One final update letter from me as I look back at the past two years. I thought rather than talk about specific ministries I'd just talk about MYSELF and the way I've changed, with the hope that you'll see my time as a trainee has been an overwhelmingly positive thing for me and my ability to serve the church, and that you'll be encouraged that your support (either financial or in prayer) has helped make that happen.

The trainee scheme is designed to help people grow in three areas: Knowledge, Character and Skills. So I'll discuss them in turn.

Knowledge

I'm very aware that I know the Bible way better now than I did. I've also got a much more sharpened ability to understand a passage and just the nuts and bolts of good exegesis. My time at the Cornhill Training Course has played a very large part in this, but also just having the opportunity to teach others in Bible studies/sermons etc has hugely helped me. One of the things I'll miss most about my time in full-time ministry is having whole mornings/days set aside to read the Bible in depth.

I'm also much clearer on my theological convictions – both in terms of what Reformed Christians believe, and where it comes from in the Bible. I found the Co-Mission ministry workshop was the main place where I got to grips with this.

As I mentioned in a previous update, I was also able to dip into studying biblical Greek. It's already fading but being able to use stuff like Step Bible has a game-changer and I'll certainly keep using it into the future.

Character

As you would hope, I've found that spending regular time studying and teaching the Bible does just makes me love God more. I feel like I know him better and more readily turn to him in prayer than I did before. There's obviously still lots of room for growth, but I'm very encouraged at the positive effect the trainee scheme has had on me.

I also feel a deeper love for people and their own love for God/godliness. My default disposition is to be more task-focused than people-focused and to view people as projects, but being an MT has helped round that out to a more biblical view. I think this is a particular thing I've absorbed from spending time with Pete.

I've also noticed the same in my door knocking conversations – at the start of my door knocking career I'd secretly hope no-one answered each door so I could tick it off and move on to the next one – whereas now I most look forward to the people who answer and are up for a chat.

Skills

Again, I've grown loads here. Preparing and leading a Bible study has become easier and more rewarding – even at the start of being an MT it scared me a bit (despite having done lots of it in the past) whereas now it feels much more like second nature, and I can think on my feet and leave my notes behind much better than before.

Preaching is another big growth area. Before I was an MT I'd never preached a sermon (although I'd done a number of camp talks). Because I like numbers, I did a quick count and I reckon I've preached 18 Sunday sermons, which is nuts.

There's still lots I'm not very good at, but the past two years have been a crash course in preaching that will serve me for years to come. I've definitely developed my sense of how to both understand a passage, and then deliver it in a clear way. Again, the two big helps here have been (a) Cornhill, which is a relief as this is literally the whole thing they're trying to teach, and (b) getting a bunch of real-life practice spending hours banging my head against my laptop until my thoughts begin to converge into something approaching coherence.

I also notice that I've grown in my admin ability. I was already a pretty organised person but I've found that organising yourself when you work for a church is actually really quite tricky. There's a relentless mix of far-off events that need thinking about in advance, and weekly deadlines that endlessly present themselves. Maybe that sounds obvious to you but I've found my old software jobs have been a lot more single-track (ie, being able to devote all my time to one or two big projects rather than jumping betweeen fifteen completely unrelated ones). But maybe your job is more complicated than anything I've described, in which case this probably comes across a bit pathetic.

What next?

So what am I doing now? I'm happy to say I won't be sailing off into the sunset but I'm going to stay heavily involved at St Paul's. I'm going to continue door knocking, serving at our youth group, and will be a midweek Bible study leader too. I also hope to continue preaching when time will allow, but this is quite time-intensive so I'll need to work out how much time my new schedule will allow before I dive too heavily into this.

As I mentioned last time, I'll also be beginning as an Elder at St Paul's on 1st September. This is a huge privilege and responsibility, and I'm also glad I get to continue learning what it's like to lead/pastor a church. Full-time ministry is definitely still something I would consider in the future, but I don't think I'm ready to go for it at the moment.

As for what I spend my week doing: I'm about to start working for Intercom (a customer service platform) as a software developer! If you have ever used one of those live-chat bubbles on a website, it may well have been Intercom's. I'm really looking forward to getting back into software and they seem like a great company.

Conclusion

I'm sure there's lots more I could say, but hopefully this short update captures some of it and convinces you that this was a worthwhile way for me to spend two years. The Ministry Trainee scheme has been an indescribable help to me, both in my own faith and in the ministry the Lord has given me, and I'm profoundly grateful to God for everyone at St Paul's, Co-Mission, and Cornhill, and also for everyone who's supported me financially and in prayer.

¹ The title is a reference to my all-time favourite summer camp anecdote (I'm not sure how funny it'll be if you weren't there but I'm just going to go for it): I was leading a Bible study with a bunch of 9-11yo boys (this was back in like 2015) and it was about Jesus' crucifixion. I was trying to strike quite a sombre tone and I asked the boys the question "what would you have said if you'd seen Jesus hanging up there on the cross?". I was hoping for an answer along the lines of "gosh Jesus get down from there you've done nothing wrong" or "gosh this is so unfair, I can't believe he's dying to take the punishment we deserve". I asked the question, and there was a short silence. Then, a 10 year old boy said (completely earnestly and deadpan): "I think I'd say to Jesus... thank you... and farewell".