Anglican Elders?: Locally shared pastoral leadership in English Anglican Churches

by Ed Moll

Plural eldership and Anglican polity have long been held to be incompatible. Anglicans have inherited a sole presybterate as the normal pattern for congregational leadership, yet faithfulness to the patterns of leadership described in the New Testament lead evangelicals to look for ways to share ministry and leadership locally. The ‘one-man band’ model of ministry is simply not biblical. It is also not psychologically sustainable in the face of the growing demands of pastoral leadership. Plural leadership is desirable, but how can it be reconciled to Anglican polity?
This study explores the biblical and historical background to locally shared pastoral leadership within an Anglican context. It goes on to describe the experience of nine UK Anglican pastors who have established a pastoral leadership team that functions as a plural eldership. Practical lessons are drawn for today’s church, with a particular focus on how this model enhances the church’s ministry of making disciples.

90 pages, Paperback

Published May 31, 2018

Reviews

[Chris Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this thought-provoking little book, Ed Moll has provided a valuable primer to help us start thinking through the doctrinal and practical implications of plural eldership in an Anglican context: "The case for changing the pattern of local leadership in Anglican churches away from a solo pastorate towards the concept of a ministry leadership team is growing. While such a change breaks with historic practice, it need not be un-Anglican."

He begins by outlining the context of the shift (particularly in the West) from Christendom to post-Christendom. Next, he examines what the New Testament has to say about church polity and the consequent Anglican evangelical understanding of ministry. Finally, he presents the findings of research conducted among Anglican evangelicals, followed by some practical proposals.

In addressing the first of these points, Moll helpfully points out that while Anglicanism has always been responsive to context, the environment in the UK (and Ireland) is now significantly different to when the existing Anglican institutions were established. He describes post-Christendom as "the culture that emerges as the Christian faith loses coherence within a society that has been definitively shaped by the Christian story and as the institutions that have been developed to express Christian convictions decline in influence." In this context, "Christians transition from privilege to plurality where Christians' privileges are eroded; from control to witness as the church's direct influence through control gives way to the indirect influence of witness; from maintenance to mission because the illusion of maintaining a Christian status quo has been shattered." In short, in 21st-century London, Dublin, Birmingham or Liverpool, we need missionaries rather than mere chaplains to the flock.

When examining the New Testament textual data, Moll summarises his argument as follows: "plural leadership is biblical, not because the New Testament gives a prescription for church polity, but because the plurality approach offers much hope for raising up healthy, effective pastoral leaders and for significantly curbing authority abuse in churches." He also notes the ambiguity that is present in the New Testament descriptions of church leadership. He argues that this in itself is divinely ordained: "Taken as a whole, the New Testament data suggest that local church leadership was plural, and that elders, shepherds and overseers were synonymous. But the exact details of local church polity remain somewhat elusive."

The flow of this argument continues in the next section, where he looks at the specifically Anglican Evangelical understanding of ministry. An important pillar in this is the fact that Anglicans (unlike our Presbyterian brethren) typically read scripture according to the normative principle rather than the regulative principle when it comes to directing public worship. If that sounds very arcane and obscure, in short, the normative principle declares that the church has freedom in public worship, except in anything that scripture specifically forbids. The regulative principle, on the other hand, holds that only that which is specifically warranted in scripture is permissible in public worship. Both are valid and faithful readings of scripture, and the relevance to our current topic is that, "If plural local eldership is given as a pattern 'because the Bible says so', then it stems from a Regulative Principle reading. A nominally Anglican church adopting shared leadership for this reason would in fact be crypto-Baptist or crypto-Presbyterian or crypto-Congregationalist. However, if plural leadership is arrived at as a legitimate historical development arising from the application of biblical principles to the current situation, then such a use of the Normative Principle would indeed be authentically Anglican." In brief, "although the Church of England's local church leadership is clerical and solitary because of tradition, Anglican evangelicals are unwilling for that tradition to remain unchallenged and unchanged."

