Time to sit down

 

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 cross. I was later privileged to conduct his marriage to his long-term girlfriend, under that very cross. His story was to have a tragic end, but the house sign ‘The Manse’ he carved for me has travelled proudly from place to place. Another patient, who had killed her abusive husband began training as a Local Preacher, and an elderly man who had spent most of his life locked up, accompanied our church group on pilgrimage to Iona, fulfilling his dream just months before he died of cancer. All these required massive security checks and at least two accompanying nurses. Most patients never left the confines of the hospital.

Given this early experience it was no surprise that my second appointment was in the world of Industrial Mission. Chaplaincy to the transport network around Tyneside in particular at Newcastle Airport. It was a privilege to be invited into places and lives usually hidden from church. I made more friends, walking alongside them in good times and bad: sitting day after day in court supporting the bus driver charged with death by dangerous driving (and who lived with us for the duration because it was not safe for him to return home), celebrating promotions and crying with those who found themselves surplus to requirements, praying for and with managers and their staff, learning to drive a double decker bus, standing with the Welcome Team as airline passengers offered abuse and flying in the cockpit with the pilot whose faith shone brighter than the sun at 30,000 feet, listening the anguish of the outwardly ultra-professional airline manager who didn’t know the whereabouts of her celebrity brother on 9/11, and recalling at his funeral the storeman who gave out uniform in four sizes, small, medium, large and f*t b******. Exercising the calling I had always felt, to be with God’s people wherever I found them, these were holy days. Over the years I set up the first large team of voluntary workplace chaplains and taught on the Ushaw College ecumenical chaplaincy course.

After eleven years, I dared to accept that finally I was being called to full on circuit ministry, ‘pulled-out’ for the first time I honoured the call to become superintendent of Edinburgh and Forth Circuit. The city churches were in the middle of a major reconfiguration, with a desire to intentionally engage with the life of the city. So began a very different adventure. Supported by amazing colleagues and dedicated church members, I was able to serve at the heart of the city, the time capped off by founding the inter-faith chaplaincy service in the Sherriff Court.

A particular joy was collaborating closely with the Learning and Development Officers across Scotland, with whom I conceived and led our district discipleship programme Holiness and Risk, ran immersive ‘Days out in Edinburgh (and other places) and Thessalonica’, and wrote accompanying study guides to help congregations learn from the life of the early church. I managed two Venture FX projects at opposite ends of the country, was secretary to District Candidates Committee, chaired the world church SALT grants committee and for a time was Chair of LWPT Homes. I thrived on the variety.

As we moved to Edinburgh, Belinda was accepted into ministerial formation, for two years commuting weekly back to Durham, before joining the Edinburgh circuit. We developed ways of working which maintained our distinctive ministries while learning the joy and synergy born of common cause.

I left a piece of me in Scotland but again at the behest of the church, I agreed to move to London. First to the troubled Croydon Circuit and finally to Hackney and Stoke Newington. I cannot pretend these have been happy years. Truth was not told, preparation non-existent, gifts and experience ignored or unwanted. The only light, my time as District Probationers’ Secretary which has been humbling and inspiring.

I ask to sit down feeling lonely, broken and disempowered, sensing the reality of the Covenant promise we probably make with fingers crossed, ‘exalted for you or brought low for you’. Recent years have also been a time of learning and just maybe I am not too washed up to help others who struggle to make sense of where God has placed them?

I seek permission to ‘sit down’, in order that I can once again faithfully ‘stand with’ God’s people, amid the conflict and messiness of their daily lives.