#cofecalling

Catherine Nancekievill writes in advance of Vocations Sunday about why new resources are being published to help support and nurture vocations in the Church of England - and how she discovered her own calling

We have been asking on Twitter for people to share how they experience their calling for Vocations Sunday. It made me think of how I have experienced my vocation.  Many years ago, while on retreat in my mid-twenties I wrestled with the question of what God wanted of me.  I think the wrestling is life-long, but I was given a vision for how I would know I was going in the right direction.  It goes like this: I jump out of the boat and into the water without thinking too hard about it, and just like Peter I start to sink.  But I stretch out my hand to find it firmly clasped around my wrist and God hauls me out of the water.   Not long after the retreat, I left my job and leapt into another.  It was only months later when God was ‘hauling me out of the water’, that I remembered the retreat and the vision.  

I am familiar now with the sensation of suddenly realising I am in the wrong place, the wrong job, the wrong lifestyle.  It is a feeling that I MUST MOVE. As if I am stepping out from the end of the gang plank and part of my body is dropping away down to the sea and the rest of me can do nothing but follow. If I am prevented or I stop myself from moving… well, you can imagine what it might feel like suspended over the sea!

What keeps me awake at night is all the faithful Christians living with that sense of being called, suspended over the water, but without knowing how or where to move.  People that God is calling to His special purpose but who don’t act on it because they don’t think they are the type of person that God calls.  People who need a small pool to paddle in first to gain confidence by having a go at ministry.  People who need a friend who is actively looking for those eyeing-up the water, a friend who slides up next to them and whispers, “jump?”.  

So the resources published today on the Church Support Hub are for all of you who want to nurture and grow vocations: lay and ordained parish ministers, youth workers, Chaplains, diocesan officers, spiritual directors and many others. The website contains lots of good resources we have found in parishes and dioceses. We hope you will submit your own so we can make it increasingly useful to you. The Church Support Hub exists to resource ministers for the occasional offices because, like the occasional offices, nurturing vocations is part of the bread and butter of parish life.

And my vocation now? Well, being Head of Discipleship and Vocation was a jump from the boat.  And, yes, sometimes I feel like I am sinking. I looked a pile of papers yesterday. A pile of complex theological perspectives and concepts and wondered what on earth I was doing here.  Then the quiet voice came ‘”The Lord is my portion”, says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him”’.  God’s hand reaching out, grabbing me by the wrist and hauling me into the air.

- Catherine Nancekievill is Head of Discipleship and Vocation for the Ministry Division of the Church of England. Vocations Sunday 2016 is Sunday April 17.

People often struggle to find the words to describe their calling. It can be a feeling, a physical sensation, a voice in a corner of their mind telling them where they should go. It can change as you explore it, changing as God calls you down new and different paths.

To mark Vocations Sunday on April 17, Emily Kempson shares her experience of calling 

“My calling has rarely felt like a call, I was not commanded or called by name. Instead, I have been drawn into a space opened by questions. My calling has pulled at me like a sunset that catches the eye and sends you searching for a better view of the sun.

I was at university, full of questions: what makes a good life? what is God? Truth? Beauty? Love? In my studies, Christianity taught that Love created the world in all its beauty, and spoke of evil and its ultimate defeat by Love incarnate in Jesus. I wondered, in our rapidly changing social and intellectual contexts, what does it mean if this is true? What account can Christians give? These are not idle questions. A glance at local and global events shows that accounts of the Love of God can bring flourishing or cause suffering. Disagreements can bear fruit, or bring discord and even violence.

These questions attracted me, the need to address them captivated me, and Wisdom sustained me. Each generation works to find meaning, to bring its understanding of God under the light of recent developments. I was drawn to aid in that labour. I was called to be a theologian.

After I graduated, my calling appeared to me as a delicate golden thread, leading into the darkness of my uncertainty. The path it followed was winding, and easily lost, and at times it disappeared into the shadows. When I asked God whether I was called to ordination, I received no answer. When I stopped trying to discern the end, and asking instead ‘what steps should I take next’ the thread glimmered into sight again.

