Thursday 27 June 2024

25 years - and not swallowing my own spittle!



I’ve been trying to reflect quietly today on this my 25th anniversary of ordination. About this time, on 27 June 1999 I was enjoying a post ordination bag of chips by the carousel on Southport prom. We’d had a mighty service at Leyland Road church where the preacher was Edmund Marshall. He sent all the ordinands that year a Christmas card every year until he passed away. That was kind. I don’t remember much about the service apart from the weight of the hands on my head at the point of ordination and the acclamation we might be worthy of the call upon us. 25 years later I still don’t feel worthy! 

I’ve travelled through seven Circuits since 1997 and I hope I’ve helped some people discover God and I hope I’ve helped some churches grow in confidence. I’ve only had to oversee two churches who had to cease to meet and they had buildings that were too much for them. One turned into a house group which is still meeting today and the other has had all its members settle into neighbouring churches and meeting occasionally in their village in the parish church or village hall. 

I’m grateful to my friend Mandy who reminded me of a quote from a fabulous book that has been really important to me. I even got on a plane and flew from Gatwick to Edinburgh to hear the author speak and sign my copy of her book this quote comes from:

"If my own experience can be trusted, then God does not call us once but many times. There are calls to faith and calls to ordination, but in between there are calls to particular communities and calls to particular tasks within them--calls into and out of relationships as well as calls to seek God wherever God may be found."
 ~Barbara Brown Taylor, from The Preaching Life



I went to Evensong in the cathedral tonight to mark this special anniversary. The readings were quite miserable but they speak of holding on when it’s tough, and I’ve had a lot of holding on when it’s been mad and sometimes really unpleasant. Here’s part of Psalm 94:

17 Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. 18 When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. 19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul. 20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

Then we had Job chapter 7, brilliant in the King James Version. He wants God to leave him alone! 

12 Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest watch over me? 13 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaints; 14 Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: 15 So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. 16 I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity. 17 What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? 18 And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment? 19 How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

Have I had times in the last 25 years I’ve wanted God to leave me alone till I swallow down my spittle? Maybe! There have been some tough places I’ve been asked to go to and they’ve needed energy and I’ve had some railing prayers at God in them! But I’m still here. I wonder what sort of Methodist Church there will be when I mark 50 years in 2049! 



In Evensong when you share the creed it’s customary to face the high altar. Tonight I noticed the twelve apostles with Jesus in the middle of them in the stained glass. They were a motley crew, they made mistakes and yet Jesus believed in them. So I will keep going and keep trying to be as excited about the call to ordained ministry as I was in 1999. 

Ministry actually 25 years on is different but it in this climate can be exciting. I’m doing far more ecumenically and with other partners and I’m known outside the churches as I walk around. It feels like the gap between church and community is lessening. The challenge is I think that people want to talk God, they are just not attracted to churches anymore and how on earth do you appeal to anyone under 60 to come to church now? I’m going to where people are but this isn’t growing the institution. 



In a scrapbook put together for my ordination full of letters and cards sent to me mostly from the fabulous what was then the Ashton Circuit, I have these words: 

We are not ordaining you to ministry; that happened at your baptism.

We are not ordaining you to be a caring person; you are already called to that.

We are not ordaining you to serve the Church in committees, activities, organisation; that is already implied in your membership.

We are not ordaining you to become involved in social issues, ecology, race, politics, revolution, for that is laid upon every Christian.

We are ordaining you to something smaller and less spectacular: to read and interpret those sacred stories of our community, so that they speak a word to people today; to remember and practice those rituals and rites of meaning that in their poetry address human beings at the level where change operates; to foster in community through word and sacrament that encounter with truth which will set men and women free to minister as the body of Christ.

We are ordaining you to the ministry of the word and sacraments and pastoral care. God grant you grace not to betray but uphold it, not to deny but affirm it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On Sunday I will be at my colleague Sarah’s ordination in Harrogate. It will be a chance to thank God for the last 25 years and to place everything in his hands because I know changes will be coming. For the beloved Church to be here in 2049 we have to be brave and we have to trust. For me ordination was not the end but the beginning and while it’s been tough I don’t regret God badgering me and I’m happy to see in my final years and in supernumerary land what God might be up to! 

Remember John Wesley after ordaining ministers in America which caused our split from the C of E, he sent out his new clergy to spark something new, something he could not predict. If we knew the future, well wouldn’t that be boring?! 

Bring on the next 25 years! The 1999 Conference adopted a really exciting report on the nature of Church: “Called to Love and Praise.” Maybe we need to read it because I think if we are to flourish we have to rediscover our purpose. Don’t we?  Discuss! 

My beloved minister in my teenage years Geoff Hawkridge wrote me a letter after being at my accreditation as a local preacher in 1990. He urged me to consider candidating and he called ordained ministry the greatest calling in the world. I faffed about for three years. I needed my Chair of District, Garth Rogers to waft his cigarette at me and tell me in no uncertain terms to get on with it! And 25 years later here I stand, I can do no other. To quote Luther!





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