a penny in the foundations

  I remember in detail my initial stationing form completed as I was ready to come out of Lincoln Theological College in 1991. I drew a line across the map and asked to be stationed north of it, have two or more congregations, and hopefully significant chaplaincy in hospital or prison. Retford circuit lay just north of the line, I shared pastoral responsibility for eleven churches with the superintendent and spent two days each week on the chaplaincy team at the very secure Rampton Special Hospital. So itinerant ministry began with everything I wished for! Rampton provided the most formational and fulfilling context for ministry I could have experienced, a unique community where I got to know some incredible people, staff and patients, like the bank robber who arrived late one night from prison where that morning he had discovered his son hanging in a neighbouring cell, and who turned out to be a talented wood carver who was commissioned by one of my churches to carve a beautiful...