Years and years and years it's been. But why start a new blog when the old one is just sitting there gathering ether-dust?

It's May 2020 - there's a global pandemic.  I never want to hear the word 'unprecedented' again as long as I live.

I started a new job one week in to the lockdown which is supposed to help us get through this pandemic as well as we can. I'm now the Vicar of Huddersfield (yes - I rolled all the way down the hill to the town centre).  It's quite unusual to move jobs within the same Deanery but I'm absolutely certain that this move reflects God's continuing call to serve, and God's care for me and my growing family (I've become a grandma since we last spoke - and my oldest baby boy is now taller than me).

I'm doing some blogging on the parish website - in particular there's some 'getting to know you' stuff on the "Love in the Time of Corona" blog thread and some bits on their way on the "Stories of Song and Scripture" thread.

I think writing here might be a good idea - but I thought that the last time I was here - we'll see.

Holding the tension

Have been thinking a lot recently about all the things we 'hold in tension' (popular phrase in preisty training) when our occupation is vicaring. When I was looking for my first post after my curacy I was repeatedly (and perhaps wisely), counseled that it was all about 'God's Time' and not my time, that everything would work itself out and I needed to stop pushing. What I think really happened is that I pushed and God pulled and I have found myself in the place intended as a result.

Having found myself on the verge of giving the same platitude to a colleague in the same position I was in 12 months ago I'm still irritated by the implication that 'God's Time' could conceivably require me to do absolutely nothing to discern the way forward.  My understanding of God's Kingdom is that we're all working together in the process of discernment. If I'm being fobbed off with a pat on the head and 'wait on God's time, deary' - it is too often an excuse to opt out of God's calling on each of our lives to get on a do something. If I trust that God's strength will uphold me, whether the outcome is success or failure in the eyes of this world, I am set free to act.  

I find myself now on the verge of my first APCM (annual church council meeting legally required in the Church of England for the election and appointment of roles within a church's life), with question marks over some of those roles as volunteers retire after years of dedicated service.  Half of me is stressed that the answer isn't neat and the roles haven't been filled by willing and forthcoming volunteers - the other half of me is contemplating 'God's time' again. I have acted, I have discussed, I have preached about vocation and discernment - I have even read the Church Representation Rules (extreme times call for extreme measures!) I now need to watch and pray, trusting God to do what is needed.  Maybe what is needed is a gap, a problem, a crisis, for the right people to hear and accept their particular calling.  I hold these things in tension, and pray the Vicar's prayer "Please God, help me not to snap."

Big Day

This is it then - today I will become a Vicar. I will finally formally have the title I have used so often during my curacy so I didn't have to explain to people the difference between one kind of priest and another.  I can't wait to get my church keys and start having a really good root around, finding out where things are and what things do.

From what I've read elsewhere in recent blogs from others in similar situations (thinking particularly of Vernacular Vicar's) the biggest struggle might be pacing myself. The working day/week is as long as a piece of string. It's a great and lively parish which already has a lot going on and loads of pro-active members of the congregation. What will God's vision be for us here?  I take on board concern shared by a colleague this week who said "It's reached that point when I need to know it's our vision, a shared vision - not just mine."

Watch this space!

Weird Gaps in Time

Not a reference to an exciting new episode of Dr Who I hasten to add.  I haven't posted here for some time as I have been in the middle of a move. Moving from my curacy to my first parish as vicar. (note if you follow the link - that fella in the collar on the homepage isn't me ;-)

I am to be vicar (as of the day after tomorrow) - though of course not 'incumbent' - as we are all now licensed under Common Tenure. As we are all now supposedly on the same terms and conditions I am unsure why some posts are still advertised as 'priest-in-charge' and others as 'vicar' - this used to be seen as differentiating between a 'vicar' who was an incumbent with freehold, and someone for whom the bishop was not extending that privilege.

Anyway - we have moved house, said a fond farewell to a parish and colleagues who have given me a brilliant curacy, and have been dealing with new nurseries, a new school, a big fight with BT over broadband service and vicarage phone number and all the other joys of change.  It has been a limbo-like few weeks - suspended between one place and another.

I'm excited about the challenges the new parish will bring, giddy to think about what God might have in store for this place and these people.  I feel both well prepared (nearly 10 years now since all this vocation stuff started - and that was without a hitch or a hiccup), and also completely clueless.  I'm trying to embrace this too in a "Hey, God, look at my blank canvas - come and make art!" kind of a way.

I think the blog may get a bit busier the next few weeks.