Vocations - Looking at language

One of the consistent things that I find occurring when it comes to helping people discern their calling to ministry is the use of language.

People will often come in speaking of 'authority', a word that will cause many to immediately harbour doubts about the reason for the calling that is being claimed, when what they mean is perhaps more correctly labelled as 'testing, submission and of having been approved'.

On my journey, one of the important things in ordination was the fact that those who are ordained are:

1. Recognised as having a 'calling' to something within their own fellowship,
2. Are approved by that fellowship and sent to the DDO (Diocesan Director of Ordinands) or vocations adviser,
3. Are examined and, perhaps after additional elements (readings groups, etc.), are sent to a selection conference (BAP),
4. At the BAP the person is engaged to help clarify the nature of the calling and the best way it can be developed,
5. Having been selected, training tales place and once this is completed the person is offered to the wider church (sending diocese having first choice if there is a suitable 'title post') and ordained.

What we have here is a process by which those who ordained can demonstrate that they are:

i. Have been tried, tested and approved

• The selection process
• The training experience
• The Title post

ii. Are in submission to those above.

•  It is here that, taking the model of Nehemiah, that we can see that those ordained have authority because they submit to authority.
• Just as an officer in the forces is saluted because they hold a commission, it is the queen (whose commission they hold) who is being saluted, not the person - this is devolved power through submission to the monarch.
• Are 'primus inter pares' (first among equals). This doesn't make them the 'Daddy' but makes them someone who is collaborative and supportive of others - true authority.

The motto of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) is 'Serve to Lead'.

On the first day at that place one of the staff asked us who the greatest leader was. Being in the big concrete sleeping bag that bears the name of a certain great leader theirs was the first name out of the bag, quickly followed by many others until, exasperated the Colour Sargeant asked where the padres were and who was it they worked for?

yes, the answer was 'Jesus'! Someone regarded by as a great leader because He came to serve. This is the true nature of authority - submission and service.

I hope this helps clarify some of the thinking around vocations

Pax





*Those who were not selected (this is not 'rejected'*) will be offered help in discerning their vocation and may return to a BAP at a later date or find their calling fulfilled in  a different area of ministry. This is not the end of 'calling' (of which our baptismal calling is the greatest calling we have).

paedobaptism - You what?

During a recent conversation I inadvertently dropped the term 'paedobaptism' into the conversation, an act that resulted in the time honoured expression of something or other - 'you what?

I explained that this meant 'baptising babies' and foolishly said, "You know, the thing that Anglicans believe in and do!" I say 'foolish' because some of those Anglican clergy present indicated that they weren't paedobaptists by their muttering things about 'believer's baptism' being the Biblical model.

Now I know that I might be treading on a few sensibilities here but, as I understand it, the early Church practised paedobaptism and as I also understand it, this was the case from the earliest days of the Jewish sect that is Christianity. Reading the didache and taking references to the feeding of babies at the breast with regard to them receiving the Eucharist and adding many other bits of scribble which come together to make an interesting picture. A picture that places infant baptism into a position of greater worth, validity and orthodoxy than many of those who claim believer's baptism would ever assign.

Not only that, when considering the fact that the anabaptist position only came into focus in the early sixteenth century and the modern attitudes became hardened a couple of centuries later, I have to say that I think that the 'my baptism is more efficacious than yours' brigade (also known as anabaptist) might not only be a little wrong but might actually be acting contrary to the very book of writings that they claim to uphold.

Let's have a quick glimpse of Paul in Corinth (Acts 19):

"And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptised?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptised with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus."

So what would you like to take from this? As I understand it:

1. John the Baptist's baptism was that of repentance,

2. The only adequate baptism is that done in the name of Jesus,

3. There is but one baptism, we cannot be baptised again and again. It is a 'once for all-time act'

4. Assuming that any rebaptism is efficacious is to assume that we are enacting something greater than any previous baptism and yet, if this was done in the name of Jesus, this can not be anything other than a false assumption.

5. The only valid rebaptism indicated in the Bible is that where a person has been 'inadequately baptised' ie. NOT in the name of Jesus.

Draw your own conclusions - I await your responses- but am now in hiding ;-)

I get the feeling this topic is not quite finished (and I have a confession or two to make on the way).

Pax