ABSTRACT
The questions surrounding ordination, lay leadership and the related questions of power and authority play a part in all ecclesiology. This chapter seeks to identify what might be learnt from the Accounts of Practice concerning power and ordering in the church. Having located this learning in some of the more recent literature, it is shown how clerical expressions of power can be effectively enabling as well as problematic for ad extra living of church. At the same time, the experience of powerlessness across ordained and lay groups is recognised, raising questions of what lies at the heart of Christian accounts of power and authority. The Accounts of Practice lead us to explore more deeply questions of agency in relation to power and to offer the beginnings of a reading of ecclesial power and authority which puts the power of the Holy Spirit as the first and fundamental consideration. From this foundation, the thorny theological and practical questions of power and its ordering can be effectively re-patterned.
