Vocation & Ministry : The Scottish Episcopal Church

Called to be

You may wonder if you have a ‘vocation’, and the answer is ‘Yes’. We all do. We are all called by God.

Each one of us is called to become fully human, and to join in the great adventure of sharing God’s love in the world. Each one of us has been given gifts that we can offer for this service.

If you’re new to church, you might want to start with a look at Spirituality. You can find out more there about prayer and worship, and about growing in faith and learning about it. The best way to begin that is by finding a church – the Find a Church tool on the homepage can help.

Called to serve

There might be more you could do. There may be gifts and skills you could bring to the Church’s work. There might be more you could learn. You might be called to serve – to help the Church’s mission of love in a public way.

You can find out about ways to serve locally through your local church and in your diocese. There are all kinds of roles: Vestry member, chair mover, hospitality volunteer, musician, reader, pastoral visitor, youth worker, buildings maintenance, lay worship leader… Some of them will have training schemes, and for some of them you will need authorisation from the bishop. You can talk to people in your local church to find out more.

Discernment

You may be wondering if you are called to public ministry – to serve as a leader and to be responsible for aspects of the Church’s life and growth. You might be called to become a Lay Reader, a deacon or a priest.

You may have an inner sense that God is drawing you towards this kind of service. Or perhaps other people have mentioned it to you. Maybe you are curious about what public ministry involves, and want to know more about it.

There is a discernment process to help people who are thinking about these kinds of public ministry. You can find out more here about what’s involved, and how the process works.

Ministry in the Scottish Episcopal Church

Just as everyone is called by God, everyone is part of the Church’s work – its ministry. But this section is about three particular forms of public ministry: Lay Reader, deacon, and priest.

You can find out more about them here, and you can also ask people you know in these roles to tell you about what they do, and how they came to do it.

Lay Readers

Lay Readers preach and teach as lay theologians and are often involved in pastoral work too. They work closely in collaboration with their priest to support and develop the life of the congregation. They are licensed to their diocese and may be asked to work more widely across the diocese. Some of them have a particular ministerial role in the wider community.

Readers are trained to at least Certificate level by Scottish Episcopal Institute. They are not normally paid a stipend for their work.

Deacons

Deacons are heralds of God’s kingdom, proclaiming the good news in church and community. Working closely with the bishop and the priests with whom they serve, they seek to serve others, bring the concerns of the world back to the congregation in preaching and intercession, and encourage Christians to bring the love of God to their communities in mission.

All ordained ministers are initially ordained as deacons and they retain this aspect of ministry whatever they go on to do. Vocational deacons are particularly called to this role and their ministry is concerned with outreach and service. They may work in various contexts: in local churches, in chaplaincy, or in mission-based roles.

Most vocational deacons are self-supporting but in some contexts they may be paid a stipend for their work. Deacons are trained to at least Diploma level by the Scottish Episcopal Institute.

Priests

Priests are called as heralds to proclaim the good news, as stewards to gather and nurture Christian communities, and as interpreters to discern the signs of the times. They lead congregations in mission, encouraging God’s people to share the good news of the Kingdom with those around them.

Some priests serve as incumbents of a charge, gathering and nurturing people through preaching, teaching, sacramental ministry, and pastoral care. Some serve as assistant priests and they may have a variety of roles: mission-based, in chaplaincy, or as part of a team ministry. Some teach or exercise other specialised ministries. Priests may be paid a stipend for their work (incumbents normally are), or may be self-supporting or remain in secular employment.

Priests are normally ordained as a deacon first, and then as a priest after a year. They are trained to at least Diploma level by the Scottish Episcopal Institute (SEI), and for incumbency they normally complete degree level training within 6 years of training.

Chaplains

Some lay or ordained ministers may be called to work as a chaplain in a school, hospital, or university. They will normally have had some experience of congregational ministry first and may or may not be paid a stipend.

The Religious Life

Some people may be called to be a nun or a monk, a friar or a sister. They may live in community, or continue their life outside as an oblate, or associate member.

The Discernment process

People exploring a sense of call are asked to have spent at least two years in active membership of the Scottish Episcopal Church. They may have discussed their sense of vocation with their priest, or chaplain, or with the SEC’s Youth Co-ordinator or Youth Convenor. They may also contact pdo@scotland.anglican.org.

They may be referred to the discernment process – the person referring them completes an initial referral form and sends it to the Provincial Director of Ordinands (PDO). The PDO is appointed by the College of Bishops to oversee the whole process and advise the bishops. The PDO will arrange to meet the enquirer, and can put them in touch with a Vocations Advisor.

Phase One – with the Vocations Advisor

A Vocations Advisor (VA) is an experienced lay or ordained person. They will have several meetings with the enquirer, exploring their sense of calling and finding out more about them: their faith, their habits of prayer, their sense of self, and what they understand about mission and community. They may ask the enquirer to read, to write, and to take on practical ministerial projects.

The PDO will make it possible for the enquirer to be in touch with other people who are also exploring vocation. The enquirer’s diocesan bishop will be informed.

