OLMs - a 'brilliant addition' to ministry

IN THE 1920's, Roland Allen, a priest who had served in this Diocese, became a missionary, first in China, later moving to Africa. Reflecting on his experience of the 'mission station' approach to faith sharing, Allen realized that this was an ineffective and unbiblical way of communicating the gospel. Basing his work on New Testament principles, he inspired all kinds of voluntary, non-stipendiary forms of ordained ministry, including ordained local ministry (OLM).

Even before the financial and structural problems of the Church Commissioners became news, the drop in the number of men and women offering themselves for stipendiary ministry began to cause a re-think of ordained ministry. When you add to this the fact that rural dioceses and dioceses with urban priority areas identified the need to maintain a foothold in local communities, it is no accident that OLM was first explored in rural dioceses like Lincoln and Truro in the 80's, followed by Manchester and Southwark.

For some time the Church has been re-appraising the ministry of the ordained within the context of the ministry of all the baptised. Over the last 20 years, the ministry of the laity has been further encouraged in this Diocese by the work of the local training schemes together with all sorts of creative parish initiatives. So in many parishes, the idea that that clergy 'do' the ministry and lay people 'help' has gone out of the window.

OLMs are called, trained and deployed within the local community from which they come. They are committed to staying in that community. They are always part of a local ministry team: sharing life with lay and ordained colleagues. OLM priests are priests like any others in every other way. All clergy are limited by licence. But OLMs encouraged by the bishops to focus their ministry in one place. They can minister outside of it, but they seldom do so.

OLMs aren't a third class kind of priest, but a brilliant addition to the breadth of authorized ministries which are possible in this Diocese; They come from every walk of life and are generally well known and highly respected in their communities. Of the 44 dioceses, 17 have OLM schemes operating. About 280 OLM's have been ordained across the country already, with another 64 to be ordained this year: Of the 550 or so licensed parochial clergy in this Diocese, about 30 are OLM's. In addition, we have 27 OLM's in training.

All OLM training is validated nationally and we have external moderators just like the theological colleges and courses.

The training in our new scheme is integrated so that OLM's, licensed lay ministers (readers), people exploring vocation and all kinds of other people learn together. An ordinand's previous learning is taken into account and his/her progress is assessed by the collecting of evidence of their theological knowledge, and gifts and skills in ministry in a portfolio. We take a collaborative approach to the training: ordinands, incumbents and the parish/benefice ministry team are all involved, together with many people from the parish, working together to show evidence of the way the parish/benefice is developing.

Beren Hartless is Principal of the Oxford Diocese's OLM scheme