A ministerium is an association of
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
from various
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
groups who come together to accomplish a specific purpose, often to build collegiality and to meet or address
socioeconomic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
needs in the community. The represented churches,
synagogues
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
, and other congregations are often connected geographically, such as in a small town or group of small towns.
Sometimes the purpose can be to promote specific
denominational objectives, rather than ecumenical. Such institutions are the
Pennsylvania Ministerium
The Pennsylvania Ministerium was the first Lutheran church body in North America. With the encouragement of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), the Ministerium was founded at a Church Conference of Lutheran clergy on August 26, 1748. Th ...
, o
Evangelical Covenant Church Ministerium In some states the
ministers
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of governme ...
, confined by denominational and territorial lines, formed a
collegial
Collegiality is the relationship between colleagues. A colleague is a fellow member of the same profession.
Colleagues are those explicitly united in a common purpose and respect each other's abilities to work toward that purpose. A colleague is ...
body called the ''ministerium'' or ''spiritual ministerium'' (german: link=no, Geistliches Ministerium) in charge of supervising doctrine and teaching, clerical discipline and representing the clergy to the church administration.
See also
*
Ministerial association A ministerial association is an ecumenical Christian group that is active on the local level. Clergy from various congregations, including Anglican, Baptist,
Catholic, Congregationalist, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Orthodox, Presbyterian, an ...
Church organization
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