St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
Parish Canterbury
| Archive |
| Contacts |
| How to find us |
| Links |
| What's New |
| Site Map |
| Home Page |
This week I found myself taking a young man about vocation to ministry. Many people consider a vocation; we all have one of course, to show the love of God in word and deed wherever we are. Sometimes that Vocation can take a more specific form of leadership. There are many such roles in the Church of England today: Readers, Authorised Lay Ministers, Pioneers Ministers, Missioners, Ordained Local Ministers as well as the traditional stipendiary priest.
In my twenty and more years of Ministry I have talked to many different people about their vocation. It has to be said that only a few people who initially start out on the road towards ordination go on to its fulfilment. Things get in the way - as indeed, perhaps they are meant to. Family life, promotion at work, doubts about vocation, concerns about the time commitment and the willingness to forgo greater financial rewards. People get married, have more children, end up living on the other side of the world, and think, well, it just wasn't to be. But some do get through to the end and that is wonderful, and I suppose when I look back on my own experience I can say there are certain things that indicate the likelihood of a positive outcome in terms of ordination - and I felt that talking to this young man. I found myself thinking, I think you'll do it. Others of course must decide.
I think Jesus selected his disciples because he saw something in them that told him that whatever their variety of intellect and ability and wealth and status and all that, they would do it; they would stay the course. He was wrong about one of them of course - or was he? Perhaps he always knew that one of them would ultimately turn against him at a critical time.
The harvest is plentiful. People are not there to be rounded up like sheep or cut down like corn: they are there to be told that there is an answer to the question why, and to be given the chance to live a life in the light of the love of God. Each of us is called to do that in our own particular way with the opportunities we have. May god bless the Church with people, and especially young people, ready to come forward to set out on the journey to a ministry that enables others to be what god calls them to be.
Amen.