I worked for a while in a parish church, and with support and insight from my community and mentors, considered the different theologians I had known, lay and ordained. If priests and lay ministers are, in some sense, doctors of the soul, tasked with bringing healing and health, then academic theologians are medical researchers. They refine old techniques and develop new ones, responding to the changing needs of doctors and patients. Medical researchers go to medical school and then focus on research, as an academic theologian I decided to go to seminary, not to become a priest, but to be a better theologian.

The journey since then has been difficult but exhilarating. I have just begun my PhD, and the shimmering golden thread has grown into a rope I can grasp. It has guided me through the metaphorical valley of death, and across actual oceans. It has challenged my relationship with my family, my friends and even how I understand myself. These challenges are part of my calling: genuine theological insight demands spiritual growth and flexibility; legitimate scholarly work requires training at the highest academic standard.

Having stopped asking God where I am supposed to end up, I am now following where the divine thread draws me next. Currently, I am questioning how best to offer my gifts to the church as a layperson, while my feet are planted in academia. Discerning the answer is an ongoing process, much like my academic work. But in this space opened by questions, there is always the joy of learning and teaching others to see the glorious love of God embroidered throughout the world.”

- Emily Kempson is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge

For more information about Vocations Sunday see https://www.churchofengland.org/clergy-office-holders/vocation/vocations-sunday.aspx

The past month we have been sharing stories of vocation from within and external to the Church of England. Sometimes we can only understand just how far we have come on our own individual journey when we look back at what’s come before. 

Sometimes life’s journey takes us places we didn’t expect to visit along the way and allows us to meet people who shape and support us. We grow with every new day, approaching pastures new and scary (in some cases) with a constant companion who always knows us by our name.

‘There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.’

(1 Corinthians 14. 4-11)

To round off the month, Beccy Smyth tells us about her calling to work in the careers service:

“I spent two years after I graduated from university in 2013 pleading with God to show me what he wanted me to do with my life. I desperately wanted him to whisper in my ear: “this is the vocation that I have chosen for you.” But he seemed frustratingly silent on the matter. However, what I did hear God saying was this: “Stay in Leicester. Wait on me.” And so, I obeyed.

Although staying in Leicester and investing in church brought a lot of joy, it was painful to stay put in an admin job that I found so unfulfilling. The job itself wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t me. I wanted to help people, to journey with people, to build meaningful relationships, to offer advice and support to those who needed it. I found my data-heavy admin job stifling. I missed working directly with people and I missed being creative.

I would spend hours scrolling through jobsites in the evenings, feeling hopeless, because nothing I saw appealed. The one or two jobs I did apply for, I got nowhere with. Eventually, I stopped looking altogether. I felt like God was calling me to give up the job search for a few months, to stop trying so hard to ‘escape’ from my admin job, to give the reins back to him and trust that he was in control.

In the end, being in a job that was so unfulfilling taught me a valuable lesson in humility. I may feel like I have a right to a vocation that allows me to use my intelligence and gifts, that I have a right to be fulfilled, but that’s not the case. My gifts, talents, dreams and intelligence are from God – I have no right or claim to them. All I am and all I have is from God.

Eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that the right job would be provided for me at the right time by God. And that the right job wasn’t a ‘right’. It was a gift.

After a few months of not looking for a new job, as I was learning to give up control, I stumbled upon an advert for an entry level role within the university careers service. The job appealed on so many levels: it promised one-to-one advice work with students, creativity, research and project coordination.

It was 10pm on the deadline date. I had two hours left to apply and was left with a choice: stay up until midnight to write the application, or go to bed early. I heard a voice saying over and over: “apply for this job.” It was one of those clear-cut moments where I knew in my spirit that it was God speaking to me. I applied, and got the job!

Finding my current vocation didn’t feel like an overly spiritual experience to me, although I recognise now that God’s hand was all over it. My church family prayed that God would speak to me and provide for me, but I didn’t have any dreams, visions or dramatic encounters. My calling into the careers service was a lot more subtle than that. It felt more like a series of realisations. God showed me who he made me to be (an encourager, a creative thinker); he showed me the heart that he was given me (a heart to help people to help themselves) and he helped me to realise that my job title doesn’t define me – I am a daughter of the King before I am anything else, always.

