#cofeministry

My journey into ordained ministry feels like a slow, steady, and looking back, natural journey punctuated by distinct and clear moments with God. I had grown up going to church, surrounded by a supportive church community, and had found my own faith at aged 17 at the youth festival Soul Survivor. Although I don’t have a particularly ‘dramatic’ story of coming to faith, it does feel to me like life before that summer was in black and white, or at least grey, and afterwards everything was in vibrant colour. It was there, and in the church youth group I attended thereafter, that I found huge encouragement as a young person to invest in my relationship with God, and seek his call on my life. I took a year out before university to serve in Christian ministry abroad, and happily entered into the life of my church at university, grateful to find groups and activities to contribute to and receive from.

After university I was keen to ‘give back’ to a church student ministry, having received so much. After an initial set back I was offered a role in York, so journeyed ‘up north’ for what I thought would be a year of student ministry before moving onto the next thing, although I didn’t really know what that would be. Over the summer I worked in the bookshop that served all of the summer festivals in Shepton Mallet – it was somewhat of a Christian bubble, but very refreshing and restorative.  My disinct and unexpected call to ordained ministry came in a huge tent full of people at the summer conference New Wine. The speaker had encouraged the older generations to pray for and commission the younger generation, and I had gone forward to prayer with a friend. The person praying for me was in fact quite distracting, but once they’d left me to it, I heard God say in my mind’s ear ‘You’re going to be a vicar.’

Excuse me, What? It felt like something I would never imagine, or make up, so I asked again, and the sense was the same. I stood up a while later (I’d been on the floor) and told my friend, who was far too over-excited and started to plan my next five years. I stopped him, and left it with God, to remind me later...maybe it was just me! At a later festival, Momentum, surrounded by peers and friends, in vulnerability I responded to a call to serve the Church in another ministry time, and found myself being prayed for by university friends I hadn’t even realised had been close by.

I went to York with a different sense of purpose, albeit incredibly vulnerable and unsure. After a few weeks of working in the church, I confessed to my colleague (who gratefully was a good friend) my feeling of vocation, and he was very gracious and brought great clarity. It was a blessing that I got to witness in York the kind of chuch leadership and ministry that I felt a real affinity with, and was modelled a type of ‘vicar’ that I could just about imagine being. I went through the discernment process in a couple of years, but then delayed training to begin with a new contextual training pathway called St. Barnabas Theological Centre, which shared my desire to integrate academic study with everyday ministry.

I was placed in a new church for training, which brought both its challenges, as I felt disorientated and de-skilled, but also huge blessings as I learnt more about relating to others and how to discern what God is doing and saying in new and unknown places. I’m so pleased that God led me to train in that way, as I feel much more equipped now for my curacy and next chapter of ministry. My new bishop recently spoke of the transition into ordained ministry not as an end or a beginning, which they could well be described as, but as a ‘continuation’. I really resonated with that, as I know that with God, we are ‘called’ from baptism and no experience is wasted, and that whether collared or not we are all ‘in ministry’. I am well aware that ordained ministry will hold new challenges and feel different from before, but I am confident that the God who has led me before will continue to guide me, and that his strength is perfected in my weakness. Significant verses for me have been 1 Timothy 1:12, and 2 Timothy 1:7 – I remember that in my relative ‘youth’, especially in the Church of England, God has given me the Holy Spirit for boldness, and that I can offer an honest example of a life given over to God that will hopefully encourage others to get to know Jesus for themselves.

- Eve Ridgeway is one of 12 women and men to be ordained as deacons in York Minster on Sunday by the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu

Rev Katy Garner, whose treatment for cancer was featured last week in a BBC documentary, will be ordained as a deacon tomorrow in Portsmouth Cathedral. Here she writes about her faith, living with cancer and her journey to ordination.  

One of the joys - or perhaps tribulations - of the discernment process is the need to reflect upon one's faith journey.  Where has God been in my life up until this point?  Where is God leading me?  And, of course, it's often only when we look back at the journeys we've made that we see God's hand at work.

