What is distinctive about priesthood within the Christian Church? How are priests different from the lay people they serve? How is ministry exercised by an ordained person part of the priesthood of all the Church? This book argues that a contemporary understanding of priesthood within the Church can only be discovered in the context of the whole people of God.

Many find it difficult to see what in the priestly role distinguishes it from any other kind of leadership, and so the priest can be seen simply as a leader, or chief administrator and co-ordinator of the Christian community. Right across the Church there is confusion and uncertainty about the nature of ordained Christian ministry.

In this book a group of people associated with the Anglican College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, offer some thoughts on the relationship between priests, people and God. Insights are drawn from a variety of sources: mystery, the cinema, the media, religious communities, and not least the laity as they observe the clergy going about their job. Some urgent contemporary issues are then pursued: community and loneliness, family life and sexuality, appetites and detachment, blame and empathy, and the need to recognize the over-arching sovereignity of God.

The priest emerges as a place of focus, where threads are drawn together within a church which is both a battered human institution and a divine, sacramental community.