It was as I made these realisations that the Holy Spirit nudged me (quite emphatically) to apply for my current role, a role in which, amazingly, I get to be the person God made me to be, and help people to help themselves as they prepare for the transition from student life to the world of work. It just feels right. I feel like me. Hooray!

Although I am only at the start of my vocational journey, I can definitely see myself continuing in the career information and guidance profession in the longer term. I’m sure it will be an adventure, and I’m excited.

- Beccy Smyth

What’s your vocation? #CofECalling

#Keeppraying

Photo by Jonathan Self

When thinking about a minister what image pops up in your head? Cups of tea and fundraising for the roof might be a running theme but there’s more to ministry than meets the eye. Pioneer ministry takes the church to many unexpected places. The Revd Peterson Feital, the first Missioner to the Creative Industries, and an ordained Pioneer Minister in the Church of England shares the story of his calling:

‘Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called’ (Ephesians 4:1)

I first experienced my calling when I became a Christian at the age of five in Brazil, someone prayed for me and told me I would go to Britain when I was older. It felt very much that I was called to minister to those people outside the church boundaries, I never wanted to be a vicar or a leader. I was ordained into the congregational church in Brazil. I taught at bible colleges, I helped to lead big churches, but my heart remained focused on the outsider. Those of little faith, agnostics, outcasts.

At the age of 27 I came to England, with no idea that I would be ordained into the Anglican Church, let alone as a Pioneer Minister. Within the church, I have always been considered as someone of innovative ideas. I have never been afraid of failing so I am happy to take one step at a time, supported by God and my colleagues. It was Tony Porter, Bishop of Sherwood who prompted me down the path to Pioneer ministry. Through his suggestion and support I went to Cambridge to train under the Revd Dave Male and help set up the first Centre for Pioneer Learning.

In exploring my calling, I started to spend more and more time with non-Christians, listening to the questions they had. I focused on individuals in the world of arts only to realise that the tools that the arts and creative industries have to offer, somehow, were not understood well and not used by the church. These people were not rejecting the message of the gospel; it was a question of language, contextualisation and relevance. From that moment I went ‘mad’, focusing my research on entrepreneur studies, pop culture, gender, sexuality, politics, because these are relevant topics in the world of the arts.

The process was not always easy, there were moments of profound confusion. I really wanted people to see my heart as opposed to the tradition that I was embedded in, much of what I was learning about believing, behaving and belonging didn’t seem to fit with my experience of the world. Finding your Element, Ken Robinson and Exuberance, Kay Jamieson were catalysts for me to break from the institutionalised ways of being that I felt I had to comply with. There were also key people in the Church of England who were able to understand my creative brain and thought process. I have been hugely blessed by Revd Kim Swithinbank, Revd Sam Wells and currently the Bishop of Stepney, Adrian Newman, who meets me regularly offering experience and advice to support my work in London.

My greatest influence however was Revd Simon Cansdale who, at the beginning of my vocation was able to capture my soul. As a pioneer it is important to feel free and appreciated for creative thinking. I need freedom to work. I need to feel free to walk into a dark bar in Soho or into a meeting with executives so it’s important for me to know I am well supported.

Working with the Arts and Creative Industry is a challenge. The statistics aren’t good: 87% of creative leaders cite chronic levels of stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, guilt, isolation and dented self-confidence as daily emotional states. My work (I hope) helps ease those figures.

It makes my heart sing that in Capital Vision 2020 London recognised the importance of creative thinking and the need to have creative artists woven into the fabric of the church, to recognise their talents and give confidence to Christians in the arts.

As a Pioneer Minister, the biggest reward to me has been that I am free to do what I do best: to engage with people and network from top-level execs to people just starting off in the creative world. It is from these networks that The Haven + London was born, with a mission to protect and nurture the emotional, mental and spiritual growth, health and wellbeing of the thinkers, shapers and makers in the Arts and Creative Industry.