Whilst I didn't know it at the time, my journey towards ordination started as a 13-year-old when I became the first female server at Exeter Cathedral.  My family worshipped there, and my brother became a head chorister.  I was very keen to play a practical part in this gathering, and felt drawn to the sacrament of Holy Communion.  But as a girl, at that time, not only was I not allowed to sing in the choir, but I wasn't allowed to be a server either. (Thankfully, things have changed since.) It  took some serious discussions before the then dean and bishop eventually agreed to allow me to be a part of the serving team but, much to my delight, I was soon able to play my own unique part in the cathedral's worship.

We all face obstacles of one sort or another as we travel through life.  And some of these can challenge our faith or give our faith another dimension or perspective.  Another such moment for me came in 2009 whilst working as a research scientist at Bristol University.  I found a lump in the top of my leg. Everybody told me it was nothing.  But the medical tests soon discovered a melanoma.  It was a moment of big questions; suddenly my trust in my body to behave itself was undermined.  But fortunately, my faith and trust in our unchanging, faithful God remained strong as I continued to explore my vocation to the priesthood.

After the cancer had been removed, the specialists told me that if the cancer came back, it would be life-limiting.  But if it hadn’t returned in three years I could have a small party, and if it hadn’t come back in five years, I could have a big party!  In fact we chose to have a party after six years because 2015 was also our 25th wedding anniversary which Peter and I celebrated by renewing our wedding vows in front of family and friends in Bath Abbey.

But were we a little too eager to close the door on my cancer experience?  In June 2015 I found another lump in the same place, and once again it had to be removed.  We seemed to be back to square one.  And so, whilst I've been training for the priesthood at Ripon College Cuddesdon, just outside Oxford, I've been living in the shadow of cancer and with all the possible repercussions of such a condition.  So much so in fact that, in August 2015, I was contacted by the BBC and asked to be part of a TV documentary focusing on how people live with cancer and, in my particular case, how it affects people of faith.

The TV cameras followed me, my family and friends for seven months as I tried a new treatment which is still on trial in the UK.  It was a time when, with this most difficult of diagnoses, I thought the Church wouldn't want me to finish my training.  With enough to worry about myself, how on earth was I going to be able to minister to others?  But I was wrong.  I not only received great support from the Principal and staff of Ripon College Cuddesdon, but from the wider Church too which has kept faith in me, encouraged me to pursue my training, and has helped me to find a curacy in Hampshire which I feel so enthusiastic about.

So when the Bishop of Portsmouth ordains me as a deacon, I'll be excited, relieved - and extremely thankful that God is allowing me to fulfill this calling. Things haven't been easy and, despite it all and the opportunity to focus on some of the most profound of all questions, I still don't have an answer to why God allows suffering.  But, in my own case, cancer has not made me lose my faith.  Indeed, I believe it has potentially increased my ability to minister to those I'll be meeting in the future who most need to receive God's love and compassion. Faith is a journey and does involve doubts.  But I've always been aware of God walking alongside me, and that, for me, has resulted in an even more beautiful relationship with Him.

- Katy Garner was featured in the third episode of 'The Big C and Me', which was broadcast on BBC One on Wednesday June 22.  She will take up the post of curate for West Meon, Warnford, East Meon, and Langrish - four villages near Petersfield in Portsmouth diocese.    

Neil Robinson was ordained a deacon in Salisbury Cathedral at the weekend. He will take up the post of diocesan chaplain to the deaf and hard of hearing in addition to serving as assistant curate of Bemerton, in Salisbury Diocese.

“My name is Neil Robinson, a profoundly deaf BSL (British Sign Language) user. I was born into a hearing family – my parents took my deafness and physical disability very hard but they treated me the same as my brothers and sister.

