Deacon Blue

Deacon: It was the turn of 'C' staircase's to organise the weekly College Communion service this week. Whilst others took on the roles of music, prayer, readings and techie stuff, I chose to be deacon. Which means that I stuck on a cassock and angel wings, stood at the front and led the service, apart from the bits that I'm not yet qualified to do. All went swimmingly, it all knitted together really well, and I was floating on air for 24 hours

Blue: Then the Saturday morning post arrived, and in it was a letter from my Bishop, informing me that I have been 'Released'. This means that Salisbury Diocese (from whence I was sent) have been unable to match me and my training needs with a curacy post in a suitable Salisbury parish. So now I'm free to explore other options in any one of 43 other English dioceses. But I won't be coming back to Salisbury as a curate next year. That doesn't rule a return out after that, nor does it mean I can't go back in the meantime (for example, were any of my former youth group to want me to marry them that would be possible). But it does mean that next year might be shaped quite differently from how we had expected. And that's just completely thrown us.

Firstly, Saturday was a bit wierd. We both spent a lot of time on the phone and texting. For me it was a case of getting in touch with people who have been through the process recently or who know how this all works or who might know somebody who knows somebody who knows a friendly bishop. For Tash it was a case of leaning on her support network. It was just a constant barrage of phones, ringtones and text beeps!

Secondly, until something like this happens you don't realise how much you had been building your future on certain assumptions. I had assumed my ordination would be in Salisbury, which would have made it at the end of September, meaning we have a relatively leisurely move, set up house, start job, dawdle through the summer, get ordained. But most dioceses ordain in early July, so we could now be facing a really hectic June....

Now I start the next part of the process, but I’m not alone. I’ve just set up a photo map at college where we can see who has a job confirmed, and who hasn’t yet. At the moment there are only 5 people out of 30 who know for definite what is happening. I’m in good company with the other 25.

What happens next? I could sit back and wait, looking occasionally in the folder at college where all the vacancies are advertised – something which I have been doing casually over the last few weeks, just for practice so I can get a feel of reading about different churches and working out which ones appeal. Now I have to do that for real, and actually decide which ones do appeal, and if they still appeal when I realise where they are! Or I can be a bit more pro-active, and use my network of contacts to find out about things before they get to that folder. I’ve already done a bit of that and I’m waiting for some phone calls.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to be a bit cagey about places and churches now until I’ve got something sorted. We will have to visit places and decide whether or not we like them. It wouldn’t be fair to name somewhere and then tell you we’ve rejected it. So you’ll not know where I’ve looked, but you will know where I’ve finally settled on. Eventually.