#newrevs

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.    

Joe Roberts, 30, a former pub landlord, writes about how working behind a bar helped him to rediscover his vocation to ordained ministry. He will be ordained a deacon in Birmingham Cathedral on Sunday.

“I was brought up in a Church of England family and my mother was hugely involved in our church in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. I went to church but it was more out of duty than perhaps anything else. I unexpectedly experienced a radical change to my faith when I was 13 years old on a walk with friends when I stopped and sat down on a bench by a bridge waiting for them to catch up. I remember feeling the presence of God, it was a really profound feeling that God was watching over me and that he wanted me to serve him. This experience made me get more deeply involved with my faith, I went along to Alpha and joined a Bible studies group and became an altar server. After speaking to my parish priest, I thought it would be a good idea to study theology at university. At that stage I didn’t really have any idea of what a priest did but I thought this would help give me a greater grounding of my faith. Ironically, it was while I was at university that I put my faith to one side. I told myself that I was studying theology at a deeper level and I didn’t need to go to church.

“When I finished at university I felt a bit unsure about what I would do next. I knew at that stage that I was not ready to discern my calling for the priesthood in spite of being known as the ‘Reverend’  at university - even though I was not practising my faith or doing anything about it. I started an MPhil but it was a part-time course and I needed work. I got a job at The Wellington pub in the centre of Birmingham as a barman. Paying the rent and doing the course got too much of a struggle and I later stopped my studies. I took a job as cellar manager at the pub. It involved making sure that that the cellar was in check and that the beer was ready with around 15 different real ales at any one time. I thoroughly enjoyed the job and it suited my background. My mum and dad had been early members of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), and I have been chairman of the local branch and have helped organise the Birmingham beer festival.

“In some ways, working in the pub reflects the role of the minister, especially in the pastoral care and getting alongside people. People come to you with their issues and their problems and for advice. While of course it was a highly secular world, I never hid my faith. In a strange way, working in a pub helped me rediscover my vocation.

“It was at The Wellington that I met my future wife, Jaime, who was assistant manager – she would end up running it. She wanted to explore her faith and we both ended up going to Birmingham Cathedral. We would go to the 11am service as late night work on Saturdays made it harder to attend an earlier one. While there I spoke to the DDO (Diocesan Director of Ordinands) about my vocation but she said I was trying to run before I could walk. I had only just started going back to church and it was too early to talk about ordination. I moved from The Wellington to take up a job as a landlord at another pub but made the decision to leave because of the long hours.

“At that point, I was unemployed and we had nowhere to live. We went to a service at Birmingham Cathedral and one of the canons came over and said ‘we are looking for a verger, you could be the answer to our prayers, would you like to apply?’ I got the job as a verger and began working too at St Martin in the Bullring church as a parish administrator. I went back to see the DDO, as now seemed the right time and began the process of moving towards ordination, completing a two year MA course at Westcott House in Cambridge. I will be taking up a curacy at St. Leonard’s, Marston Green, Birmingham, after my ordination. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and rolling my sleeves up – to flourish in myself and my ministry, to learn and develop while contributing to the flourishing of the parish as a whole.”

 - Joe Roberts

I was born and brought up in the Church of North India. I had no desire originally to come to the UK but came over exactly 10 years ago with our three sons to join my wife, a Registered Nurse, in June 2006. At the time, I was a teacher in an engineering college and had no interest or inclination to become an ordained priest. I refused and resisted God’s gentle overtures until he talked to me in a storm, à la Jonah. He spoke to me through adversity in a ‘Jonah in the Whale’ moment.

During my plane journey from India, my eldest son Siddhartha became very poorly and just slumped into bed on reaching home. The following day, he became seriously ill and was taken to hospital where we were horrified to find that he was in a diabetic coma. The doctors were keeping their fingers crossed, not sure whether he would come out of it intact, without damage to his brain. We were told that it could be 24 hours before we would find out. My wife, who is from a Hindu background, and after marriage had converted to Christianity through genuine conviction, prayed earnestly to God. Siddhartha came round after only two hours and is now in perfect health. This was followed by other events that jolted me – my younger sister died of breast cancer and my mother’s brain cancer deteriorated. Up until then, I had been a nominal Christian who attended church once in a blue moon.