What attracted me to become an ordained clergy? God called me three times to this ministry. I rejected His first calling about 15 years ago, because I was a member of a local charismatic church at the time. I was a residential support worker working for SENSE, an organization supporting deafblind people with additional disabilities while I attended this church. But finally, God spoke to me clearly through a vision during 2011, while I was driving past St John’s College, Nottingham. The vision I saw showed me standing in front of a mirror and I saw my reflection wearing a clerical shirt and He told me to go ahead with it! I thought I was crazy but I immediately realised that God made it clear to me that He has indeed called me to this ministry.

What made me decide to become an Anglican? Well, I used to dislike the Anglican tradition of worship. But when I first came to St. Alkmund’s Church Derby under God’s guidance, my eyes were opened to see the rich diversity of worship and it made me realise that there is a great spiritual need in the deaf community. I somewhat enjoy worshipping God in a traditional way, for example, the liturgical worship.

The journey into ordained ministry was quite tough especially for me because formal educational and formative training posed me with a lot of difficult challenges. But I thank God for the wonderful BSL interpreters who gave me full access to lectures and group discussions. Being only a culturally deaf person within this educational setting was a difficult experience for me because I am in a hearing non-signing environment. It took me a long time to help hearing students to understand the issues I faced daily, for example, experiencing minority stress that led me to have a short spell of depression.

Before I was called to ordained ministry, I used to work for Action Deafness as a Community Support Worker. I loved this job but I feel that being an Assistant Curate will be the best job in the world! Despite facing challenges of barriers, I recognize God’s clear calling on my life to become an ordained clergy. Although things seem impossible to me, nothing is too difficult for God.

Bob Shrine, a retired deaf priest, once quoted, “Deaf people are not incomplete hearing people; they are complete Deaf people.” 

I strongly believe that Deaf people can become ordained clergy, not just onlookers within the church community. I know for sure that God can use them to glorify Him through serving faithfully in the life of the Church. God loves Deaf people so much that He longs for them to experience His love and enter into the relationship with Him through a language they can understand. 

The cross clearly demonstrates God’s ability to draw everyone together as a family, regardless of their backgrounds”.

- Neil Robinson

Rev Phil Maries, a former lorry driver, was ordained priest at All Saints Parish Church, Normanton, West Yorkshire, at the weekend. He writes about how a CB radio broadcast by a vicar that he heard on the road to Glasgow changed the course of his life.

“I was brought up in a Christian family but I drifted away. I went to church as a child but I found it totally boring. I was given the option of finding something else to do so I played rugby which got me out of going to church.

“I left school with no qualifications and I was written off. I was going to go into the Army but that fell through and I ended up as a scaffolder earning a lot of money but playing hard and drinking hard. There was one event that made me realise that my life was going nowhere – I was in a fight in a pub, I took my friend out of the pub and then went back in and found someone had been stabbed. It was the realisation that I could have been the one who was stabbed or I could have been the one using the knife that made me review my life and start to realise what God was trying to say to me.

“I later took up a job as an HGV driver and was driving for 32 years all over Europe. I was doing specialist haulage and the company I worked for did a lot of work on petrochemical and nuclear industry. I was working for a lot of the time in big nuclear power stations but also small electrical sub stations. The longest I was on the road was for a month.

“When I first started driving I was travelling up the M6 just beyond Lancaster, there’s a truck stop at Carnforth and the local vicar used to go in there when CB radios were in use and do a ‘Pause for Thought’. I was travelling up to Glasgow when I caught about 90 seconds of what he was saying. He was talking about Psalm 116 and Psalm 113 and I really listened to what those two psalms were saying. I began searching for a local church but I didn’t really find anything suitable, but looking back, God was in all of this. I got together with my future wife Belinda, who worked in my company, after she invited me to teach map reading to guides. She was a guide captain and we were invited to church by the vicar where the guides were being presented with their badges. We ended up attending this church together.

