In his retirement, Bishop Harris was a Volunteer for Mission and visiting fellow at the College of the Ascension, Selly Oak, Birmingham, England, between 1991 and 1992.
[2] In 1983 Boone Porter reported about George Harris: "He described in detail the wide divergence between the teaching of the church about ordained and lay ministry and the actual practice.
Concerning the priesthood he said, "the majority of parishes are still served by a single overworked priest who, in the absence of a remote and inaccessible bishop, a dearth of fellow-priests, a non-existent diaconate, and a passive laity, attempts to carry alone the entire ministerial function of the congregation.
This conviction is underscored by Bishop Harris's master's dissertation, where he emphasizes laos as the whole people of God and that "the substance of these views might be said to be an attempt to recover the integrity of the clergy and laity and to view their common service to God as a total ministry...."[4] and embraces the work of non-stipendiary priests and the laity as ultimately shaped, to use the words of Eliza Griswold in her article about Richard Rohr and the Universal Christ "as an integral part of the divine.
"[5] Or as the 44-year old Harris stated: "moving against the tide, the sort of development that is under consideration here—the non-stipendiary ministry—involves a kind of deprofessionalization, a broadening rather than a focusing, a more free rather than a more precise trend.