This week, we bring you an exclusive interview in which Jeremy Halcrow asks Dean of Sydney, and director of Ministry, Training and Development, Phillip Jensen about the implications of the new long-term diaconate and its relationship with the goals of the Diocesan Mission. Dean Jensen also gives his perspective on the decline in recruitment through Moore Theological College.

The recent Synod [parliament] of the Diocese of Sydney completed one of the most significant reforms in the history of the Anglican Church. By approving deacons to administer the Lord's Supper, we now have a fully-functioning permanent diaconate. In your mind, is the move to a permanent diaconate primarily driven by theological or missiological imperatives?

I do not think Synod did such a thing, but we certainly have been working for some time at the creation of a real diaconate. Since the Diocesan Mission we have been trying to reform the system of ministry. 

The reforms are about the Mission. Like having good roads and railways, the aim has been to ensure we have the best infrastructure for ministry.

In as much as our missiology is theological, then it is driven by theological imperatives. But the motivation is missiological.

The theology behind our old ministry structures was fine. Yet, it was missiologically distorted. Ordination did not help our attempts towards reaching society or establishing Bible churches. Ordination was written into our constitutions in ways that could restrict the development of ministries.

Ordination is about recognition and commitment to life-long ministry. We had a recognition system that was far too limited. We were encouraging short-term ministry. We want to ordain people to a greater number and diversity of ministries " for church planting and for chaplaincies and for other ministries that could penetrate the structures of society. 

The strictures of the system meant that churches gave up on ordination by employing non-ordained (and often untrained) staff members. We were reaching the position where there were almost as many non-ordained paid ministers as we had ordained. When a system loses touch with reality it is time to reconsider what we are trying to achieve.

After wide consultation, especially in Synod, a fourth order of ministry was abandoned in favour of making better use of the diaconate. This maintains congruency with the wider Anglican Communion and ensures "portability' of ministry, so that our ordained ministers would be recognised in other parts of the Anglican Church.

So then the first question was "What do deacons do?'.

There are many theories about Deacons. The New Testament says very little about them. The word occurs 29 times and is usually translated as servant or minister. It is applied to all kinds of people including Jesus, and the apostles and their colleagues. Only in two passages do English translations transliterate the word as Deacon. Neither of these explains in any detail the nature of their ministry.

The Ordinal of the Church of England has a more precise understanding of “deacon”. The deacon assisted the rector (“curate”) in the spiritual administration of the parish ministry. The emphasis on ministering God’s word was symbolised by placing the New Testament in the hands of each deacon.

Whatever the theory, the reality [in Sydney Diocese] was that a deacon was a 10-to-12 months probationary presbyter. There was very little review during the 12 months and virtually everybody that was ordained deacon one year would be ordained as a presbyter the next. No one to my knowledge ever failed the probation.

The second question was, "What is a presbyter?"

The New Testament says more about presbyters. But again it talks about the quality of the person rather than specific role of presbyter. It is a ministry of caring for the church of God, and of being able to teach. That is, the presbyterate is a pastoral role rather than a sacramental role. It is not limited to paid professional ministers but is the local eldership of the church.

The emphasis of the Anglican Ordinal consciously and intentionally shifted from sacraments to word and from a status to a congregational ministry. No longer was the chalice placed in the hands at ordination but the Bible was given to the new presbyter. He was to care for the church and to seek for Christ’s lost sheep.

So is the permanent diaconate consistent with Scripture?

It is no more inconsistent with Scripture than what we used to be doing. We are not trying to re-create the New Testament pattern. That is not possible. The New Testament does not give us enough details and is not primarily concerned with structures. We are trying to develop a system that is consistent with the New Testament and our Anglican heritage. 

It was never assumed in the [Anglican] ordinal that lay people would be reading the Bible and preaching and assisting the ordained minsters in the many ways that we take for granted today. 

Once we opened up ministry to lay people " and I think it is a good thing that we have " then the shape of the ordained ministry had to change.

One of the key ministries is that of rector. The Sydney Diocese does not have "vicars' [vicars are the bishop's substitute]. Rectors have the responsibility for the cure of souls in a parish. They are the gatekeepers of our parish system. 

For missiological reasons we need to plant churches and to develop other ministries to penetrate the structures of society. This means that we need to find a way to recognise other ministers than parish rectors. But widening the variety of recognised ministries must not compromise the quality of our rectors.

So now we are ordaining deacons who will never become presbyters and linking the presbyteral ministry to taking on the responsibility for a parish as a rector. The deacon may have lower levels of education, or a narrower range of gifts than are necessary to be a presbyter. They may be more specialised in their ministry and in their training.

Some have said this policy will undermine team-building in large, regional parishes. Do you think it is inappropriate to have more than one presbyter in a multi-site parish, given that a senior assistant minister has full oversight of ministry at his church?

By virtue of the fact that he is called a "senior assistant minister" he does not have "full oversight" of ministry at his church. He may have of his congregation " and in biblical language that is a church " but in our parish system it is not an independent church.