“In the early 1990s Nigel McCulloch, the then Bishop of Wakefield, said that Wakefield was going to be a missionary diocese and the whole diocese was invited to run a mission. I was part of that team and I felt called to be an evangelist. Everyone kept mentioning ordination but I had it in my mind that I couldn’t do that because I had left school with no qualifications. I got involved with an organisation called Through Faith Missions and was going all over the country doing mission work for them, being an area evangelist team leader. I was encouraged to do Reader training. I started the training but struggled with the academic side. The Church persuaded me to get assessed and it turned out that I was dyslexic. I was able to get extra help and completed the course.

“I’ve now completed a full degree course and I’m going to take up a stipendiary post in Normanton, an ex mining town

“The vicar who spoke on the CB radio broadcast would not have known if he had reached anybody - but that was his calling, and it was a life-changing moment for me. Looking back, my life could have gone two ways – the way that it has done, or I could have ended up in prison or an alcoholic and in a very low place. The faithfulness of that vicar has had an enormous impact on my life and I want to pay that back and do the same for somebody else.”

- Phil Maries

Chris Sayburn, 33, left school without qualifications and became a Christian in 2001 at the annual Soul Survivor summer festival. He is being ordained a deacon in Manchester Cathedral on 26 June.

“I'm a Blackpool lad who grew up in a dysfunctional, but a now restored, family that deeply knows the grace of God.

“We can honestly say that it's because of Jesus that my mum and dad are still married. It's because of Jesus that we've been able to deal with mental health issues within the family and I've personally walked through depression and anxiety. It's because of Jesus that my sister who ran away when she was 15 and I was seven is now following Jesus and back in relationship with her family. I like to think that we as a family are testimonies of grace.

“I left school with no qualifications and became a Christian in 2001 aged 18 years old  at the annual summer festival for “Soul Survivor”.

“It was there that I heard the gospel. The headline good news of Jesus Christ, His life, death, resurrection, ascension and awaited return in accordance with the back story that brings about a new reality, hope and restoration (1 Cor 15). This gospel was irresistible to someone like me who had been left empty by the world over promising and under delivering.  

“Fast forward, I'm now married to Cat (we are coming up to 12 years, another testimony of grace from God, and my wife!) We have two kids Jacob, 10, and Bethany nearly seven and we genuinely love serving Jesus together as a family.

“Since becoming a Christian I've always served within Church of England parishes. It began at St Thomas’ in Blackpool, in the heart of an Urban Priority Area, then to a village church, St. Peter’s, Gildersome, in West Yorkshire, where people would take your washing in for you if it was raining - I thought someone was trying to nick our clothes at first! – and then to St George’s Church, Leeds, a vibrant and diverse city centre church. Through these churches, I’ve served a number of roles including youth worker, musical worship pastor, creative communications leader, evening service team leader, Alpha team leader, Missional events pastor, football outreach with offenders, prison ministry and line manager of interns.

“Throughout this time, people have consistently said that God was calling me to ordination. I always laughed it off saying, “no chance,” “Well He hasn’t told me!”

“My decision to seek ordination came after an extraordinary fortnight – with myself, my mother in law and my wife all dreaming that I was a vicar. During that time, I led musical worship at Spring Harvest and someone I didn’t know came up to me as said “I think you need to explore ordination”. Then someone within St George’s said the same thing. I then spoke to my Vicar, Jonathan, about it and he said “ah, Mary (his wife) and I were only saying the other day how we believe you need to explore ordination…. Arghh! I got the hint and went to the CofE vocations officer who sent me to the diocesan director of ordinations after three sessions.

“After completing contextual training with St Barnabas Theological Centre, I am now getting ready for my ordination when I get the privilege of serving as a pioneer deacon within the Manchester Diocese.

“The journey has been tough; at times I’ve questioned what the heck I’m doing, but through it all I know the call that God has placed on my life (and family), confirmed by the church and now being outworked through ordination.

“Even now, at 6ft 4ins tall and with full sleeve tattoos on my arms, when I put on a dog collar, people who don’t know me will probably think I’ve dressed up for a stag do.

