Chapter 27: Extraordinary Student Ministry Inthe Sydney Anglican Diocese

Recently many people have asked me about what it is like to be a female Anglican student minister discerning a vocation for the Anglican priesthood, and living and working in the Sydney Anglican Diocese in 2014. Apparently no one else is doing this right now - if there is some other brave soul out there, please contact me. Some think I am tempting fate, treading the radical Patricia-Brennan-cum-Muriel-Porter path. My path is actually much more conservative and cautious, though equally as committed to the cause of Anglican women's ordination, which I believe to be God's will and desire.

My situation is extraordinary for an Anglican student minister in Sydney. Leaving aside the fact that I am mature aged, have four adult children and one grandchild, and have completed a BA, DipEd, BTh, BPhil, STB, Musicology studies in Gregorian chant, and an Anglican Cantor's Certificate, the most unusual aspect of my situation is that because of my female gender and my declared priestly vocation, no Sydney Anglican Ministry College is properly equipped to supply me with appropriate or complete Anglican ministry discernment and training for Anglican priesthood. This being the case, I took action to address this deficit, namely enrolling as a distance education student (on the advice of a senior Anglican minister) in the Advanced Diploma of Ministry and Theology at St Marks National Theological College, Canberra ACT, applying for discernment of ordination vocation with a friendly diocese, and negotiating a local parish field placement. Hopefully, in 2014, under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Cameron, and with Bishop Stuart Robinson's oversight, St Marks NTC will continue to supply this Anglican Orders course at an equivalent standard and with equivalent curriculum content to Melbourne's Trinity College Anglican Orders course.

Apart from my ministry studies, there are many positive aspects to my female Anglican student ministry situation here in Sydney. For a start, Anglicans (even so-called "Low Church" Sydney Anglicans) are a lot more comfortable with, and accepting of, women ministers of all ranks, than my former denomination, the Catholic Church. Among Anglicans it is common practice to praise and encourage women ministers, while praise and encouragement is exclusively reserved to males in the Catholic Church. Being received into the Anglican Church by Bishop Robert Forsyth in 2013, after a sojourn in a Church where women are "protected" but also hugely oppressed, overworked, and often ridiculed and thoughtlessly insulted by male priests and their assistants, was a joyful liberation for me, and an exciting opportunity to follow God's call to fuller and happier Church ministry. My Anglican parish mentors, for whom I thank God, have provided me with many ministry opportunities that were deliberately denied to me in my former denomination.

Of course I knew about the current Sydney Anglican Synod ban on women's ordination to the priesthood well before I was received in 2013, but that does not negate the fact that God is calling me, and is slowly but surely equipping me, to be an Anglican priest. God has healed and strengthened me for my ministry journey, and has blessed me  in my family life, academic studies, spiritual formation, and music ministry. My vocation discernment and student ministry receives support from my family, my friends from several Church denominations, sympathetic parish colleagues, and extra-diocesan sources. So while I am conscious of local barriers to my ministry, I am also a global citizen with a global online ministry. It is clear to me that while the Anglican episcopal hierarchy maintains traditionally confining structures for ministry location and governance, it also allows fresh expressions of Church, and so God's broad vision for my priestly ministry will not necessarily be totally confined within a specific geographical boundary.

I was delighted to discover that in Sydney, female Anglican licensed lay ministers and deaconesses vastly outnumber male lay and diaconal ministers. Instead of exclusively male head servers, both male and female servers and lay assistants happily cooperate. Instead of authoritarian clerical managers and minions inspecting the troops and reporting doctrinal errors, I found Anglicans freely engaging in healthy debates and discussiions on current issues. Visitors to any Sydney Anglican Church will see both unvested and vested women buzzing around doing all sorts of work, not only "housekeeping" tasks. However, the push to fast-track an army of young Anglican men into priestly ministry (accompanied by Christian marriage to a trained female minister) is also creating team ministries and domestic church plants based on the complementarian model. For many Anglican women, the complementarian ministry model is sufficient, but for women called to priesthood, a co-ordination model of ministry is required.

I hope and pray that God will provide the Anglican women of Sydney who have heard God's call to priesthood ( and I am convinced that there are many) with a means to fulfil their call to ministerial service.