It is done...

(written a few days ago, but no access to post it as too lazy t o hike laptop all the way to the conference centre!)

The promises made, the hands laid on... I have been ordained.

With all the ‘I do’s the comparison with marriage is not unreasonable.  On Sunday morning at the gathering of conference in worship we stood on the stage and together agreed to be committed to the church that nurtured and trained us and that church affirmed our role as ministers.

Then in the evening we were scattered in class groups to various churches for the ordination services. I was with college friends and a local colleague at Wesley Methodist Church in Camborne. Distance meant that no-one had hordes of supporters present but that made having those who did make the long journey even more special. 

Having family with me was so important but also was the presence of my assisting minister* and his wife, he has been very ill and has serious treatment still to come but as a couple they have been alongside me since I was 18 through all the ups, downs and diversions of my path to be a minister, and in my journey as a fragile human being.

All that travel through life – its joys and its appalling depths – concentrated into a moment.  A minute of kneeling and receiving that prayer and those hands on my head as the end of years of preparation, was it an anticlimax or a fulfilment?  The moment passed quickly but the service and the day will stay with me, the moment when all present proclaimed each of us worthy to be ordained. 

I am now ordained, a status that will remain with me, there is no divorce process for this set of promises.  I have promised myself to God and to the church, but that is in response to God’s commitment to love me before and despite anything I do or ever did.  

As an ordained minister I may be very busy  doing but essentially I am called to be, so whether I am ‘employed by you or laid aside by you’ ‘I am yours and you are mine’ (quotes from the Covenant Service where Methodists reaffirm the commitment to follow God’s call).

So I am changed by being ordained? Well it is a huge landmark, especially given that I had good reason in my breakdown days to doubt I would ever get here, but ultimately I am still me, still the person God made me, just another step in fulfilling the potential of ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10)

* Methodists are ordained by 3 people – someone representing the authority of the conference (President or former president), someone from the wider world church, and an assisting minister chosen by the person being ordained – someone who is significant in their journey.