Anglican ministry

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The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. Ministry commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptized members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.^[1]

Each of the provinces of the Anglican Communion has a high degree of independence from the other provinces, and each of them have slightly different structures for ministry, mission and governance.^[2] However, personal leadership is always vested in a member of the clergy (a bishop at provincial and diocesan levels, and a priest (often termed a rector or vicar at the parish level) and consensus derived by synodical government. At different levels of the church's structure, laity, clergy (priests and deacons) and bishops meet together with prayer to deliberate over church governance. These gatherings are variously called conferences, synods, conventions, convocations, councils, chapters and vestries.