“I will be serving at Saint Philip’s, Chapel Street, which is being launched in the Autumn as a “Resource church” aiming to reach out to young adults in the city centre.

“The diocese has identified that within a mile of the city centre more than 70% of the population is aged under 30, a number that will continue to rise as more housing developments are built.

“Relationship is really important to myself and my incumbent Gareth Robinson and I am so excited to learn from and serve under him.

“A resource church is about having a vision bigger than a “parish”. Whilst parish remains important, modern communities or networks (as they are often called) don't always work within a parish structure or geographical framework. Match this with the ongoing concerns with the trajectory of church attendance figures and indeed forecast clergy numbers within the UK, we are determined, by God’s grace, to play our small part in the revisiting and outworking of the Great commission and the great commandment.”

Lucy Savage, 26, will be ordained as a deacon in Wakefield Cathedral on July 2. Brought up in a churchgoing Anglican family, and the youngest of four children, she writes here about how her own vocation was inspired when she was just nine years old at the ordination service for her mother Jenny, now a part time priest, also in the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales.

“I remember when mum was ordained as a deacon, I was about nine years old – that was when I started thinking about my own vocation. I remember having an overwhelming feeling throughout her ordination service that this was going to be me one day. I had a great sense of peace about it and a curiosity about God - my slightly childish perspective thought that if my mum was prepared to give up being my mum full time to make this commitment then he must be pretty cool.

“In my teenage years I had the identity crisis that most teenagers have at some point  - following other people around and trying to be like everybody else. I wanted to be sporty and joined an athletics club like one of my brothers. I got involved in music like my other brother and enjoyed singing in the church choir, beginning singing lessons and finding a passion for opera. It wasn’t that I was ignoring my vocation, but I was ‘parking’ it for a little while, it was like I was saying ‘yes, this is going to happen, but not just yet’. I remember telling my singing teacher when I was about 13 years old that I had had a dream that I was an opera singer on stage – dressed in operatic costume but wearing a dog collar, she later reminded me of this when I began discerning my vocational calling.

“I went on to read music at the University of Nottingham and joined the local church of St Barnabas, Lenton Abbey. I had been finding it difficult on my course after having had my tonsils removed before beginning university. It had really changed my voice so that it didn’t feel the same and I was failing to get singing parts in auditions, causing me to feel low.  I began to question my career in opera and looked more towards teaching, but couldn't quite work out in what capacity this would be.  I remember having a lift back to university during my first year after my niece’s christening, with my brother’s mother-in-law, Margaret, and we were having a conversation about the things I loved about being at university. I discovered that all the things I loved had nothing to do with the degree I was doing but had to do with my involvement in the church that had taken me in, looked after me and loved me – St Barnabas. The church is a small community but God really worked powerfully through them and I felt accepted and felt like I belonged. Margaret went on to ask me if I had ever considered being ordained and it was at this point I began to recollect my past thoughts.

“Looking back, I had been asked this question before by a number of people. I couldn’t ignore them and presume that they were asking just because my mum was a vicar – quite a few people didn’t know. I remember ringing my mum and saying ‘I think God is calling me to be a vicar'.  She said ‘Yipee – we can talk about it now!

“She had felt that God was calling me to be ordained for a long time but she didn’t want me to feel that she was the one pushing me into this, it had to come from God and from me, rather than her.

“I am now at the end of my training at St John’s School of Mission in Nottingham. One of my fellow students spoke on his hopes and fears for curacy at college the other day and summed up the feeling as ‘nervouscited’ and I think that really captures the feeling for me.  I will be serving in the parish of Ossett and Gawthorpe between Wakefield and Dewsbury. I will be half way between friends at St Barnabas and my family at home. There is so much happening now and I am really excited about the future.”

- Lucy Savage

Top picture: Lucy at her mother's ordination at Bradford Cathedral, 1999

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.

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