Pointers December 2015

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Youth Leadership

In most organisations, leadership is one of the keys to the successful achievement of the organisation’s goals. This is true in relation to church leadership in general and leadership of youth ministry in particular. In our studies of youth ministry across 21 churches in Anglican, Catholic and Salvation Army denominations conducted in 2014 and 2015, we have observed youth leadership, interviewed youth leaders and discussed leadership with young people. This article  discusses some of the findings. For the sake of clarity, we will use the term ‘youth minister’ to refer to the senior or  leading youth leader, and the term ‘youth leader’ to refer to other people who assist the youth minister in the role. It should be noted this was not the way these terms were used in many of the churches we visited.

Lay Pastoral Ministry
In many denominations, non-ordained people are involved in ministry alongside those who are ordained. Research undertaken by the  Christian Research Association between 2006 and 2008 for Uniting and Anglican churches explored the patterns of lay ministry in rural areas. With declining numbers of clergy available for ministry, and declining capacity to support ordained clergy, many denominations have engaged local lay people to take responsibility in leadership (Hughes & Kunciunas, 2008, 2009). Urban churches also often use  non-ordained people as part of a team or to take the responsibility of leadership in small churches. Earlier this year the CRA was  commissioned by the Australian Catholic Council for Lay Pastoral Ministry, of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, to carry out research examining lay pastoral ministry in the Catholic Church in Australia. The project involved an exploration of current theological and sociological literature on the topic, and a series of case studies of Catholic parishes in different contexts where lay pastoral ministry is  occurring.This article summarises some of the findings.

Leadership into the Unknown
We all make decisions that have an impact on our future. Yet, we can never be sure what the future will be, and whether our decisions will be right or not. The dilemma is heightened for those in leadership. People expect leaders to know what will be the consequences of their decisions. Leaders often pretend that they do. But leadership, in fact, often means making decisions which have unknown consequences. This is an issue for leaders in church and mission as well as in every other field of endeavour. It was the subject of one of the plenary sessions at the Lausanne International  Researchers’ conference in Kuala Lumpur in May 2015.
The Search for a Public Christianity?
In recent decades, a number of organisations have been established to explore the intersection of faith and Christianity. An early example, the Zadok Centre, was founded in Canberra in 1976 by its inaugural director Dr David Millikan.The article describes a number of such organisations which now exist around the world.
Pilgrimage
This article is based on two papers that were presented at the International Society for the Sociology of Religion held in Belgium. It looks at the different forms pilgrimage takes today, including The Hajj and pilgrimages to Neolithic sites.

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