Competencies for Presbyters and Deacons ready for ordination and/or to be received into Full Connexion
The 2017 Conference accepted a series of competencies for different elements of ministry. These were reviewed in 2024 to reflect the impact of various Conference decisions and the priorities of the Church in recent years, notably the Strategy for Justice, Dignity and Solidarity, Changing Patterns of Ministry and the Review of Candidating, and recommended changes to the Council. The Ministries Team also checked that safeguarding was appropriately included. Further consultations have also been held with The Queen’s Foundation and The Methodist Diaconal Order. The competencies have been adapted as a result.
1. Vocation (call and commitment)
- The ability to give an account of how personal commitment to Christ and discipleship is being shaped within the roles and expectations of public ministry.
- The proven capacity to bear the public roles and responsibilities of an ordained person and to perform credibly and maturely as a Deacon or Presbyter both in the Methodist Church and in the wider community evidenced in their own experience and in the observation of others.
- The capacity to bear a public and representative role in ministry and mission, and a readiness to exercise leadership in ordained ministry.
2. Vocation (ministry in the Methodist Church in Britain)
- An informed willingness to enter into a lifelong relationship with the Conference and to accept all that it means to be in Full Connexion.
- A proven willingness and capacity to live under the discipline of the Methodist Church.
3. Relationship with God
- The ability to sustain and, where necessary, to adapt a life of prayer within the expectations of public ministry.
- A developing disciplined and visible commitment to a life of prayer, offered through corporate and personal worship and devotion.
- An awareness of the ways in which the life of prayer is shaped and challenged by the life of public ministry.
- A humble confidence in the power of God.
- A sustained and recognisable engagement with the means of grace.
4. Personality and character
- The proven ability to manage care of self through developing sustainable patterns of life and work, and effective support networks.
- Maturity in self-awareness and self-acceptance grounded in God’s loving acceptance.
- Self-awareness and developed strategies for resilience and well-being.
- Effective use of personal, ecclesial and social resources in sustaining ministry.
- Insight, resilience and stability in the face of pressure and change.
5. Being in relationship with others
- A developed self-awareness and awareness of their impact on others.
- Developed listening skills and pastoral understanding.
- Proven ability to form and sustain relationships with those who differ and a basic understanding of conflict management.
- Ability to reflect on pastoral relationships through pastoral supervision.
- The ability to reflect on what it means to live in the public eye.
- The ability to recognise and to use appropriately their own power and vulnerability.
- A proven ability to operate effectively under supervision.
- Developed understanding of appropriate boundaries in professional, pastoral and personal relationships and proven ability to identify and maintain them.
6. The Church’s ministry in God’s world
- An ability to exercise a ministry that is informed by developed missiological, sociological and ecclesiological understandings.
- A developed understanding of the Methodist tradition and the ability to articulate its local expression.
- The ability to reflect theologically on the strengths and weaknesses of the church.
- An understanding of the polity of the Methodist church and its expression in the local context.
- The ability to reflect on the place of the Methodist Church in God’s mission alongside other Churches and other faith communities.
- A record of engagement in mission and evangelism in a range of contexts, particularly in the local community and in relation to the local church.
- A record of engagement in the mission of the Church as an agent of transformation.
7. Leadership and collaboration
- The ability to enable the church to participate to the mission of God in the local context.
- The ability to enable change by employing different styles of leadership.
- The capacity to inspire leadership in others.
- The ability to identify and address constructively assumptions, behaviours and practices that are exclusory.
- The ability to lead and enable others in faithful witness and to foster mission.
- A proven ability to work ecumenically and to encourage ecumenical co-operation.
- The proven ability to nurture the gifts of all ages and abilities in a variety of contexts.
- Proven administration skills.
- The ability to participate in the oversight structures of a church and circuit and to reflect on the experience.
- An ability to act independently but collegially with others in ministry and with the community of the whole Church.
- A demonstrable and appropriate use of authority in ways which enable and empower others in their mission and ministry.
- The ability to work effectively as a member of a team.
- The ability to support and supervise others in a limited range of roles and responsibilities.
- Ability to take appropriate responsibility for decision-making.
- The ability to operate collegiately and collaboratively, including in operating independently when appropriate.
- An appropriate exercise of self-motivation and self-direction.
8. Learning and understanding
- A working knowledge and understanding of the Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church and an expertise in applying it in practice.
- An ability to form and sustain a life of disciplined study and reflection that sustains in public ministry.
- An ability to identify their own continuing learning needs and their specialisms in ministry.
9. Communication
- The ability to apply a wide range of methods of communicating the good news.
- Measurably improved and improving preaching in a variety of styles and underpinned by advanced liturgical and homiletical skills.
- The proven ability to lead worship confidently in varied and sometimes unfamiliar settings with knowledge and conviction (SO 563 (2i)).
- The proven use of reflective practice to develop skills.
- Well-developed communication skills for ministry and evangelism used in a range of media.
- Effective use of a range of media within the Church’s guidelines.