PEOPLE who are being ordained this Petertide are using social media to talk about their sense of calling, to encourage others to consider their vocation.
About 100 ordination services are taking place this month in cathedrals and larger churches. Twelve short films are being posted this week on the C of E’s national social-media channels, alongside the hashtag #NewRevs. These will include an “explainer” about what happens during an ordination service, posted on TikTok by the Director of Ministry in Blackburn diocese, the Revd Anne Beverley.
The Revd Lorna Heatley, Assistant Curate of Richmond with Hudswell and Downholme and Marske, in Leeds diocese, was ordained priest on Saturday. She says in a video posted on TikTok that serving as a deacon has been “one of the most wonderful years of my life”.
“There has been something so special about being able to walk alongside people through every stage of their life, whether I’m seeing them regularly on a Sunday, whether I’m just seeing them around town, baptisms, weddings, funerals, Easter, Christmas — being able to be with people and spread the word of God to them has just been a privilege that I never thought I’d have.
“So, if you’re hearing God’s call to ministry, I absolutely recommend you follow it, because you will not regret it.”
The Revd Sam Watkins-Smith, who is serving his title at Trinity Church, Nottingham, and is to be ordained priest on Saturday, says that, during the past year, he has witnessed “a bunch of students coming to faith . . . for the first time or recommitting to Jesus for the first time in a long time”.
In another film, the Bishop of Hertford, Dr Jane Mainwaring, who chairs the Ministry Development Board’s Discernment Team Advisory Group, recalls her own ordination, 25 years ago. “On that day it felt like coming home; that I’d finally discovered what God wanted me to do for the rest of my life,” she says.
“It’s one of the greatest privileges of being a bishop, to journey with people through their vocation, through their discernment of that vocation, and, as we ordain our deacons this year, it will be the culmination of that discernment journey.”
The Bishop of Loughborough, the Rt Revd Saju Muthalaly, says in another video: “As a young person, I didn’t see God’s call upon myself. Somebody asked me a simple question, ‘Might God be calling you towards ordination?’”
He invites people who are considering responding to a call to ordination: “What can we do that will make us gladdest?”