and pastoral accommodations that are catalogued for us in detail.
Surely there is an imbalance here. Those who are called to minister should primarily be attentive to the spiritual, theological, and pastoral needs of the people whom they serve. But we hear little of those people, their needs and, perhaps more urgently, what they expect of their ministers.
None the less, Plekon offer us a rich account of ministerial experience and innovation. One senses that this is also a way of processing his own transition from the aspiration to become a Carmelite and ordination in the Roman Catholic Church, into marriage and ordination in the Orthodox Church, together with distinguished academic and pastoral ministry.
The distance that Plekon travelled personally is reflected in his diverse accounts of people who minister with passion and distinction.
The United States sustains a wide range of traditions: RC, Orthodox, Anglican, and other Reformed traditions, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian among them. Many of them still have their own universities and seminaries.
These traditions are abundantly represented in the 13 short chapters that focus on a person or a small group of people. Some names will be well known, such as those of Sarah Coakley and Pope Francis; others, such as Nicholas Afanasiev and Cathie Caimano, might be less familiar.
Plekon writes with the enthusiasm of a person who delights in drawing from the richness of Christian traditions spanning nearly two millennia. He is magpie-like in selecting references that serve our interest in quotation-rich narratives that we can plunder for our sermons. Ultimately, however, this kaleidoscope of sayings does not become a tradition that has the capacity to challenge, withstand, and adjust our cultural waywardness, which can be arrogant at times.
An early chapter observes the life of a “free-range priest; out of the ecclesial box”. This apparently attractive ministry is akin to what some clergy find attractive in retirement: pastoral and liturgical ministry with none of the admin. But retired clergy also note that this can lack the profound relationships, forged in the experiences of joy and sorrow, that give substance to shepherding, being identified by the sheep as the one whom they know and trust.
Sustaining that pastoral and sacramental ministry demands recourse to a deep well of life-giving water. This book felt at times more like a fine but slightly ornamental fountain.
Dr Martin Warner is the Bishop of Chichester.
Ministry Matters: Pastors, their life and work today
Michael Plekon
Cascade £33
(978-1-6667-8996-6)
Church Times Bookshop £29.70
