Ordination And Commissioning

From the beginning, Christians have set apart (consecrated) leaders by invoking the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands. Initially this was done by the apostles whom Jesus himself had chosen. Although not all Christian groups view a chain of successive imposition of hands reaching back to the apostles as crucial, nearly all Christian groups employ already ordained ministers in the ordination ceremony. All Christian groups, as discussed in this section, do recognize some special status for their leaders, even if they reject a clergy-laity distinction theologically.…