Imagine a Tesco supermarket fifteen years ago, or maybe Gateway, Hinton’s, or Fine Fare. Now think of yourself next to the sausage counter. You might have found two or three different varieties, maybe thick or thin, and maybe 6 or 12 in a pack. But that’s about it. Now think about what’s needed to make those sausages. You only need one set of raw ingredients, and some wide sausage skin, and some narrow sausage skin. Pretty simple business then.
Go this week to any supermarket, farmers’ market – maybe even a butcher – and the number of varieties is only exceeded by coffee combinations in Starbucks. The sausage industry has diversified: there are mass produced sausages, hand made sausages, long sausages, short ones, Finest sausages, Taste the Difference sausages, chilli and beef sausages, cranberry and venison sausages and so on. Although (to be fair) you can probably make these all in the same machine, the ingredients vary wildly, and so do the resulting sausages.
I am increasingly convinced that most parts of the C of E recruitment and training machine – the system - can really only cope with recruiting, making and using standard sized and flavoured sausages, which is unfortunate if you want to be a sausage, but don’t quite fit the standard recipe (i.e. male, under 30, no kids, little experience in doing the kinds of things you might have to do once ordained.) I used the word system deliberately. In this context I mean a construct put together with the best of intentions which attains a life of its own, is hard to change, and risks failing to serve both the purpose for which it was intended and the values with which it was created. Individual components of the system can still be profoundly good, and some individuals may have a good experience of the system, but taken as a whole, it does not seem to be set up for variety or with imagination. There is no one accountable person or body looking at the whole system. Things (and people) fall through the cracks, and it’s no one’s job to sort it.
A system built to make interesting sausages – to take the raw ingredients – the skills, the talents, learning, life experience as well as the hurts, foibles and tender areas, would say “wow, what an amazing sausage we could make out of this.”
But my observation so far is that it can’t do this: MinDiv centrally, Bishops, DDOs, Selectors, PTE advisors and training courses are either too knackered, too poor, too scared or too busy to make interesting sausages. The system would much rather have safe sausages.
Of course, I must not forget the ultimate creativity and integrity of the Holy Spirit. But He works through humans and the systems they create, and I can’t help thinking that at times the system makes that really really hard. What can be done? An integrated system with a compelling vision in which everyone involved was treated as an equal would be a good start, since that would respect all the ingredients of the sausage to be, and that includes their families too.
How right you are about sausages. I am currently in the discernment process but it turns out I am a very inconvenient sausage because I feel called to self-supporting ministry, locally deployed, which would mean serving in my husband’s parish. Now, I know it isn’t a good idea to train under your spouse but we had a written agreement from the rural dean to supervise me. I don’t drive and we are very isolated in our parish. As you rightly say, where is there room for the Holy Spirit in the face of man-made rules? (Only guidelines in fact with allowance for exceptions in rare circumstances). If I were turned down by a panel I could accept that but it looks like, even if I get good reports from my interviews, I may not be allowed to get that far. Well I’ll just see myself as a waitrose top quality spicy sausage then. Let them have their hydrogenised, processed, reclaimed whatevers!