Orders

I am often asked why I went into the church. I have to reply that I really do not know. I was only 50 days old at the time and I was not consulted over the fact of my baptism into Christ. I later experienced moving into an adult expression of faith. I was in my late teens, searching for meaning in the landscape of a faith that had been instilled in me from childhood and I came to a moment when I was filled with God’s Spirit and I found my life set on fire with the love of God. It profoundly changed me. It took me into a place in which my relationship with God was intensely and deeply personal. I never say that I became a Christian at that moment, because I refuse to write off my childhood experience of following Christ. Yet becoming an adult Christian in a so profoundly life-changing way set me on a course which led to my ordination as a priest.

Ordination is seen as one of the sacraments. It can also be called Holy Orders, which gives an insight to what ordination is about. It creates the framework by which the Church can grow and thrive. It is a ministry that provides the scaffolding by which the Church can be the Church. Yet it become something corrupting if the ordained ministry is seen as BEING The Church.

I sometimes struggle when faced with people who think that helping me, The Vicar, is a good thing to do. I try to turn it the other way round and say that my role is to help them be a Christian.

It is true that, for me, being ordained brings a sense of joy in that I feel I am fulfilling God’s purpose for my life. This is often called having a vocation. The point is that every Christian has a vocation to follow and a ministry to exercise. I am not a professional Christian, but simply someone whose particular ministry is to help other Christians live out their calling. Each of us should reflect daily on that calling. Where is God leading us today? It seems to me that to live this day in tune with what God wants for you is to fulfil your calling to live as a child of God – and to live in that way is not only to be blessed, but to live a life which becomes a blessing for others