This morning I had the privilege of being in Southwark Cathedral at the ordination service to see Jeremy ordained Deacon. I also had the added pleasure of unexpectedly seeing Bridget ordained as well.
It was a privilege because I have traveled with Jeremy, and others from SEITE, for the last three years towards this thing called ordination. It was great to join in with the celebration and prayer with and for Jeremy this morning.
Well done mate … you look great in a dress!
The final weekend has been completed.
The initial training is over.
Currently I feel in a bit of a void s I wait now until Sept. 6th to be ordained.
I have this sense of wanting to start and get on with things.
It’s been an interesting journey, with wonderful people.
We’ve travelled through pain and flipping hard work together.
We’ve also laughed a lot together (and drank a fair bit together as well!)
We’ve all said a lot – and there is nothing else to say other than ‘thanks’.
Tomorrow night, which will now not be a SEITE night anymore will be quite strange.
Photos of the weekend can be found here for those of you interested.
As for now – we look ahead with a mix of excitement and apprehension as we look to start the next stage of the journey with God.
A feeling of arrival with all this training stuff is near!
That sounds bad, but I mean arrival in the sense of a journey. I feel pretty much like I am on a railway track and the train is pulling into a station. Here we alight our joint carriage only to get back on different trains and carriages with different destinations pretty soon.
I am just about to leave for the last training weekend. It’s pretty much a weird feeling. Sometimes the days have dragged. Actually, the days have dragged full stop – it has been hard and rewarding work and yet … 3 years have flown by and I can’t quite believe this is the last weekend and the last time some of us may even see each other.
I want to use this space to publicly thank new friends and colleagues from this course. We have learned from each other. We have argued with each other. We have wondered about each other and yet we have developed a love, care and respect for each other.
That love and respect we have for each other crosses and embraces the normal church boundaries that we see splitting along the Anglican communion at the moment. According to some we should not get on. We do because we have got to know each other.
I thank you all for the things you have taught me, for the things you have allowed us to teach each other and for the way we have grown together. You are, no we are, a pretty good bunch of people!
As I write the above I have been thinking of the Lambeth conference which will be taking our place at Kent university pretty soon. Some bishops are refusing to attend because they disagree with each other. I wonder if they are doing so because dialogue opens them up to seeing they may not be as accurate as they think they are and it opens them to the possibility of having to change their mind on something. Rather than wanting truth, I wonder whether these people are actually more worried about not being right. If so, that is a sad condition to be in.
If there is one thing I can take away from this course, it will be that none of us have the complete truth, the correct interpretation or the right ‘brand’ of christianity. Whether we are evangelicals, liberals, catholics or various mixes of all and none, the truth is we all have an incomplete image of a God who we can never even hope to grasp.
As I move out from Canterbury after this weekend, I pray that we will be able to remember that as we continue our journey.
Please pray for us this weekend as we focus in on the reality of our lives and our callings.
So … the last SEITE lecture has happened. The relief was felt by us all as we celebrated at the pub before going to the lecture. It was then great to all have a meal together (thanks Jeremy for organising both) before going our respective ways before meeting up again on Friday for our last weekend on mission.
It may seem strange to think the mission weekend comes at the end – but actually it could be good as this is theme we are sent off with by the college.
For once I am looking forward to the discussions we will be having in the sessions as well as those we will be having at the bar!
I’m looking forward to this week ahead, but I think it is going to be a strange and possibly emotional week.
Tomorrow I am off to Soul Survivor Church at Watford for the YFC regional tour. I’ll say goodbye to a few people who I may well not bump into again. It will be strange thinking this is my last big YFC event.
After watford I’ll be rushing into London to meet up with fellow students before we attend our last lecture. This weekend coming will be our last training weekend at Kent University. Again it will be an interesting time of goodbyes.
As we approach a new chapter there will obviously be sadness as we turn pages … but there is also excitement as we wonder what is over the page.
Today I feel quite elated … the final essay has been written, 5 days ahead of the deadline, and now I am rediscovering what life is like again without some assignment deadline hanging over me. It’s like the last piece of a challenging puzzle finally dropping into place! I look back and wonder how it has all been fitted in, as well as where the last 3 yers have gone as they seem to have flown by.
A particular thing I am looking forward to now (apart from ordination of course) is being able to tread books that I want to read again, and books that are not on a SEITE reading list.
I’m going to start with Ian’s ‘The Becoming of G-d’ which has been sitting on my desk attempting to allire me away from essay writing. Next on the list is NT Wright’s ‘Surprised by Hope‘ before I tackle some of Richard Hookers stuff on ‘Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity‘
Good to see my good friend Jeremy blogging over at Greenwich Pilgrim.
Jeremy has been a great friend throughout SEITE and I think he is going to be sharing some exciting stuff as he develops new things on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Keep an eye on his blog!
I’ve spent a little bit of time updating links and stuff – so you can now have a read of my latest prayer letter.
I’ve also updated the ‘my writings’ section which is mainly essays and stuff that I have had to do for SEITE. It makes life easier for me to store them online – but if they are of use to do, again please feel free to have a look.
any comments will be welcomely received!
SEITE, the college I have been studying with for the last 3 years, is soon to hold some open evenings. It’s also one of the few colleges that offers a pathway for Ordained Pioneer Ministry which I have been a bit of a guinea pig on. It’s a good course, but also demanding!
SEITE is hosting three Open Evenings in the summer term from 5:30pm so that you can meet some staff and students and check out for yourself what studying at SEITE might be like. These are scheduled for:
Monday 2nd June at the University of Kent at Medway
Tuesday 3rd June at Southwark Cathedral, in the Gary Weston Library
Tuesday 10thJune at Southwark Cathedral, in the Gary Weston Library
To book yourself into an Open Evening, please contact the administrator who will send you directions and all other necessary information administrator@seite.co.uk 01634 846683
The Shiny Headed Prophet 