Gospel priorities for the Church of England’s clergy

THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL:
Gospel Priorities for Church of England Ministry
By Andrew Atherstone
The Latimer Trust. 60 pages. £7.00
ISBN 978 1 906 327 590

We owe a debt of gratitude to Andrew Atherstone for this primer on the Anglican Ordinal. The Prayer Book Ordination Services, which were crafted by Archbishop Cranmer, wonderfully express the Reformation and evangelical doctrine about the kind of ministry that gospel-believing and Bible-teaching churches need.

The Prayer Book Service of 1662 is explained and expounded very helpfully and in a moving and challenging way. It is considered alongside the modern Common Worship Service with its faults and some improvements – like placing ordained ministry in the context of the ministry of the whole people of God. The older Service is more focused and expresses clearly a Biblical view of ordained ministry.

The book is divided into three sections looking at Exhortation, Examination and Ordination, explaining what ministry should be like; questions asking the candidates if they believe they are called by God to this office and if they believe and will teach as well as model what the Scriptures teach as God’s word; the ordination itself expresses the need for the prayerful help of the Holy Spirit, without whose help we can do nothing of worth. The emphasis of the whole Service is on the ministry of the word, vividly expressed by the gift of a Bible after the laying on of hands, and urges the faithful pursuing of this so that ministers properly shepherd and feed the flock of Christ.

Even if you are allergic to the part played by bishops in the Ordinal, the rest beautifully expresses Biblical standards for all gospel ministry. Listen to Cranmer (slightly modernised in the new Service): ‘They are to be messengers, watchmen and stewards of the Lord; they are to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for His family, to search for His children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations, and to guide them through its confusions, that they may be saved through Christ for ever. Formed by the word, they are to call their hearers to repentance.’ Atherstone explains excellently the fourfold nature of presbyterial ministry mentioned above.

This would be a great gift for ordination candidates as well as a reminder to ministers and the church at large what kind of ordained ministry we desperately need. The tragedy is that it seems there are too many ordained who do not take their ordination vows seriously enough. May this short but excellent book rectify that by God’s good grace. I only wish it had been available to give to those I have ordained over the years!