The question I continue to wrestle with since beginning at Regent's is the question of ministry and leadership. See posts here and here. I posted back in 2006 some of the recent discussion between functional and ontological understandings on ministry here. I'm currently working on an essay on baptist ecclesiology and have been tracing some of the discussion around ministry in the 20th century.
The first major texts are Arthur Dakin's The Baptist View of the Church and Ministry (London: Baptist Union, 1944) and Ernest Payne's The Fellowship of Believers: Baptist Thought and Practice Yesterday and Today (The Kingsgate Press, 1944, 2nd ed. 1952) The former sets out a purely functional understanding of ministry and is limited only to those in pastorate of a local church - ruling our all college tutors (which included himself), regional ministers (then known as superintendents), BU staff and those involved in sector-type ministeries (i.e. chaplins). The latter was in part a reply to Dakin, arguing for a higher understanding of ministry that saw the minster as a representative of the wider church (so more ontological than functional).
The Baptist Union produced three reports on ministry during the middle of the century, which can all be found in Roger Hayden (ed.), Baptist Union Documents, 1948-1977: The Meaning and Practice of Oridination Among Baptists (1957), The Doctrine of Ministry (1961), Ministry Tomorrow (1969)
In more recent times contributions have been made by Nigel Wright in a Baptist Quarterly article: 'Inclusive Representation: towards a theology of baptist ministry’ (2001); Paul Fiddes in A Leading Question (BU, 1983, similar arguments are made in chapter 4 of Tracks and Traces, 2003): John Colwell in his book Promise and Presence (Paternoster, 2005) and Steve Holmes in his contribution to Baptist Sacramentalism, ‘Towards a Baptist Theology of Ordained Ministry’ (Paternoster, 2003). The differences between these theologians is summed up neatly by Holmes in a report on the theology of sector ministry:
On the one hand, Colwell and Fiddes stress a single order of ministry, with the local pastorate as the normative form, which nonetheless can be faithfully discharged in other roles, including sector ministries. Wright and Holmes, whilst not opposing this position, invite an alternative account based on the pluriform nature of New Testament ministry, under which sector ministry would be seen as a different calling from the local pastorate, but equally a part of the variegated ministry God has been pleased to give to his Church.
A more functional view of ministry can also be found in Paul Beasley-Murray's 'The Ministry of All and the Leadership of Some' in Anyone for Ordination?, edited by Beasley-Murray (1993)
The most recent and important report on ministry was in 1994 called Forms of Ministry among Baptists. Towards an Understanding of Spiritual Leadership and is strongly shaped by its chairman Paul Fiddes.
The other specific debate is the nature of translocal ministry - can one be a minister outside of the local church and is there a place for 'bishop' or 'apostle' type role. Nigel Wright firstly in (chapter 7, 1991), but also in later works Challenge to ChangeFree Church, Free State (chapter 9, 2005) wants to argue yes to both questions. A collection of essays edited by Stuart Murray was published in 2004 called Translocal Ministry (BU, 2004).
Another related New Testament contribution can be found in Alistair Campbell's The Elders: Seniority within Earliest Christianity (T & T Clark, 1994)
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