Learning from Langland: theo-poetic resources for the post-Hind ...

ordained and lay ministry. Another is related to financial difficulties and potential shortfalls
in budgets, and a concomitant pragmatic need to get funding by maintaining good
relationships with bigger institutions, and thus being eligible for possible Government
funding. Another is a wider expectation from society that professionalism is desirable and
needs to be achieved through appropriate accredited vocational qualifications. It is
inevitable that a report will reflect the agendas of those who have commissioned it; what
interests me is the co-existence of different levels of discourse which suggest an uneasy
synthesis of ideologies and models.
This co-existence is well illustrated by an extract from 3.26:
a key pursuit for ministerial training should be a holiness that seeks to maintain the
integrity and effectiveness of the Church. If we seek to participate in and embody a
ministry that belongs to Christ himself we can only pursue the highest standards of
faithfulness of discipleship, spiritual wisdom, commitment to common life and deep
wells of motivation. As we seek to equip the ordained to fulfil their responsibilities
within the Body we will guard against incompetencies and complacencies which
undermine the creativity and harmony of the whole people of God. Thus, a key
theological theme that should inform training is that the ordained ministry should be
marked by the holiness that Christ gives to his Church.
In this passage, holiness is connected with the integrity and effectiveness of the Church.
Yet it is not clear in what this effectiveness subsists. The Church’s holiness – maintained
by the holy lives of its ordained ministers – may not lead it to be ‘effective’, however that
term is defined; it may witness to the holiness of God, but whether that will result in a surge
in church attendance, or any other marker of ‘effectiveness’, is not clear. The passage goes
40