Total Ministry, also sometimes called Local Shared Ministry, Ministering Communities in Mission, Mutual Ministry, or Circular Ministry, is a style of

Christian ministry Christian ministry is the vocational work of living and teaching about faith, in the hopes of increasing the population of God's people done by the church, church officials, congregational members, and Jesus followers. The '' Cyclopedia of Bib ...

which empowers

laity In religious organizations, the laity () — individually a layperson, layman or laywoman — consists of all Church membership, members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-Ordination, ordained members of religious orders, e ...

to take on roles traditionally given to

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

s, etc. The total ministry movement began within the Episcopal Church. At the heart of the understanding of Total Ministry is the belief that through

baptism Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...

all Christian people are gifted for mission and ministry within and for the Church. Many people are introduced to Total Ministry through workshops offered in their

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

or region, through spiritual direction or via retreat. The concept is widely credited with having originated after Jesus inviting his followers to keep going the ministry of baptism with the waters of the

Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is a concept within the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is understood as the divine quality or force of God manifesting in the world, particularly in acts of prophecy, creati ...

and the water of reconciliation and with the apostle

Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...

, who said that everyone receives the Holy Spirit. This concept of the "

priesthood of all believers The priesthood of all believers is the common Priest, priesthood of all Christians (a concept broadly accepted by all churches), while the term can also refer to a specific Protestantism, Protestant understanding that this universal priesthood pre ...

" has led to the development of new patterns of ministry including Total Ministry. More recently the re-discovery of the writings of Father Roland Allen, an Anglican missionary in China, has acted as a catalyst for the development of the ecclesiology.

References

Ecclesiology {{Christianity-stub