We are in the process of setting this up as a charity / social enterprise and our dream location would be a church like St-Martin-in-the-Fields where I attend. We are currently looking for funding, and by the end of 2020 we aim to have found our own building, employed chaplains and set up care services so we can become a true haven for the creatives and artists that make our city such a beautiful and vibrant place.

For further details about Peterson’s and his work see: http://petersonfeital.com/

Where is God calling you? #CofECalling

- Peterson Feital

To watch a video about Peterson and his work see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpOJ3ilDayQ

Stephen Ramshaw writes about how he became an evangelist with Church Army

When we are equipped with understanding we are in a position to act on that knowledge, making positive steps forward. Our calling is sometimes more easily spotted by others who can see what we might become. Discovering our purpose and the God who calls can help us make sense of who we are, and who we are called to be.

‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last.’ (John 15:16)

When I first became a Christian back in 1998, at the age of 36, my whole life changed in a huge way. I had just had Jesus explained to me for the first time, and I just kept thinking why has no one told me this before?

How has it taken 36 years of my life till someone has actually explained to me who Jesus really is? From that moment on I had a passion for ordinary, everyday people to hear the Good News of Jesus.  

When I became a Christian I was working in the construction industry, an industry I still worked in until five years ago.  I was just an ordinary bloke working in a very ordinary job with not one academic qualification to my name. I was brought up on a council estate; I was still living on a council estate. I went to a comprehensive school which I left the first chance I got, and had various run-ins with the law in my younger years.

I used to look about at the blokes I worked with, the people on the estates where I lived, and had a real sense of God wanting me to take his love to those people and places, the places and people who were in real need of Jesus, but the Church seemed to have overlooked.

It used to, and still does, tear at my heart and fill my belly with fire and a passion to reach out with the love of Jesus. I started getting more and more involved with the life of my local Church, but I always had a feeling, you could say a calling, I should be out in the wider community.

I did all I could in the Church I was at, I dabbled with the idea of going into full time ministry, But I kept thinking I had no skills or education what could I offer? Who would want me?

Then one cold snowy night there was a knock on the door, our new vicar was standing there looking all sheepish.

I invited him in, and said to him “spit it out, what’s on your mind?”

He just said “Stephen I’ve never said this to anyone before, but I feel God’s calling you to be an evangelist with Church Army.”

“Is he really?” I responded jokingly.

He said think about it, and pray about it and see where it goes.

So I prayed, and listened to God, I knew a lot of other people were praying too, it felt right to apply. Just filling in the application was a job in itself, never mind the selection panels, but Jesus was beside me and helped me through it all.

Now after four years of training, which was brilliant, I am now doing something which I absolutely love.

Living and working in an area of North Tyneside that has some very real social problems and is in the bottom 10% of areas of deprivation in the country, I know that God loves this community where I am at, and he wants them to have the very best lives possible. I want them to know that, and for our community to thrive not just survive.   I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else

Praise the Lord.

- Stephen Ramshaw

Lindsay Wright writes about her calling to parenthood:

 ‘Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.’ (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

Four years ago I was a Youth worker in a church, on good money, busy and loving it. Six weeks later I had given it all up.

This is my story of my calling to parenthood.

My calling to be a youth worker has led my husband and I down some interesting paths in life - funded positions are hard to come by! In 2012 I was finally on a decent full time wage, we were financially comfortable for the first time in our marriage and I loved my job. Then we found out we were pregnant. It was a complete surprise, Kids were not in our three year plan, but we were over-joyed. I vividly remember running down the stairs with the pregnancy test waving it in front of my husband, beaming. Later that week we went on a short holiday for my husband’s birthday. Day One in the Lake District was great, I remember a beautiful moment in the hotel room where he rested his head on my belly and started chatting to the baby. The second day, however, things changed. After breakfast I noticed some bleeding, it was the beginning of a miscarriage.