If a congregation is going to be independent then it can be a recognised church or a new parish. At that point the minister should be a presbyter and appointed with the full responsibility of being the rector.  But then such a church is no longer part of a "large regional church". 

The congregation is either part of the parish and so the rector of the multi-site church is responsible for it or it is an independent church and so has its own rector who is responsible for it. This affects all manner of matters. For example, in a multi-church parish the congregation has no right of say in the selection of their staff other than the rector. The rector may consult with the congregation about appointments but he does not have to. Even if he does consult he still has the final word on who is appointed as the congregation’s minister and can change around his staff whenever it suits him.
What are the key areas of reform that still need to be accomplished?

To understand the Mission you need to understand that it is about spiritual reform. Policy 1 [prayer and preaching] is the key to the Mission. Without spiritual reform " based on Policy 1 " the Mission will fail. 

Changing structures can be a help or a hindrance but are not necessary nor in any way sufficient. Changing our own hearts is critical. 

Then you are not planning any more significant organisational reforms?

We must always be changing the structures and tactics of Christian ministry and church life. We will never have the perfect system. It does not exist. 

So you agree there has been significant cultural change in the Diocese in the past six years?

There has been massive cultural change. In the mid-1990’s church planting was met with widespread resistance. Today church planting is commonplace " everyone is doing it. 

As it stands, the 2009 Moore College student intake is about 60 per cent of the recent high water mark of about 120 students per year. Some I have spoken to say the permanent diaconate is part of the explanation for this decline. What do you think are the reasons for the slip in ministry recruitment?

Any decline concerns me, but it warrants further investigation to see if there really is a problem and if so what the causes really are. It is hard to imagine how the changes to the diaconate is in any way part of the explanation for a decline if there is one.

There has been no decline in Anglican candidates. The number of Anglican candidates has grown since the beginning of the Mission, and remains stable at around 130 people. It will be this number in 2009.

The fact that the number of Anglican candidates has not declined suggests that if there has been any drop in Moore College intake it is not related to the changes in the diaconate and the ministry recruitment policies of the Diocese.

As you say, the permanent diaconate "frees up' ministry infrastructure to better address the mission needs of multicultural Sydney. In my mind the main ongoing "problem' area for the Mission is cross-cultural ministry. As Anglo-Australians leave Sydney for the north coast, they are replaced by new migrants. So a largely non-Anglo demographic is the future reality of metropolitan Sydney"

Yes, we lost 80,000 Anglicans in the past five years…

" It's worse than that. Sydney is losing on average 60,000 native English speakers every year. Given most of our churches minister exclusively to English speakers it is a miracle that Sydney Diocese has grown at all over the past five years. Yet, looking through the list of new church plants " as I have done " it’s clear the vast majority of this effort has been in replicating the existing English-speaking ministry"

These new church plants are not aimed at reaching the same people"

No true. But given the macro picture of Anglo decline we need to be doing more to reach new migrants. Where do you think the vision for cross-cultural ministry needs to come from? Does MT&D have a role in recruiting cross-cultural workers?

Yes, it can happen centrally but more importantly locally. This is why Connect09 is so important. It is about turning the eyes of our churches outward into the community.

Connect09 will help to turn our rectors into mission directors " that's what needs to happen.

We need especially to recruit, train and employ bi-cultural people.  Those Christians that are 100 per cent Australian and " for example " 100 per cent Korean. These are the people who are easiest to train for Korean ministry because they are Australian and understand us Anglos. But they will translate what they learn into their ethnic context, and through them our church can reach Koreans.

So Connect09 asks church leaders to be mission directors. Here at the Cathedral you have a particularly difficult context for Connect09 " it's not like suburban Sydney. So what does being a "mission director' look like here?

It is complicated here. In our parish boundaries there are only a few hundred residents. That is why city churches far exceed 10 percent of the population of their parish " another phoney statistic!

If you widen that out to a two-kilometre radius, suddenly you have 150,000 people. They are overwhelmingly single, young people " city workers. Many of them are from overseas" 30 thousand are Chinese. 65 percent are not Christians of any description, even nominal.

If you look at our morning congregation, how are they going to connect with these people? Our morning congregation is a predominantly an all-age Anglo congregation. They live all over the city from Stanwell Park in the south to Faulconbridge in the west. They have very little social interaction or connection with the people who live in the city.

As a result we have decided to restructure our ministry in two ways.

Firstly we are encouraging the members of our Sunday evening congregations [City Night Church and FIX] to connect with the locals " even to move into the city environs. 

Secondly we have completely changed the focus of our Asian ministry, to focus on young, single, city workers. For example, the congregation stopped doing "Easy English' language classes. English classes are good, but we have limited resources and the classes weren't reaching the target group.  Asian city workers don't need to learn English" they have English skills. 

As a result of the refocus, we have gained more people overall.

Photo: Ramon Williams