Work with the Vocations Advisor is open-ended. It might lead in many directions. The enquirer could decide that their vocation lies in their secular work, or in what they do locally in their charge. They might make contact with an organisation or a charity doing a particular kind of work. Or they might go on to Phase Two of the discernment process.

The VA writes a report on the enquirer, based on the criteria for discernment: the report is sent to the PDO.

Transition

If the report recommends further discernment for Lay Readership or ordained ministry, the enquirer will meet their diocesan bishop. Their bishop decides if they should go forward into Phase Two.

Phase Two

Candidates in Phase Two are thinking about a form of authorised ministry in the SEC. If they are interested in becoming Lay Readers, they will work with a Warden of Lay Readers or another experienced Lay Reader. If they are interested in becoming a priest or a deacon, they will work with an Assistant Director of Ordinands (ADO), who is an experienced priest.

The ADO’s or Warden’s work with the candidate is similar to the VA’s, but they have more of a focus on Lay Readership or ordained ministry. They are working with a more detailed form of the criteria for discernment.

Candidates are asked to complete a Registration Form. This has most of the information that would be on a standard CV, and it also includes some reflections they write on their life and spiritual history, and on faith and mission.

Candidates will attend a Discernment Meeting. This is a practice interview with three advisors and the PDO. It lasts for 60 – 90 minutes, and it covers the main criteria. The advisors have a draft of the ADO’s report and of the Registration Form, and they may want to ask questions based on those.

The Discernment Meeting is likely to make recommendations for more work with the ADO. Exceptionally, it can recommend that the candidate should not continue in the discernment process. If that happens, the PDO and the diocesan bishop will consider with the candidate what the next steps should be.

When the ADO or Warden thinks the candidate is ready, they will go to an Advisory Selection Panel.

Advisory Selection Panel

The Advisory Selection Panel is held over four days, from a Wednesday evening to mid-morning on Saturday. It is residential, usually based in Perth. Up to six candidates may be there, and there will be three advisors (each responsible for two of the discernment criteria) and a staff team, consisting of the PDO, a bishop, and an advisor who is observing. The bishop (not the sponsoring bishop of any candidate present) oversees worship during the panel and acts as chaplain to all those present.

The Panel involves interviews, written work, and presentations. The advisors will look at evidence from reports and references, from the candidates’ Registration Forms, and from work done at the Panel, and write their report on the full criteria. Candidates may be recommended for training, not recommended, or conditionally recommended.

In the Scottish Episcopal Church, final decisions about selection for training are made by the candidate’s diocesan bishop. The bishops are advised by the discernment process and by the Advisory Selection Panel’s report.

The candidate’s diocesan bishop decides on the next steps for the candidate, on the basis of this advice. The bishop may decide that the candidate should begin training and formation with the Scottish Episcopal Institute at the start of the next academic year (in late August).

A final decision as to whether the candidate will be licensed as a Lay Reader or ordained as a priest or a deacon is made at the completion of their Initial Ministerial Education at SEI (usually two years for Lay Readers and three for priests and deacons).

Who to contact about your vocation

Talk to people who know you well. Talk to people you know at church. If you are interested in a particular form of work, talk to the people who do it. If possible, try volunteering in that area.

Contact PDO@scotland.anglican.org

Talk to your church leader: the priest of your local church, your chaplain, or one of the leaders of the SEC’s youth work. They will know both you and the range of ministries you might explore.

On the Vocation Resources page there’s a very short reading list.

To begin the discernment process, you need an initial referral from your local SEC priest or chaplain, or from the SEC’s Youth Convenor or Youth Co-ordinator. The initial referral form is on the Vocation Resources page.

Provincial Director of Ordinands (PDO)

The PDO has oversight of the discernment process and is responsible to the College of Bishops.

The Rev Canon Dr Elizabeth Thomson
PDO@scotland.anglican.org
General Synod Office, 21 Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 5EE
T 07803 293326

Scottish Episcopal Institute (SEI)

The Scottish Episcopal Institute forms those preparing for a variety of authorised ministries in the Scottish Episcopal Church, lay and ordained, and in the United Reformed Church in Scotland, shaping vibrant missional ministers for today’s world. It encourages an ethos of ongoing learning for all involved in ministry, both through its oversight of IME2 (years 4-6) and in the encouragement and resourcing of lifelong enquiry in a learning church.

A new SEI website was set up in June 2022. Please visit the new website here.

There is a Contact page on the new website. Should you be unable to find information on the new site, please use the Contact page to be in touch.

Please note that students enter SEI through a Discernment process. You can read about Vocation and Ministry on this website here. There is more information about the MA programme on the new SEI website here.

Vocation Resources

Reading for enquirers and candidates

This is a very short selection of reading which might be helpful or provide a starting point.

John Barton, The Word: On the Translation of the Bible
Rosalind Brown, Being a Deacon Today
Mark Chapman, Anglicanism: A very short introduction
Paula Gooder, Reader Ministry explored
Gerard Hughes: God of Surprises
Emma Percy, What Clergy Do: especially when it looks like nothing
Michael Ramsey: The Christian Priest Today
Esther de Waal Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict
Rowan Williams, ‘The Christian Priest Today’