In unpacking the findings of his research interviews, Moll notes that, "The most striking finding of the research interviews was that despite their very similar theological vision for ministry, these pastors have implemented shared leadership in different ways. No single pattern predominated and no simple relationship exists between the types of church, be it parish church, proprietary chapel or church plant, and the form of leadership structure in place. There is therefore no 'right' answer to the question of how to share local pastoral leadership in Anglican churches in order best to serve the mission of making disciples in a post-Christendom culture."

That said, he offers the following observations: "First, some key principles underpin a biblically informed ministry leadership structure. Second, the pastors articulated clear benefits, echoed in the literature, arising from locally shared pastoral oversight. Third, there are practices that promote healthy collaboration between the members of the Ministry Leadership Team (MLT). The focus of this research has been on the personal ministry of leaders with members of the congregation. Another name for this might be the shepherding ministry." Moll then addresses each of these points in turn.

First, he outlines the following basic principles that were common among the churches that established locally shared pastoral leadership:

- Let the Teachers Lead: "The Anglican evangelical understanding of ordination to ministry as a presbyter is that it is ordination to a ministry of the Word and of the sacraments...board elders who are qualified to be elders but exercise no personal ministry are separating what should be joined, namely the active shepherding ministry of the elders and the oversight ministry of governance."
- Leaders Lead: "The pastor is expected to serve the church by leading the leaders too."
- Disciple-making Requires a Shepherding Ministry: "A MLT enables the senior pastor to remain engaged in personal ministry."
- We are Normative Plus: "the 'Plus' denotes the high emphasis on biblical patterns expressed in both structures and how the leaders within them behave."
- We are Confessionally Anglican: "rooted in the Formularies of the Church of England, sometimes with additional commitments such as Canon A5 or the Jerusalem Declaration."
- Biblically Informed Anglican Structures: This flows from the Normative Plus principle established above.
- The Role of Women: "The following four statements may be made to summarise the pastors' understanding: (a) women are equal to men but have different roles; (b) elders should be male; (c) deacons may be men or women; and (d) nobody has worked out where the senior women fit in."

Second, Moll outlines some clear benefits of this kind of approach to ministry, including resilience, coverage, diversity/wisdom, diffusing criticism, accountability of leaders, and healthy biblical practice.

Third, he notes several practices that enable and contribute to collaborative working: co-operation falls short of collaboration, as may be seen even in secular settings; an ethical commitment to plurality and collaboration in church that is not mere pragmatism; the importance of negotiating the collaboration space between the pastor and other elders; and methodological levelling, which is employing deliberate strategies to mitigate the imbalance in capacity between staff and non-staff MLT members.

Moll closes his book with some practical proposals on establishing an MLT within an existing Church of England church, with its existing lay officers and structures, and concludes that, "This study has examined the case for plural local pastoral leadership from the biblical, historical and pastoral data. The case for locally shared pastoral leadership among Anglicans is that it represents the social context for a biblically-informed exercise of leadership in the local church. Such an understanding is in line with the Normative Principle, and shows benefits in the health of the local church and its leaders. No single pattern for implementation was found among the churches surveyed, confirming the importance of context in determining the shape of ministry, even where common principles are clearly shared. However locally shared pastoral leadership is put into practice, it revolves around gathering the right people, that is those qualified for pastoral leadership, in the right way, that is for collaboration, and for the right purposes, that is to further the shepherding ministry of the church."

Reading this book is an invaluable first step for any evangelical Anglican in considering how to set up our churches for effective and healthy ministry in the 21st-century.

[cooptroopcoop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does a good job at providing both a biblical and practical way for Anglicans to implement having a plurality of leaders in their church

[Jonathan Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, helpful exploration of the theology, principles and practice of elders in an Anglican context. Whets the appetite (or perhaps begs the question) for more ecclesiological reading.