The Episcopal Church, and I’d guess other mainline churches, has a vocation crisis. 

I suspect that some variant of one of two thoughts went through your head upon reading that sentence: either something like “Indeed! There is a problem with the quality of formation for/means of identifying clergy in the Church” or “Bah! Fears about the number, training, and quality of clergy are greatly overblown.” In either case, it was probably about a crisis in the identification and/or vocation of clergy. And while I actually agree more with the first answer, the primary vocation crisis isn’t about how we’re identifying and training clergy, but rather that most people in the church only think of discernment and vocation in terms of ordained ministry. If I asked you what it means for a Christian to be called to be a teacher, plumber, or engineer, some people may cobble together some description based on examples of particularly exemplary Christians who do those jobs. Most people would probably just scratch their heads. I’m certain that almost no one would be able to offer me any meaningful theological explanation of how someone would go about discovering their specific vocation. 

But why is this a crisis? From a theoretical standpoint, it betrays the general trajectory toward the greater empowerment of all the church’s members and the recognition of the equal dignity of their ministries that has come to the fore in the wake of Vatican II. Reflected in The Episcopal Church’s focus on “baptismal ecclesiology,” the Church has sought to emphasize that there are not “higher” (ordained) and “lower” (lay) forms of ministry. Rather, there are distinct modulations of the calls we receive by nature of baptism. Instead of asking whether someone is called to “lay” or “ordained” ministry, this understanding of church asks what kind of baptismal ministry one is called to, such that “bishop,” “priest,” or “deacon” are just three among several possible concrete forms that baptismal ministry may take. 

Of course, this emphasis on the equal dignity of all the baptized in living out the Christian life predates the spirit of Vatican II and forms an essential part of our Reformation heritage. Most explicitly this comes through in Luther’s emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, which didn’t want to eliminate the importance of set-aside people who ensured the good order of the church even if there was a sense that there were not certain classes of people who were more holy by nature of their vocation. And such a posture was hardly limited to continental Reformers. One of the innovations of Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer was to make the vocation of marriage on par with the celibate life, essentially saying that marriage and life in the world could be as holy as monastic or ordained celibacy. 

Unfortunately, the structures The Episcopal Church has set up for discernment have, if not intensified, at least reinscribed such perceptions about the superiority of ordained ministry. Women’s ordination and the recognition of structural/unconscious bias against racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, as well as expectations that ordained ministry would develop professionally in similar ways as medicine and law, led the Church to reconsider how such calls were discerned. From this reconsideration arose a much more structured and bureaucratic process. Insofar as this new system mitigates the effects of biases against women and racial and sexual minorities, it is a good thing. However, this move also had the effect of emphasizing ordained ministry within the life of the Church over and against other vocations in less than healthful ways. Making ordained ministry the only formally authorized vocation discerned by the Church can and does give the impression that ordination is the life one pursues if one is serious about one’s Christian faith while other careers are compromises made by less committed Christians. By only formally instituting structures for discernment of ordained ministry, the Church may also communicate that its domain and authority only extend as far as its internal operations. It is not too difficult to imagine how this message can then reinforce the far too prevalent attitude in many congregations that a person’s Christian faith is for the most part a matter of regular (or not so regular) ritual observances sequestered from life Monday through Saturday. My sense is that our current vocational discernment structure contributes to most people holding to the worst of both worlds whereby they both hold that ordination is somehow a “higher” Christian calling and that the Church really has no claim on life that goes on outside of formal Church programing. 

