A revolutionary new model of ministry, including the creation of a new office of ‘Minister’ and an effort to raise up 2,500 new full-time paid gospel workers within the next ten years, has been presented to Synod and proposed for adoption in the Diocese of Sydney.

And every parish in the Diocese is being called on to play its part in the plan. With hopes to see a massive increase in church attend-ance, each parish is being asked to ‘donate’ one of its key people to full-time ministry every year over the next decade, to meet the expected demand for the number of ministry workers.

An open-ended motion passed by Synod called on Standing Committee and its Mission Taskforce ‘to continue to consider prop-osals for the future shape of ministry in the Diocese’. Small group discussion time and a plenary session gave rise to hundreds of ideas and suggestions, which will be collated and reviewed by the Mission Taskforce.

The mover of the motion, Dean Phillip Jensen, said that while the proposal was daunting, every parish could be involved by starting with simple measures. “We start with the training of lay people and the recognition of a suitable person to encourage into the mission field of the world,” he said. “How does the average parish get involved? By starting some training programs – for example, women on one-to-one work like Just For Starters.”

With Policy Four of the Mission calling for the life of the Diocese to be reformed to encourage the multiplication of churches and fellowships, a central feature of the new model is the proposed creation of a fourth ‘order of ministry’. Current Anglican Church structure is based on the three-tier ordering of bishop, priest and deacon, but the proposal calls for the addition of a fourth category of ‘Minister’.

Under the plan, rectors would be seen as ‘Missionaries’ or ‘Mission Directors’, overseeing a staff team and being responsible for outreach within their whole parish. Full-time ministry staff would be encouraged to see the members of their church not as the ‘recipients’ of their ministry, but as ‘gospel partners’ in reaching out to all non-churchgoers within the parish.

Dean Jensen said the proposal represented a ‘change in mindset’ on how ministry is done, and a ‘serious practical and theological shift in ministry’ for the Diocese.

“In a nutshell, it is taking the ministry of all believers seriously and so seeking to constitute ways it can be done by the parish church, rather than outsourcing it to para-church ministries.”