Excellent insight from Mr Jensen. For me, I know a stack of blokes serving Jesus right now in the Church and would like to be in paid gospel ministry but for want of opportunity, or ability, or perhaps a lack of character as Mr Jensen talked about. I for one was a Pastor for 14 years in both Australia and Canada, preaching over 700 Sunday Bible talks, but after several years of fruitless searching for another pastoral role have chucked in the paid-ministry-towel. I happily drive buses these days, and found what Mr Jensen said about character & conviction helpful ... For me, my conviction has always been strong but I suspect God is working on my character, and He is more concerned with my character then putting me back into a gospel preaching role, I still struggle from time to time with this next stage of life, but as time moves on I’m more content with this - see you on public transport.
Well... here's one option: How about Moore college allows mature age students to take the course part time, with credits for ministry experience? I approached Moore a couple of years ago with an eye to helping out a local church as an assistant minister the church needed to help plant a service. The person needed to be an ordained man. I'm 48 and supporting a family with two kids, living in the neighbourhood of said church. I have decades of experience in working with and for churches in various capacities, and helped three church plants, plus an additional youth service, get off the ground. However, Moore insisted I be full time (so unable to work for the church while studying) and move into student housing (instead of living where I'm serving) - which meant the whole situation was untenable. I considered it a closed door and moved on. The church instead hired a senior minister from elsewhere, and I'm now serving as a music director, to help build the service in that way. Great outcome! However that's meant a senior minister who could be filling one of the 25 empty roles, is needed where an ordained assistant could have served, if Moore had more flexibility in their process. It seems like the pathway to Sydney Anglican leadership only exists if you have the calling early on, before family or other responsibilities, where you can train, full time along with everyone. So if you want to have more ministers, perhaps open things up and take people on their merits individually, given the needs of the location? I was present at CMS summer school when an African fellow described how he became a Christian, and not long after, the Bishop ordained him to run a parish. The man said "but I'm only a new Christian" and the Bishop said "I am the Bishop, you're the man for the job." The man said "but I have no theological degree" and the Bishop repeated "I am the Bishop, you're the man for the job". Bishop's CAN ordain anyone when needed. That said, I support Sydney Anglican's desire to have a particular set of hurdles to jump through, even if it meant I couldn't jump them. As said, I considered it a closed door, and that was ok. But it's not ok, if there's a shortage, despite people called being turned away. Rather, there's something wrong. Thanks for reading.
@@HughWilsonMusic I think you should raise it with them again. They are taking first year students as part timers. And they have been for several years. I hope you are well. Thanks for engaging :)
Some good insights but respectfully disagree. I think you have missed the point, when talking about people who are doing work for the Lord. I think a solid christian either on mission in Iran or a street sweeper has the same call on their life to spread the Gospel into where they are called. The problem is there is this whole idea where people in 'official' ministry are elavated as though more important. I'm not talking about nominal Christians here, sure there is always the problem of nominal Christians who see church and ministry as a separate from the 'normal' working class. Every christian is called into ministry and has a ministry, the problem is in the Anglican church is most times its not recongised unless you have an official stamp. We don't need more theological students who have 0 work experience being thrown straight away into full time ministry. I'm not saying that this doesn't work, God calls who He calls where He see fit and I have known people who have known nothing else have done well but majority. There has been a dramatic shift over the last 20 years, the frontline isn't local ministry, the frontline is the secular workplace, that has become increasingly hostile to Christianity. It often feels like sometimes 'full time ministry' is a comfortable retreat. I think we need more mature full time personell as the poster Hugh mentioned below. I am not saying that it is an easy thing to be in full time ministry or it is of no worth, but it definitely needs to be looked at. Most of these younger people in full time ministry go on and have no idea what its like in the 'real world', and mostly these are the people they are preaching to, and in some cases its insulting. We don't need to convince the young person who's about to become a brain surgeon to give up being a brain surgeon and go into full time ministry, in that example imagine the amount of people who he could spread the gospel to that a full time ministry person couldn't. I am just outlining the problems I see and haven't got any answers but stop putting full time ministry on a pedestal. Every christian is called into full time ministry regardless of their vocation.
Surely there's a big elephant in the room here: Moore College is still a very white institution in a city that is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Walking through MTC, it appears that every effort has been made to reinforce that it is a white place, built by white men. Unless this changes, I think it will continue to struggle to attract more students.