Nor is this situation merely theoretical. While fears of clericalism are frequently misplaced or overblown in The Episcopal Church, this vocational situation does reinforce a particularly troubling kind of clericalism. Certainly, promoting the idea that ordained ministry is per se a “better,” “holier,” or “more Christian” vocation pretty much defines clericalism. Furthermore, once the idea that the church is primarily about what goes on in corporate worship becomes the norm, a similar-but-more-insidious form of clericalism creeps in. Let me give an example: I know of a congregation that sees its commitment to “mutual ministry” as essential to its identity. For them, the priest exists almost exclusively to consecrate the Eucharist, and they go so far as to set aside one Sunday a month for lay-led Morning Prayer and even tried to have a deacon’s distribution on another Sunday each month, even though the priest was present, to “recognize the gifts and callings of all members.” On the surface, this seems about the least clericalist place you could imagine—but only if you see clericalism as a matter of elevating the office or person of the priest above other vocations. However, if one looks to functions traditionally associated with the priesthood, namely overseeing and leading public worship, then this congregation has indeed continued to perpetuate a kind of clericalism. Insofar as the way to “empower the laity” and “recognize the gifts of the whole community” can primarily or only occur in the context of the principal weekly worship service, this congregation sees the leadership functions traditionally assigned to ordained ministry as the Church’s most important work. While this example is extreme, more subdued expressions of this attitude play out whenever one hears about the need to increase lay participation in the liturgy specifically to “empower the laity” or “celebrate everyone’s ministries.” (1)

In a truly anti-clericalist vocational culture, the vast majority of the laity would see themselves as called to proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ beyond the church walls and to engaging in works of justice and mercy to help point toward the in-breaking Kingdom that is part of that Good News. Intra-church work wouldn’t be the primary stage upon which to perform “empowered lay ministry” but instead would exist to equip and empower the laity to go effectively into the world. 

This necessary vocational culture shift will be simple but that does not mean it will be easy. Both because the institutional Church is unlikely to relinquish formal parish discernment committees and Commissions on Ministry, and because these probably do have a healthful effect in checking the prejudices of individuals in positions of authority, I do not think the solution is to try to de-formalize clergy vocational discernment. Instead, the Church should take a more active, formal, and intentional role in the vocational and career discernment of all its members. In practice this will mean instituting vocational discernment committees or assigning mentors/shepherds for all youth and young adults as they consider their long-term vocational future. To truly minimize the possibility of over-clericalizing this process, this should not be a structure where some people go into “ordination-track discernment” and others go into “non-ordination-track discernment.” Everyone should begin with the same process and the priesthood or diaconate must be but two among a vast array of possible careers/vocations. 

As I said—simple … but not easy. In addition to working against the deeply socially ingrained sense of personal autonomy about economic decisions that people carry with them, the Church must challenge the festering idea that it only has authority over people’s worship lives. It must reassert a claim that God through the larger Christian community deserves a say in all aspects of a person’s existence. It will also have to become comfortable with expecting a more significant commitment from its youth and young adults as well as the members who will shepherd/mentor them. (Although, such expectations may actually prove fruitful for growth and retention; another blog post I wrote shows at least a correlation between higher expectations and church youthfulness.) Finally, the Church will have to do serious practical and theoretical work to actually figure out what it means to discern any given career as a Christian vocation. This will mean not only setting up criteria for figuring out what careers make sense for individual Christians, but it will require us to take a hard look at whether there are certain careers that are per se off-limits to Christians. Such a list that will likely extend beyond careers that offend “individual morality,” such as work in pornography, and will at least call into question such careers as ICE agent and arms manufacturer.

Despite these challenges, my hunch is shifting our vocational culture will prove overwhelmingly beneficial for the Church. Certainly, it will work against the clericalism implicit in a singular focus on clergy for formal discernment. It will also challenge the more subtle clericalism that implies that lay empowerment exists in a zero-sum relationship with the functions and sense of calling of the clergy. Instituting the expectation of formal discernment for all youth and young adults would also create a specific expectation for further growth and discipleship at the critical point after confirmation when so many youth fall away from the Church. Finally, while this shift in focus isn’t primarily about improving our clergy discernment process, this would no doubt prove beneficial for ordained ministry. Fewer people who may not have a call to ordained ministry but want a career that takes their faith seriously would end up being pushed toward ordination. Moreover, in a world in which the Church is struggling to attract and retain people under 35 and where clergy tend to attract their own demographics, this structure would increase the number of younger clergy by having many more people go through formal discernment by the time they are done with college.

1. To be clear, I am not opposed to lay participation in the whole worship life of the Church and lay leadership over certain parts of it. However, such leadership should arise from the importance of representing the body of Christ insofar as worship functions pedagogically and formatively as well as being an instance of praising God—not because lay ministry finds its primary empowerment and expression in corporate worship.