December 2022: You can shove them up your

Published 16 December 2022

It's well into December and I'm almost a quarter of a year into my Ministry Trainee job, so I thought it was time to write this long-overdue update. The job so far has been a delight – very different to my old job as a developer, but now I'm a little way in I'm starting to get used to the rhythm of the week.

My typical week consists of a few quite different areas, so I think each update I'll include a few highlights from different things I've been doing, and then a list of stuff I've been learning and am praying for.

St Paul's in the snow

Highlights: Door Knocking

Twice a week I head out with a few people from Church and knock on our doors in our parish to get to know our neighbours by doing a survey. We've made some friends and had some great conversations with people. Highlights include:

  • Giving out a bunch of copies of Mark's Gospel

  • Getting a feel for all the different people who live in the area – it makes me realise I live in a bit of a bubble a lot of the time and our area is so much more diverse than I tend to think about.

  • A really nice man who we had a fairly deep conversation with for about 15 mins, but who at no point made any effort to acknowledge or seek to redress the fact that he wasn't wearing any trousers.

  • A man who walked 50m up the road to find us after we had put a flyer through his door. The conversation started well but soon went downhill:

    MAN: Are you the people who have been putting flyers through people's doors?

    ME: (wondering if he might be interested in finding out more about the church) Yeah that's us. Why?

    MAN: (hands flyers back to me and turns away) Shove them up your arse.

    ME:

Highlights: Cornhill

The training I've been doing has been a real highlight. Each week at Cornhill we hear lectures on (a) different books of the Bible and (b) how to understand and teach the Bible more generally. These are both great, but perhaps the best hour of each day at Cornhill is the teaching practice groups, where we take it in turns to prepare a short talk on a Bible passage and give each other feedback. This was a pleasant surprise to me because to be honest I wasn't really looking forward to it – but it turns out it's really interesting hearing 8 different people's thoughts on the same passage and a great way to learn.

Stuff I've learned recently

  • That there's a lot more to Christian ministry than I had first thought! Not that I thought it was a doddle... I don't really know what I thought. But it's become clear to me that there's actually a whole sea of stuff for me to learn and grow in and get better at, which I had never really considered before but is strangely quite motivating.
  • What sentence diagramming is (they taught us this on the first day of Cornhill and it has been SO useful – why didn't I learn this 10 years ago??)
  • The symptoms and fixes for cleaning blocked printer heads
  • From both Pete (the vicar) and the Co-Mission workshop I go to – how central prayer is to Christian ministry. I'm hoping I can get in the habit of dedicating part of each working day to that this year.
  • Proverbs – we've spent a lot of time in it on Sundays and at Bible study groups, and I'm starting to feel a bit less intimidated by it. Leading a study on Proverbs 8 was a particular highlight.
  • It turns out learning theology is actually pretty interesting. At Co-Mission workshop we read and discuss a chapter of a (very basic) theology book each month and to be honest I was kind of dreading this because I'm really not that into reading. But actually I've been surprised how much I've enjoyed and benefitted from both the book and the subsequent discussion group.

Stuff I'm praying for (and would like your prayers for)

  • To get in the habit of making prayer a regular part of my job this year.
  • Thanks for the time I've been able to spend digging into a few particular bits of the Bible so far (Colossians at Cornhill and Proverbs at St Paul's) – I've really benefitted from this.
  • To continue growing in my love for God and his word. (that spending time in the Bible won't just be a job I tick off)
  • For good conversations in door knocking.
  • For wisdom to work out what area of ministry I should focus in on in the new year – I'm currently doing a lot of things, which has been a really great introduction, but me and Pete are thinking about how I might zoom in on something in the new year to spend a bit more time on.