A Black Country priest, working as a Pioneer Minister in Wolverhampton, has questioned the way the Church of England trains its clergy.

In a debate this evening at the General Synod about ‘Fresh Expressions of Church’ – modern ways of being church – the Revd Richard Moy asked why the Church of England “locked its trainee clergy away for three years in a place full of other Christians.” He said that if clergy were to be effective evangelists they needed to spend more time with non-Christians during their training. He called for the Church of England to invest more in ‘on-the-job’ training for would-be priests.

Richard Moy leads the Wolverhampton Pioneer Ministries, a Church of England network-church primarily aimed at 18-30 year olds in Wolverhampton City Centre. The new church, part of the Diocese of Lichfield, provides a training course in ‘Kingdom Theology’, accredited by the University of Wales, Lampeter.

He also said the Church needs to consider how it deploys clergy to innovative posts such as his; and said it should follow Jesus’ example of sending out teams 2x2; instead of the lone-worker approach adopted by the Church of England. “It might be financially easier, but it is not right, it is not biblical and it is not Godly.”

He spoke in a debate about Fresh Expressions of Church – designed for people who may be put off traditional-style churches.

The Synod voted unanimously to affirm what it calls the ‘mixed economy’ of traditional and fresh expressions of church working in partnership; to encourage those responsible for training and vocations to promote imaginative recruitment, training and deployment of ordained and lay pioneer ministers; commended the use of ‘Bishop’s Mission Orders’, by which new cross-parish experimental church groupings may be established; and called for research on the spiritual and numerical growth of Fresh Expressions churches.