Copyright © 2006 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee

St. Thaddaeus’ Parish
welcomes shared ministry

By the Rev. David Bateman
Rector, St. Thaddaeus, Chattanooga

God is full of surprises. When I allowed myself to get dragged to a meeting 18 months ago with a man I’d never met, little did I dream that our parish might be transformed.

The man was Rick Govan, who had been appointed by Bishop vonRosenberg to be our diocese’s ministry development facilitator. I’d gone to the meeting mainly to satisfy an enthusiastic parishioner who thought that a new diocesan program might be just the thing for our small congregation. I was somewhat skeptical, because everyone who’s been around the church for a while knows that trendy ideas come and go without leaving a lot of permanent change in their wake. The term being tossed around – shared ministry – was certainly vague. But I was also a little curious to see just what it was about.

I left that meeting with three main impressions. One was that Rick Govan seemed to be a man of insight, competence and a burning desire to enhance the ministry of the church. (No wonder the bishop picked him for this new job.) The second impression was that what we had been talking about – a way of dramatically strengthening the church’s ministry of the laity – was not, as I had thought, a new or trendy program, but was something much bigger. It was a vision that had a proven track record in other dioceses going back many years. That got my attention. And the third impression I had was that we were talking about a way of seeing and doing ministry that was in accord with everything I had been taught in seminary but had always found difficult to implement on my own. I dared to hope that finally something had come along to really help congregations do what we’ve been talking about for decades now: make lay ministry the central ministry of our churches.

So we began a series of incremental steps to see if shared ministry was as good as it sounded and whether it might be a good fit for St. Thaddaeus. We talked about it at vestry meetings and agreed to go one step at a time. We held some early gatherings with Rick and the congregation to introduce some beginning concepts. We held a Gifts and Talents workshop to help people discover and rediscover their spiritual gifts for ministry. After these steps, we agreed at a congregational meeting to go forward.

The vestry held a Saturday workshop with Rick to implement the vision and to decide which areas of lay ministry were most crucial for our congregation. We settled on three that we had long agreed were areas of prime developmental importance to us: new member ministry, outreach and pastoral care. And then we added one more area which we all knew had long needed attention because it was not an area of strength for me as rector; that was the area of administration.

Job descriptions were created, and the congregation was invited to submit names of those who might be called to one of these ministries. And after a special Saturday morning session marked by a remarkable sense of unity and spiritual purpose, the vestry and I unanimously settled on the names of those we prayerfully believed were called to these new roles, as well as one additional person whose ministry would be “at large.”

Our Parish Administration Coordinator is Sally Sieg. Our Outreach Coordinator is Wendell Allen. Our Pastoral Care Coordinator is Karen McAvoy. Our New Member Ministry Coordinator is Pam Bateman. And our member at-large is Gaines Campbell.

These five people, together with the clergy, constitute our Ministry Support Team. We have begun to meet regularly to train, to support one another and to begin to make plans for development and expansion of lay ministries. As a priest, I look forward to transforming my ordained role from one who is the professional minister to one who mentors and encourages others to carry out their own ministries.

Looking back, we’ve made some mistakes along the way. We risked letting energy fade away by letting too much time elapse between some of the steps, and some key tasks languished because a single person was not assigned to follow through. But now we have the beginnings of something truly exciting. We’ve been told that, of all the churches in the diocese investigating shared ministry, we are the one furthest along, though several others are not far behind us.

In a year or two, I hope that I or someone from St. Thaddaeus will be writing another article, this one telling how lay ministry has been enlarged and vitalized in our parish. We believe and hope that we are at the beginning of something that will bring the vision of the ministry of every lay person – which is the original vision of the New Testament church – to a new level of fruition.

For more information about ministry conferences, contact Rick Govan, 423-698-1222 or rgovan@etdiocese.net.
Find out more about shared ministry in the Diocese of East Tennessee.