It was the most heart-breaking experience of my life, and I mourned for that child. A few days after the miscarriage I started a journal about what had happened to help me to reflect and process my feelings. People would try and comfort me by saying things like ‘At least you know you can get pregnant’, ‘You’re young, you can have more’ and ‘It’s so common’, which only ever angered me and made me so confused over what I was feeling. Through writing it all down I was able to work through the pain and realise how much I needed to fully open myself up to let God into this grief.

Over the next few weeks we felt our life plan crumble away. Without realising it God had changed my calling, causing major confusion, and I felt torn. I had to ask myself whether I should continue in this job which provided us with such financial comfort, or leave and potentially start a family. Never did my heart feel the two could merge, it was one or the other. Fed up of the muddle I’d got my head into I sat down one day and let out one single prayer to God: I’m here to listen all day.

I kept myself open to hear his words, and had such a strong urge to look in the front of my Bible. At the time I hadn’t picked up my paper Bible for a few months (I used an online version mostly) and I couldn’t think what would be at the front beyond the title. When I looked I discovered I had written a passage in the top corner, about a year beforehand, Habakkuk 3:17-19. Completely forgetting that book existed in the Bible, never mind that I’d written it down, I went to find it:

17Though the fig tree does not blossom,     and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails     and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold     and there is no herd in the stalls, 18yet I will rejoice in the Lord;     I will exult in the God of my salvation. 19God, the Lord, is my strength;     he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,     and makes me tread upon the heights.

I knew from that moment I had to leave my wonderful job, my financial security, my three-year plan, without having a clue of what was ahead. It felt like I was about to walk down a dark corridor, knowing God would lead me to the right door eventually.

My decision was confirmed days later when we found out we were expecting again, it was the right thing to do. There was a very hair raising moment when we sat down to project our finances (minus half of our total income) and it looked dire, but the Habakkuk verse saw us through, here is what I wrote down in my diary that evening:

“…we have to count on God’s rule to prevail, we need to keep praising Him. Greater miracles have happened in much less time. We need to re-learn how to truly depend on Him. We have taken such a huge step of faith and if we found the strength and trust to do that then we can find the strength and trust to continue walking in that faith, towards the situation which looks terrible, but knowing God wouldn’t let that sort of harm happen to us.”

God didn’t let us come to harm, it’s been rough in places, but these four years have been an amazing adventure, one which still continues. I found a part time job which allows me to use my best skills and experience from youth work, whilst giving me quality time to be a mum, we have been able to buy a house, and as of October 2015 we have another child. Truly blessed.

People seem very confused when I say I felt called into parenthood, many people are parents. How it feels to me is that God went from telling me to be a witness to Young People, to be a witness to my children, and my job has moved from being my calling to being a gift that allows my calling to happen.

What are your gifts? #CofECalling?

There are many forms of vocation in the Church of England, including the calling to Religious Life. Mucknell Abbey in Worcestershire is home to an Anglican Benedictine community of men and women who live a life of prayer. Brother Luke is a Member of this Community and shares the story of his calling to a Religious Life.

‘Listen and attend with the ear of your heart’ (The Rule of St Benedict) The thing about a ‘calling’, I think, is that it is continuous: moment by moment I try to remember that God is ‘calling’ me. I have heard that ‘calling’ for a long time, God’s invitation to become the person he has created me to be.

There was a time when I didn’t hear God’s calling as an invitation to explore a monastic vocation, but that is where my response to a sense of God’s calling in my life has gradually brought me. It was a step-by-step discovery that hasn’t, nor isn’t, always crystal clear; and it has been scary, exciting, very challenging, and enriching.

This journey has involved intuitive impulses that I have needed to explore. I began by asking tentative questions about the monastic life with a close friend, which eventually developed into a conversation with my bishop. At first, I had intended speaking about ordination to the priesthood but the conversation turned towards monasticism and finished with his suggestion that I spend a weekend with a community; that is what I did.

The experience was disorienting. I felt, at once, attracted by the way of life I was witnessing and also terrified by the possibility this way of life could be for me. The attraction and sense of God prodding me in the direction of monastic life eventually triumphed over the fear. So, I continued over the course of a year to return to the community, getting to know the people and become more familiar with the lifestyle. Eventually, the desire to explore monastic community reached the point where the only thing left to do was to jump in.

