I spent 3-ish very formative years as a student at the Uni of Wales, Aberystwyth and at St Michael’s the parish church – an evangelical hub in Wales that has bred more ministers than I care to think about!

Most of those now among my minister friends from this era, are priests, clergy. One curate of the era is now the Bishop of Bangor! But, what strike’s me very firmly is the number of people who had active, often paid ministries, in St Mike’s (as it was known) who were not necessarily (as far as I’m aware) “authorised”. If the vicar (Revd Stuart Bell, still the best preacher I know) and team felt you were good enough for the job, you got it. In my era (87-91), the student pastors were simply trained on the job (my now husband was one), preachers were as frequently lay as ordained, and not necessarily Readers – though almost all were used to public speaking and brilliant.

People were made to think about their faith and enabled to grow in experience through homegroups etc. We were challenged by a whole cross section of visiting folk too: Adrian Plass, Michael Green, J John, John Stott, Martyn Joseph, I could go on.

Now among the ministers myself, though not ordained, I continue to thank God for this fertile growing ground in which I was planted by God!

I am a well-retired priest. After having to retire first from the Naval Chaplaincy, then from full-time hospital chaplaincy, and finally from half-time hospice work, all due to deteriorating spine problems, I then spent a year as very-part-time Assistant to the Rector and Pastoral Counselor at a very high Anglo-Catholic parish, from which I retired again, offering up my office to a third stipendiary priest. Then, by the grace (and sense of humor) of God, my wife and I came to Portugal, where I have served as a priest and member of the Igreja Lusitana (Comunhão Anglicana) for the past four years, celebrating the Eucharist and preaching at four parishes in the Porto area on rotation, due to their having a severe clery shortage and my having a medical pension to live on. My health is such that I now must retire again, for the third or fourth time.
As an American, I was shocked to discover that Portugal has no stipendiary clergy at all, although a few get some help with mileage. Even our bishop of many years spent over half those years as the full-time V.P. for Human Relations at a Portuguese bank, while serving a diocese that covers the nation.
Parishes are largely run by their elected lay boards, while the priest is responsible for the Eucharist, preaching and teaching (and selecting the hymns– an unending problem for me, since each of the four parishes I rotate through knows different hymns from their Victorian-era hymnal, and I know none of them!).
It is, in a curious and unconscious way, a version of South American Liberation Theology, where the priest has his position in the community and the church as celebrant, preacher and pastoral care provider, but all the business aspects that really shouldn’t be the clergy’s lot anyway are done by people qualified to do them (I never saw a balance sheet in seminary, nor learned to fix a boiler, but as a stipendiary priest I was expected to be in charge of all such things).
The result is that the laity are empowered and feel a personal responsibility for the well-being of their parish, and the priest is able to do those things for which he is particularly trained. It certainly minimizes the “priest-as-God” syndrome that can damage parishes when the priest doesn’t prove omniiscient and omnipotent (most clergy are trained to be clergy, and not accountants or building managers, and when there are perfectly good accountants and building managers in the parish, why not empower them in those ministries, with the advantage of getting them done far more competently, and letting the priest do what he’s trained to do?).
I went into the chaplaincy after some five years in the parish to get to do what I was called to do– as I used to joke, as a Navy Chaplain, my budget was provided by the taxpayers, and not by my begging once a year! I shan’t say that there is no place for stipendiary clergy– there is– but the radical idea that the lay members of the congregation are not merely competent, but may well be much more competent than the cleric in their fields, is something that enables the whole Body of Christ, rather than holding up just a single member.
If the eye should say to the foot, “I have no need of you,” then how will the eye move? St. Paul had it right– our human love for hierarchical bureaucracies have hurt us over and over again.