Welcome to the Library

Material about worker-priests is rare compared to the multitudinous output from the church about other aspects of the faith, not least about ordained (or 'sacred') ministry.

I thought it might be helpful to draw together what I had found in one place. Here are some I know of. Do please let me know of others you think might be added: remember, they must be of direct interest to the MSE/WP vocation.

For material published by C of E dioceses about SSM/MSE ordained ministry see here

The Revd Canon Mildred Datestamp is a worker-priest librarian and also DDO in Barchester Diocese. Her special interest is in feminist and liberation theologies. She has convictions, not all spent.

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GENERAL

• Wikipedia entry - good starting point for those new to the theme

• Gone fishing (in the middle of the workplace): an excellent article by Richard Spence. Worth reading, not least by stipendiary colleagues and those involved in nurturing vocations. Read it here

  SURVEYS AND ASSESSMENTS

• 2011 result of survey conducted amongst CofE SSM clergy by Teresa Morgan and Graham Lewis and reported in two linked articles in the Church Times April 2011. See here for original report (pre-editing by Church Times). 'Morgan is critical of the Church for its lack of strategy with regard to SSM and especially of the failure of dioceses to consider SSMs in their planning processes. She dismisses the raft of alleged impediments to the effective use of SSMs often cited by Church leaders, arguing that her survey has empirically disproved them.' Source

• The Experiences of Ministry Survey 2011 published summary findings in Novemner 2011. Nothing much that is explicitly about MSE/WPS except this on time off: 'It is common for clergy to take one day off a week most of the time. However, for some this is a rarity with ministers in secular employment least likely to take a day off a week.' See the full report here.

WEIGHTIER TREATMENTS OF THE THEME

• Patrick Vaughan's 1987 doctoral thesis Non-Stipendiary ministry in the Church of England: A History of the development of an Idea. (Rather large PDF)
• Raymond Eveleigh's 2011 MA Dissertation on NS ministry within the CofE

• Priests in Secular Employment by Richard Spence, A New Zealand priest (with links to a website containing his research notes).

• The Worker Priests...a Movement Fallen into Oblivion
  by Veit Strassner . Translated from the German. Date not clear, but a comprehensive survey of the early RC worker-priests and their prohibition by the Vatican. NB The link-source appears to have disappeared

• Worker Priests – Lost cause or cause celebre? John Mantle, via CHRISM. (John was a good friend to the worker-priest initiative and his early death was a loss to the church).
• John Rowe's early Worker-priests: A Rejoinder see frontispiece (right) - Access full text.

OFFICIAL THINGS
This document appears on the CofE site with the note: This document is designed to assist DDOs, Bishops' Advisers and others who have a role in selecting MSEs for the Church of England. It was drafted by MSE John Lees and formed part of the Ministry Division's guidance for BAP Advisers in 2011. (John had a book published in 2019 by SPCK Self Supporting Ministry: A Practical Guide.  Although dealing with the wider group of unpaid clergy, it includes references to minsiters in secular employment (MSE)).

CMD (continuing ministerial development) in the Church of England. (What might a CMD programme with MSE/WPs in mind look like? See here).

Other publications
One Ministry (Bristol Diocese December 2014

Does the Church of England understand the MSE/worker-priest vocation?
It seems not. Its main vocation website (see below, click to access), which is devoted to explaining ordained ministry to those considering it, says hardly anything about this vocation. It is in and through the church's formal and public material that one gets the clear message that MSE/WP vocations don't exist. Perhaps this near-absent level of recognition is related to other structural blindnesses such as not taking seriously the place, mission and capacity of the faithful laos/laity, or the social and political context in which the gospel is witnessed to.

FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE CHURCH

• Tentmaking ministry in the Orthodox Church
  ('tentmakers', from St Paul's own means of earning a livelihood)
  

MSE/WP mentions on diocesan websites (mainly C of E)

• Here

MISCELLANEOUS

• Non-Stipendiary Ministry: from radical idea to new beginning,
  by Barry Wilson (date unknown)
  

• CPAS 'Resource Sheet 8' on non-stipendiary ministry

• A celebration of Self Supporting Ministry
  Address at St Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey 2011
  (Bishop of Sheffield)

About, or by, individual men and women following MSE/worker-priest calling

• Michael Ranken (1928-2003) An appreciation, by Dorrie Johnson

Denominational groupings of
MSE and worker-priests

UK
CHRISM a well-established and valuable "association for all Christians who see their secular employment as a primary field of Christian ministry and for those who would support and encourage that vision".

REST OF EUROPE
Mission de France A missionary diocese of the French Catholic Church: 250 clergy, many of them worker-priests, plus lay associates.

Prêtres Ouvriers National membership organisation of French Worker Priests.

USA
Association of Presbyterian Tentmakers
Presbyterian ministers in part time paid church work but also in secular employment.

NASSAM The National Association of Self Supporting Assistant Ministers (NASSAM). A relatively small group of non-stipendiary ministers of the Episcopalian Church of the USA.

The Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministers Association Provides affirmation and encouragement to 'Bivos'.

MSE/worker-priest blogs or sites
View from the tent (USA)
Bivocational Ministry (USA)
Barriers to Ministry (USA)
The tentmaking minister (UK)
Richard Spence's admirable 'MSE Review of relevant literature' (NZ)

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