The problem is deeper. Our deployment of ministers of the Word and Sacrament is deplorable. Chapter 14 of the Form of Government is a creaky, leaky system in need of revision. An interim pastor of my acquaintance served a congregation that for comic relief fastened to a wall connecting the sanctuary to the educational building posters of the 22 steps necessary for a congregation to call and install a pastor. Recent seminary graduates express frustration over the candidacy process, and seminary students, whose friends are being interviewed for corporate positions, laugh at the more-complicated process they face to become ministers of the Word and Sacrament. They do not laugh at the academic requirements, but at the bureaucratic ones. Our Form of Government presents an obstacle course.
The need for reform was demonstrated in part by the Assembly’s “hang-up” over the role of immigrant fellowships and their relation to presbyteries. But it came home forcefully to me as members of our session and mission council listened to three Ghanaians — one of them the elder representative to the 216th General Assembly from the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. The others are pastors — one the chairman of Ga Presbytery and the other serving a congregation in Accra, the capital city. They spoke about ministry in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), and about congregational growth.
The PCG is growing, not losing members. In a nation of 18 million people, 60 percent of the population is Christian, of which 1 million are Presbyterians. In Accra there are 132,000 members in over 200 congregations. (By contrast, in the Presbytery of the James that must encompass close to 2 million people, there are 113 congregations and 27,000 Presbyterians. Annually we are actually gaining and not losing members.)
The PCG has a minister shortage because the church cannot afford to support them. But that does not prevent church growth. For 1 million members there are slightly over 500 installed pastors. By contrast our 2.4 million members are served by 13,845 ministers of the Word and Sacrament (2002 statistics from the PC/USA Web site). But we have only 7,900 installed pastors (down 800 since 1990) and about 2,300 in specialized ministries. The surprising statistic is that we have 2,500 ordained ministers of the Word who are not installed, and not in specialized ministry.
It gets worse. Wherever there are multiple-staff ministries in Ghana the associates are deployed regularly to congregations without a pastor for preaching and the celebration of the sacraments. In the PCG there are catechists — the equivalent of our commissioned lay pastors — who preach, teach and hold the congregation together, but cannot perform marriages or celebrate the sacraments. Seminary professors and even the principal of the theological college have congregations for which they are responsible. The Ga Presbytery Chairman, David Kpobi, who has a Ph.D. in church history from the University of Utrecht, teaches part time at Trinity Theological College and preaches every Sunday in one of the congregations of his presbytery.
Here’s the challenge: How do we, so rich in resources of all kinds, learn from the PCG about church growth, when they are by our standards, so poor in resources? How do we “unplug” a system that slows down congregations seeking a pastor and candidates seeking a call and ordination to ministry? What does the church do with, and who is responsible for, the 2,500 ordained ministers who are not retired, not installed and not in validated ministries? That’s 2,500 women and men who could be gathering people into a congregation, preaching the Word, celebrating the sacraments, teaching and providing pastoral care — full time!
Before his election, Moderator Ufford-Chase told what he learned from a Nicaraguan farmer. The best help he could bring to the Nicaraguans, said the farmer, was not something Ufford-Chase could do in Nicaragua. It would be to return to the United States and work to change the policies of the American government toward Nicaragua.
Perhaps the best way to help ourselves is to learn from those in the developing world. We could invite our Ghanaian sisters and brothers, who are wiser than we, into a consultation to help us reform Chapter 14 of our Form of Government. In the meantime, let presbyteries find ways to deploy those among us who are ordained and idle. It is past time to take risks and to “get in the boat with Jesus.”
Posted July 23, 2004 
O. Benjamin Sparks is interim editor of The Outlook and pastor, Second church, Richmond, Va.
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