Ministry in Secular Employment

A Minister in Secular Employment is a person who feels called to exercise their ministry principally through their paid work in the ‘secular’ world rather than through the organisation of the church. Those ordained differ from (some) non-stipendiary ministers who see their main focus of active ministry in the church community and regard their paid employment as secondary to, or as a means of providing financial support for their service in the church. The MSE feels called to their ‘secular’ work and has a constructive relationship to it. There’s is a full time ministry, expressed in full time work.  MSE is a contrasting model to that of the chaplaincy. Whilst the chaplain is appointed and paid to exercise the role of a priest to  a particular community, the MSE is employed exclusively for their role as worker, of whatever kind, and  expresses their priesthood through their work as well as at work. Their working life is integral to, and  fulfils, their priestly calling.  MSE should also be distinguished from Ordained Pioneer Ministry within the workplace. The Pioneer Minister has as part of his or her public role the scope and authority to create a ‘new expression’ of church in the community where they work.

MSE is best understood not as a derivation from traditional parochial ministry but as a ministry in its own right and, as Michael Ramsey and others have argued, as the ‘normative’ and ‘apostolic’ ministry from which parochial ministry itself derived!

• MSEs witness to God’s activity in the whole of life, especially the world of work, when this has sometimes been undervalued by the church in preference for church based activities. MSEs demonstrate the church’s investment in the workplace.
• MSEs keep the church better informed about the world of work and are better able to minister to people in secular employment because of their own experience in different working environments.
• MSEs function, as do parochial clergy, within a community base. Moreover it is the workplace more than the church or the immediate neighbourhood, which is, for increasing numbers of people, the more stable form of community and the source of personal identity.
• MSEs can provide the safe space in which people seek guidance and explore the issues that are concerning them in their lives. They often enable less conspicuous Christians to declare themselves.  The pastoral interactions within the school, hospital or workplace community can be every bit as intense as those in the parish.
• MSEs may be asked to be involved in sacramental ministry as a result of the relationships developed in the workplace. But they will be involved in the ‘secular sacraments’ of confession, absolution, healing and blessing.