Later that year, a neighbour of ours, a Pakistani Christian, asked me to come to an Anglican church in Leicester, where a group of Asian people – mainly from Pakistan and India – asked me if I’d like to be their ‘pastor.’ I said no – and protested that I was a teacher, not a preacher. They somehow persuaded me to lead them in a rented Methodist church closer to where they lived. We met in this free ‘Pentecostal’ church in the afternoon. In the morning, I went to St Theodore’s in Leicester, where the former Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, confirmed our whole family, including our three sons, into the Church of England in 2008.

In early 2012, God spoke to me through Bishop Tim who asked us how the Church of England could help the South Asian community.  I asked if he could open the closed church of St Gabriel’s in Belgrave – it was duly reopened through Bishop’s Mission Order in June 2012 and rededicated as All Saints Church. I was sent to The Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham and underwent a Bishop’s Advisory Panel interview and was successful. I was made a deacon last year and will be ordained a priest on Saturday in Leicester Cathedral.

At All Saints, we have a congregation of more than 150 and since 2012 have baptised more than 70 people. We hold services for our mainly South Asian congregation in a number of languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati and English – the strapline of our church being “Multilingual Worship in a Multicultural Community.” I’m a Curate in Leicester Cathedral for half a week and at All Saints Church for the other half. My journey has taught me that storms are not always bad, and lending ears to the Lord definitely leads to a sense of direction and purpose in life.”

 -  Rev Sunny George, Curate in Leicester Cathedral and Minister of All Saints Church, Belgrave, Leicester, will be ordained a priest on Saturday in Leicester Cathedral.

Click here to find other blogs about people’s ministry and vocation

Watch Sunny George speak in this short video:

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Jimmy Lawrence, 29, writes about how his view of the role of the vicar changed once he started working for a church. He will be ordained a deacon on Saturday at Wakefield Cathedral.

“I've always wanted to be a teacher, or a musician...or maybe I could start a social action project, or work as a social worker. For years, as I went through school and university, I would bounce these options around: what was I going to do with my life? There were so many things I wanted to do. When I look back on my indecision about going forward for ordination, I think there was a deep seated FOMO (fear of missing out) which initially made me so hesitant. I thought that becoming a vicar meant shutting the door on everything exciting and entering a world of sleepy afternoon teas and home knitted jumpers. I wanted to get out and do things, I’m not very good at sitting quietly, 'vicaring' was not for me. A lot of these misconceptions changed once I started working for a church. I had the nagging feeling that I had to look into ministry, so I joined an internship with St George's Church in Leeds, where I attended church during University. I discovered a group of people who were hard working, passionate and creative. Around the same time I was reading a book by an American Christian leader who said: "the local church is the hope of the world." I started thinking about my desire to be a teacher, to start social action projects, to work with the poor and those on the margins of society, and to be involved in creative ways of making the world a better place. What I discovered during my internship is that the Church was exactly the sort of place that could do all those things. The Church, led by passionate creative people, proclaiming the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in word and deed, really could be the hope of the world. Fast forward a few years and I was working for Coventry Cathedral. Coventry has a long history of creative people taking risks, aiming to bring hope to the world. I wanted to talk to local normal people who would never normally come into a Cathedral about freedom in Jesus; I wanted to create a space where those people could feel safe to talk about the ways they might feel trapped. So my friend Marlon and I decided to lock ourselves in a two-meter-squared cage, outside, for a week! During the course of that week we spoke to around 1,000 people. Hundreds of them wrote prayers and attached them to the cage and we handed out Bibles and wooden crosses. We prayed personally for lots of people but one story sticks out. A young guy turned up to the cage with tattoos up to his neck and a piercing in his eyebrow; he was dressed in a smart suit and looked scared. He had just come from court and wanted somewhere to clear his head so he stepped into the grounds of Coventry Cathedral. Seeing us, he walked over, intrigued by these two muppets standing in the cold, locked in a cage. As he told us story it became clear that this guy was trapped. I won't go into the details but a night that should have just been a laugh with some friends took a turn for the worse and things got serious fast. Now he was in deep trouble and wasn't sure if he was going to spend the next couple of years in prison. We were able to pray with him, gave him a Bible and meet with him after our week in the cage was finished. We talked about how Jesus could give him a freedom which transcends circumstances and he left the cage that day with hope. So why do I want to get ordained this summer? Because I want to lead a community who are passionately committed to being a people of hope, by proclaiming the message of Jesus to a world that is in desperate need of it. The Church of England is a creative and innovative place and I'm excited to get ordained as an Anglican priest on Saturday.”

- Jimmy Lawrence

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