formation] is complete they are no longer learners but see themselves exclusively as teachers of others. This is echoed by a Methodist minister: I have colleagues who simply feel there is no purpose in their engaging in any further learning or training.
a. Ministers Who Do Not Wish to Continue Training
Although representing a minority, across the denominational and regional spectrum of the survey this phenomenon apears fairly widespread. Respondents identify a number of possible underlying reasons for this attitude to ongoing ministerial learning: • A sense of ministerial insecurity; individual ministers feeling threatened by an obligation to continue learning, or a sense of failure that it is felt necessary.
• Alongside this, it is suggested that some ministers have an innate conservatism, a dislike of change or new things that prevents them engaging in training.
• Over-developed ministerial pride: in themselves, in their position, or in the learning and experience that has contributed to their ministry. (As one rural Baptist minister suggests: “The [local] church employs me to teach them, not to spend my time going on courses after I have already been trained.”)
• Some ministers may see themselves as indispensible to their churches, and feel training may interfere with this or make it unnecessary. (One URC minister talks of colleagues who asked: How will they manage without me?)
• Some respondents identify simple laziness or, less pejoratively, tiredness (even exhaustion), especially for ministers coming close to retirement or re-posting.
• Others talk of some ministers simply looking for a quick fix. • A small number of respondents suggest that some ministers may feel that it is not worthwhile, perceiving the need in their rural churches to be minimal. (One Anglican vicar speaks of a former colleague, who behaved like a Victorian country parson, and felt that ministry was very low on his list of priorities.) Some feel this is sometimes combined with overall pessimism about rural churches and their ministry.
One Methodist training provider sums up an important underlying feeling from many: Only a small minority of ministers are this negative! Most of our rural ministers are keen and happy to get further relevant training.
b. Ministers Who Wish to Continue Training
Far more common are ministers with a positive attitude to training and continued learning, but who experience significant barriers. Some are very widely identified:
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