The House of Bishops has approved and commended a new Shared Discernment Process. Bishop Mark Tanner writes
… our work of discernment explores a call to minisry which is relational …. missional … collaborative …. diverse and adaptive.
(It) … is designed to foster lifelong discernment and formation.
THE SIX QUALITIES
… The Six Qualities havee been developed with the ordinal in mind, and with a view to broadening access both to the ‘unseen-called’ and the ‘excluded- called’. The six qualities are:
- The call to ministry …
- Love for God …
- Love for people …
- Wisdom …
- Fruitfulness …
- Potential …
There follow two grids, looking at these six qualities, one for priest and one for distinctive deacon. Each of the qualities is looked at under four headings: in relation to Christ, Church, World and Self.
Many of the qualities needed for ministry are generic and therefore the same for both ministries: however, the deacon grid does refer to diaconal qualities. I’ve highlighted these on the scan below:
Ministry Division is preparing a working document for DDOs to use, a
model where testing and assuring evidence of knowing and doing will mainly be done by Dioceses working together in a region with being and growing as the focus of a second stage more akin to the current BAP.
The TIMELINE for this developing work is scheduled to finish at the end of 2020. The first new panels under this Shared Discernment Process will begin in January 2021.
Please let me know what you think, either in the comments here, or on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/DistinctivelyDeacon/ or via Twitter @WardenGill or via an email to deacons@tutanota.com
I’d like to gather together your responses and post them in due course.
(Image from Unfinished)
CofE Network of Distinctive Deacons 