Ordination by Petition?

An interesting thing happened today.  Tony Jones ordained Adam Walker-Cleveland with an online petition with the following words:

Adam Walker-Cleaveland, having watched you be ritually abused by the ordination process in the Presbyterian Church (USA), we beseech you to forsake ordination in said bureaucracy.

And please accept the following: We, the body of Christ, hereby ordain you as a Minister of Word and Sacrament, and we grant you all of the rights and responsibilities thereto.

May God bless your ministry.  http://petitionspot.com/petitions/ordainadam

I don’t know Adam, nor do I know his story.  I don’t know if he accepts this ordination or the approval of the 59 people that have so far offered their support to the petition.  This interested me in a couple ways that leads me to reflect on the Emergent and United Methodist Churches.

1)  It strikes me that despite the active efforts of the Emerging Village community to remain institution-less (they dissolved their directing board leadership less than a year ago), they cannot escape human realities that seek organization and establishment.  Whether he wants to be or not, Tony (along with other gifted individuals) serves as a de facto bishop of the Emerging Church.  He makes visits to new Emergent churches (I saw him bless the new worship space used by Journey, and emergent community in Dallas) and now offers online ordination! 

Maybe Tony Jones and John Wesley have a little more in common than most people think

Here’s the thing.  I know that many of you Methodists are aghast that he would have the gall to do such a thing.  Remember, though, that this is how the Methodist church started.  John Wesley, though ordained, was not a bishop when he rdained Coke and Asbury.  They took upon the title of bishop at the Christmas conference without that sanction of the Church of England or even John Wesley.  Before anyone criticizes, let’s pause to remember where we came from.  (It’s fair to disagree with him, but please no Tony-bashing).

2)  I know many people who have been abused (in, what frequently seems to be ritual fashion) by Boards of Ordained Ministry and the church officials who influence them.  I’ve had to fight some battles to be ordained and have seen others lose the battle to pursue ministry in another denomination or profession.  I come out of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference in which the Board of Ordained ministry which in 2007 recommended Ordination in Full Connection for fewer than half of the requesting candidates!  It very well may be that those half were not ready, qualified or called, but all of them had been under the care of BOM or DCOM for at least 8 years.  Surely, if there were issues, they could have been addressed in some way, but they weren’t and they probably still aren’t being addressed. 

On the large scale, ordination decisions are made by a body of people who have little or no relationship with cadidates.  They read recommendations from the candidates congregation, supervising minister (if there is one) and a mentor, but only one of those people gets an actual vote. 

What if ordination in the United Methodist Church was more relationally driven?

We currently flirt with relationships in the ordination process.  We assign a mentor and a candidate works through workbooks with them (I haven’t used a workbook since I was in second grade until I started the ordination process), but there isn’t usually a deep relationship.  How often does an ordination mentor go to hear their mentee preach?  How often does a mentor engage the people that see the mentee in ministry every day?  How much say does the mentor actually have in deciding the ordination fate of the candidate? I remember the most consistent worry from candidates going through ordination:  it’s really hard when it feels like they just don’t know me.  And it amazes me that someone could be in the process for so many years and still not feel known. 

The reality is that Board of Ordained Ministry members have full-time appointments.  Reading the paperwork of dozens of candidates is enough of a drain on their time.  How could they possibly invest in the deeper relationships that are needed while still maintaining their own appointments?  Yet we all know that deeper relationships would help the process. 

Ordination is inherently relational, other wise we wouldn’t do it with such a personal act as laying hands on someone.  When I was ordained, I marvelled at the power of the moment and the weight of so many hands upon my head-the hands of people that I respected and looked up to as well as the hands of people I very much disliked and had wrestled with for years.  All of them were there and they stood for the hands of the community–the hands of the church rested upon my head and weighed me down.

That weight is good.  We should feel pressed upon by the weight of the body of the church.  Ordination should be nothing less than that.  I believe that the moments leading up to ordination ought to be as personal as the ordination itsself.  I hope we can find ways to do that.

I'm glad that this guy was rejected for ordination

So what’s the answer?  I don’t know, but something tells me that the answer doesn’t lie in congregational ordination or web-based petition ordination.  Jim Jones could easily have been ordained by a United Methodist congregation, but he was rejected by a United Methodist Board of Ordained Ministry.  We need the weight of the broader body of Christ upon us, we need the confirmation of he community that spans centuries and we need standards of education, effectiveness and clarity of call before we take ministers into a lifelong covenant (especially with guaranteed appointment).  We need a broader system to protect the church and congregations.  

What are your ideas?  How can we be more relational in ordination?  How can we be better as a church at calling, nurturing and building up its ministers?