Wow I've actually started

No place like home - my study at Ridley Hall. Don't worry, I brought some more books in since this photo!

Just to interrupt the priest/presbyter series (don't worry I'll finish it next weekend) with a brief, breathless update. I've started training for Christian Ministry! I can scarcely believe it myself. Here's some things I've learned about myself this week:

* I get frustrated by very inefficient/federated admin. It takes a long time to enrol in Ridley Hall, in Cambridge University and in an attachment church! And I'm not very patient

* I'm pretty sociable and have *really* missed being able to hang out and chat to people during lockdown

* I'm very excited about learning a language again. Hebrew has been great fun so far

* I have a wonderful supportive wife who is doing everything she can do help make this time work for us and our daughter

* I need to remember to be compassionate, as some people are having to cope with a situation that really sucks due to Covid-19, whether they need to shield or whether it's a close friend or family member they live with. So while I still have Zoom worship and meetings, we'll need to keep them for the sake our including people who have no other choice

Ridley has had to completely change the way it works in order to be Covid-secure. So while I have a study space (pictured above), I'm only allowed to go in that room, and to use the shared facilities on my staircase (H in case you were wondering) - I'm not allowed anywhere else. One person each day fetches lunch for us back to the staircase in paper bags, and we munch it in socially distant fashion up the staircase while having a brief chat. It's weird, but I appreciate that it's the best solution for now - and I'm so grateful I have somewhere to travel, a desk to work at, and some people to see and pray with each day.

Please do pray for me (if you're a person who prays) and my family as we find our own rhythm and as I come to terms with starting on a path to Christian ministry. I need to focus on using this time well to be prepared by God for church work, not on comparing myself to others, and not on getting stressed about work that there isn't time for (I'm doing the Cambridge Uni theology course as well as some courses at Ridley about formation and vocation. So I'm sure I'll start to feel like I'm being pulled in multiple directions). So prayers would be appreciated!

That's all for now, I'll give a more substantial update soon. But I'd like to finish with a long quotation that I printed and stuck to the door of my room, a quotation I promised myself I would reflect on frequently if I ever actually got to this point. It's from Vincent Donovan's Christianity Rediscovered:

“And that man who called the community together and held it together; at the end of the instructions he would not be the one in the community who knew the most theology, the theologian. He would not be the preacher or the evangelist of the community. He would not be the prophet. He would not be the most important member in the community, in the sense of being the one who was to make the most important contributions, of which the community might someday be capable. But he would be the focal point of the whole community, the one who would enable the community to act, whether in worship or in service. He would be the animator of the individual members of the community, enabling them to make their various contributions, enabling the preacher to preach and the teacher to teach and the pray-er to pray and the prophet to prophesy. He would be the necessary sign of the power that is in all of them. He would be the sign of the unity that exists among them. He would be their link with the outside, the sign of their union with the outside, universal church. He would be their priest.”

God give me grace as I fail to fulfil my vocation, outlined so well by Donovan!

Matt