It was a big step coming to Mucknell Abbey, not only for me but for my family and friends. My entry into monastic life has been a steady progression. I began as an ‘alongsider’, which means I lived with the community without formally becoming a member. This allowed me to get a feel of the life without any major commitments. I eventually moved into the community as a novice-monk and began the slightly more formal process of joining the community. Still, even now that I have made my First Profession (vows for three years), the whole journey continues to be a moment by moment discovery without having to know where the journey is leading.

Monastic life is apt to be romanticised: flowing robes, candle-lit services, and long effortless hours of ecstatic prayers! Those and other ‘romantic’ elements feature, in some form, in monastic life and can be important in first attracting a person to exploring a monastic vocation. However, these images of monastic life are, by-and-large, products of the imagination. My experience of life in the community I am now a member of has shown me the ordinariness of monastic life (and life in general), but in that very ordinariness there is great joy and contentment to be found.

There are many challenges that I have and continue to encounter in my monastic life. Most obviously, there are the other people! Living at close quarters, 24 hours a day, with a group of very different people has, I have discovered, the amazing capacity to create tension. Yet, slowly, I am discovering that the roots of what frustrates me about those I live with are found in myself, and that the biggest challenge is getting to know and accept myself: especially the parts that I would rather remain ignorant of. The daily routine can feel onerous and relentless, and the inhibiting of my own wants by living under a rule and in a context where my decisions and actions have a very noticeable effect on those I live with are some of the other difficulties that I have encountered. Yet, the grace that I have been given (often through those I live with) in order to persevere in and through these difficulties has allowed me to see that the difficult experiences have invited me to a deeper and more joyful relationship with God, others, and myself.

‘I know the plans I have for you’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’. (Jeremiah 29:1)

Rose Grigg writes about her vocation:

I never wanted to be a priest. My friends' first reaction was bellows of laughter; the ones who weren't Christian blinked at me slowly and poured themselves more wine. The sensible ones asked if I was quite prepared for a life of robing and port.

I never seemed a very good fit, even to myself: at the time I started the discernment process, I was working part-time for indie record labels and part-time as the worship director in a charismatic evangelical church. Most of my days were spent behind a drum kit and Macbook, or slinging my motorcycle between gig venues and gay bars.

The calling began more as nagging: my mum, who'd been praying for me for years, told me several times she thought I should look into ordination. My spiritual director, a wise and worldly feminist priest, told me she'd been praying on it for some time, and my incumbent, when I raised the subject, nodded in a knowing way. On his advice, I spent some weeks in prayer. Before two weeks were gone, I knew what I had to do. A concrete block had formed in my head, a solid rock with 'priesthood' carved in big square letters. It was as if the path were laid out inexorably before me and regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, I was going to have to see where it led.

Where it led was three hundred miles away, out of London and my vibrant friendships, down into the middle of nowhere in a tiny village in west Cornwall. It was a shock to the system; the nearest Nando’s was two hours away. This tiny village plays host to the Way2 Project, an internship scheme for those exploring vocation. Here, working in a group of rural churches, living alongside others on the same journey, praying daily as a community, my sense of calling was tried, tested and, eventually, affirmed.

I remember with startling clarity the moment the Bishop called to tell me I was through: as soon as he hung up, I drained off my glass of wine, stared slightly accusingly at God and asked, “What have I got myself into?!” There have always been twin feelings within me about this calling: priesthood is intimidating, and demanding, and sometimes the church can feel like a brick wall you keep accidentally head-butting. But I can't escape the fact that God seems to have me pinned for ordination - and the taste of it is adventure, wild submission, generosity and a reckless embrace of the unlovable. I know I will look back from my deathbed with the satisfaction of a life lived with an open throttle, all out, hands open and nothing held back. In giving all, we receive a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, poured into our lap. And after all...who could ask for more than that?

- Rose Grigg