On Ascension Day 1866 the bishops of the Province of Canterbury reached agreement in Convocation that laymen should be licensed in all dioceses to lead prayers and preach in the absence of clergymen. The Church of England is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the decision in 2016 as the charter of foundation of Reader ministry in its modern form.
"The said principal Incumbent to depute, in every such parish committed to his Care, a Deacon or some honest, sober and grave Lay-man: who, as a Reader should read the Order of Service appointed: but such Reader not to intermeddle to Christen, Marry, or Minister the Holy Communion, or Preach or Prophecy: but only to read the Service of the Day, with the Litany and Homily, as should be prescribed, in the absence of the principal pastor."
Though the title "Reader" existed in the medieval church it was not until after the reformation that something resembling Reader ministry emerged in the Church of England. Early Readers brought in to fill the gaps when clergy numbers were small and a task of reading the service in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer, and not being allowed to preach. Though they had to be literate, moderately educated, and sound in Protestant doctrine, Readers were only seen as a temporary measure.
Readers never quite died out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the simple reason there were never enough clergy to serve every parish church. In the reign of George 2nd. there were still remote and inaccessible locations served by Lay Readers. The Bishops of Chester and Carlisle felt compelled to ordain these men as deacons, even though they may be tailors and shoemakers. The Church eventually accepting that leading worship was not incompatible with holding down a secular calling as well as doing a lot of the work of ministry in neglected localities.
By the early nineteenth century it is likely that few of these Readers remained. However in 1839 the famous Headmaster of Rugby School, Thomas Arnold preached a sermon calling for the ordination of distinctive deacons as well as the creation of an order of lay "subdeacons" below them. Arnold expressed a social concern that an elite class of priests were unable to effectively serve the lower middle and working classes. Arnold's sermon led to a "Lay address to the Archbishop of Canterbury" which was submitted in 1844 calling for the authorisation of Lay Readers or subdeacons to take the burden of ministry off the shoulders of clergy and allowing less educated men to participate in ministry.
As always in the Church of England movement on the issue was slow. Though the proposals were initially rejected by the Convocation of 1862 it became a turning point and the movement for Readers was gaining traction within the Church at large. In 1864 a petition of the Church of England Young Men's Society pleaded to the Archbishop of Canterbury that;
"....by instituting a lower or special Order.....there be added to the existing Clergy a large body of earnest-hearted men to carry on the work of the Church in its more secular and subordinate departments, and also peculiarly adapted to the evangelisation of the Mechanical Classes, and other sections of the community as yet but little reached by ordinary ministration."
The issue of Readers came up again in the Convocation of 1864 though splits between high churchmen and evangelicals delayed approval for a further two years. The bishops decision in 1866 regularised a practice that had existed in some dioceses since 1840, and crucially it ensured that Readers received some kind of national recognition as a ministry that existed as something more than a stop gap in the absence of enough ordained ministers. Readers now not only licensed to lead worship but also to preach. The beginning of Reader ministry in a recognisable modern form. Since 1866 Readers have become more significant in the church with every passing year. We owe a great deal of gratitude to those voices in the Victorian church who persistently advocated a greater participation of the laity in ministry and finally achieved their aim.
In the Parish of Monkwearmouth we don't quite add up to 150 years as Readers between us but Reader Ministry has been an integral part of church life since I arrived in the parish in 1979. At St. Andrew's, Geoff Lowson (later ordained), Dave Treweeke, Ian Harrison, John Lloyd have served the parish. As part of Monkwearmouth Team Ministry today there are four Readers; Max Thompson (1974), Dave Henderson (1987), John Pattinson (1987), Philip Smithson (1991, later ordained 2007), Joyce Goodfellow (2002). Malcolm Drummond who begins his Reader training this autumn.
Bishop Robert Patterson, Chair Central Readers Council writes:
Some reflected on the past, present and future and the fact that the Reader movement was born out of a need to connect the proclamation of the word with an increasing secular world. There was a need to bring the Bible back into the home and the workplace. They founded a ministry to bring the voice of God back into the conversation. What was so important in this episcopal initiative in 1866, as with the Mothers Union and Church Army later, is the fact that they were lay initiatives in mission. An emphasis on lay-ness founded on the concept of teamwork in which lay and ordained would work and pray together to bring in God's kingdom. Today we look at the past to point to the future. We cannot do anything about the past but we can help to be "prophets of a future not our own." Quoting Archbishop Oscar Romero's famous prayer-poem:
