The past few years has been an incredible journey, from burnout in 2015, to facing my brokenness in 2016, to loss, grief and humiliation in 2017, to recovery and wholeness in 2018 and now to 2019 – restoration!

This last twelve months I have been discerning vocation for ordained ministry in the Church of England.

The journey of discerning vocation has included visiting twenty-three different Church of England buildings; completing fifteen different forms, documents and declarations; preparing ten written reflections and essays; exploring nine Church of England publications, articles and papers; reading twenty-seven books; and spending over one hundred hours face-to-face with eleven different priests, two different bishops and one archbishop in various settings and contexts.

The journey of discernment has been exactly that, both for me and my family, and for the Church of England. We have been on a shared journey of understanding each other better and discerning God’s will for my life.

Last week was the final part of my discernment journey: a national three-day residential selection conference with the Bishops’ Advisory Panel (BAP), which itself had eight different stages of evaluation against nine different criteria. I was particularly reflective on Tuesday, falling on the two-year anniversary of what would transpire to be my reluctant and tearful farewell to the congregation that I had first joined in 1991, aged 11.

On Thursday afternoon this week, I was moved with tears again as I learned the outcome of my BAP. My discernment journey had concluded: I have been recommended by the national Bishops’ Advisory Panel and will be sponsored by a Bishop for training for ministry towards being ordained as a Priest in the Church of England!

I am delighted to be starting at ‘vicar school’ in London in September this year, with a placement serving as an Ordinand (student priest) at St John’s Crawley for at least three years.

It has been a unique and formative experience for so many different people to be involved in my life throughout the discernment journey. Some of whom have thoroughly examined me and got to know me very well, and others who met me only briefly for specific reasons and whom I may never see again.

God has graciously replanted me and my family into a church context where I can be who I really am, where I can be who I was made to be, and where I can serve in a capacity I was made and called to serve in. I have found a place where I am heard and known and rightly understood and loved for who I am, and where others can be heard and known and rightly understood and loved for who they are.

Before I explored the Church of England, I thought I knew what it was, and not much of what I thought was positive: cold, stale, boring, outdated, religious, dark and dead. I was wrong. The Church of England is not all what I thought or understood it to be. It’s an absolute joy to be involved in a church network seeking to be genuinely and wholeheartedly engaged in the evangelisation of the nation, the revitalisation of the church and the transformation of society.

I went to the Church of England for a rest, for recovery from disillusionment, for healing my bruised soul and for restoration of my crushed spirit. I didn’t go to the Church of England to pursue ministry, but despite the difficulties and pain of the past, the same call of God on my life remains. The vocation that had previously begun to be worked out through eldership in the free church, is now being worked out through priesthood in the Church of England.

The Church of England is a place where hope, peace and life have been restored to me. I am looking forward to committing the rest of my days to loving and serving God through loving and serving people – the very thing I was called to do some years ago.

Over the next three years, as I study, train and prepare for ordained ministry, I will begin to loosen roots in the business that I have spent the last eight years rebuilding and reordering. I’m now beginning to hand on a business that has grown and become more successful year-on-year, every year, for the last 7 years. We have just concluded what will be one of the most successful years – if not the most successful year – in the history of the company. This time last week I was celebrating with my colleagues having just won a regional business award. Through some challenging times, I have spent the last eleven years investing a big part of my life in the business. Over the next three years, as I step into the vocation I am called to, I will be handing the business on to others. The business has been a blessing to me and to my family, and now I pray it will continue to be a blessing to many more after me.

I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to…

Begin again.

Thanks be to God.