SPEAKER_01: 0:03

You're listening to Reflections on Ordained Ministry, drawing on the wisdom of clergy from across the country. We explore together the changing landscape of ministry and the huge variety of contexts for it. Well, Angela Sharon. Sharon, thanks so much for joining. On this episode, we're exploring experiences of UK ME GMH clergy. Thanks so much for joining today. I wonder if you could just begin by introducing yourself. Angela, it's great to have you with us again. Thanks for returning. Why don't you just share where you are and kind of what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

Okay, so my name's Angela Sheard. I'm an Anglican tutor at the Queen's Foundation in Birmingham, and it's my first role after curacy, which I've recently completed in London Diocese.

SPEAKER_03: 0:57

And I'm Sharon Byrne. I'm from the Ely Diocese. I'm currently second year curate, ready to go into my final year. And I've had nearly 20 years experience in social care with children and families.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14

And I'm Sharon Edging Cognier. I'm a third year curate, part of the Grays Thurrock team ministry down in Essex in the Diocese of Chelmsford. And I am currently looking for a new parish to go into.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27

Great, thank you. Hey, so we're going to explore a little bit about your experiences of discernment, of of training, and of ministering as ordained clergy. So why don't we start at the beginning of that process, right? And and share something of how you found discernment. Tell us something of your discernment journey. And particularly, you know, perhaps how you as Asonia's UKME GMH impacted on that. Go on, Sharon, start us off.

SPEAKER_02: 2:00

I'm really grateful for my discernment journey and all the conversations I've had with many uh different people who've encouraged me uh along the way. It was uh a great journey. I think it's been really helpful to reflect on the discernment process. And I think from the beginning up until um yeah, for uh up until BAP really, Bishop's Advisory Panel is what it used to be called. I don't know if it's still called that. Um I think the thing that stuck for me is having conversations with different pe priests during the process, um, and a few of them mentioning uh that they are excited for me because I am a young black woman. Um and this was I'm sure meant to encourage me and um yeah pause, sorry, okay, cut that way out. Um yeah, so I'm sure this was meant to encourage me and and and it did a l a little bit, um, but I sort of left those conversations feeling ah, are they only excited that I'm thinking about ordained ministry because I'm young or black or a woman? Uh and if so, then maybe I don't really uh want to to pursue this. Um so yeah, that was uh a weird a weird thing. But then I remember having a conversation with my brother later on and when I had um got um got through this bap and and we were talking about being the the token black person and how how you feel if you were the token black person, and I was I was hesitant and um yeah and I I thought of sort of said to him, I'd I don't want to be in a space um just because of the colour of my skin, so I would rather I would rather leave that. But by the end of the conversation, uh he had some wise words to say, I can't remember exactly what he said. Um but I left thinking actually, if I'm in this space, regardless of how I got here, uh I need to make sure that I am honouring God firstly, um, and yeah, doing all that I can to enable the people behind me uh to yeah, arrive uh and come through the door um smoothly and encourage people behind me.

SPEAKER_01: 4:16

So I wonder just did you find your your BAP and your BAP report like quite encouraging in that sense of like it was like here here's people that have met me, have seen like me in all my fullness, and you know it's not like you know, in that sense it wasn't they're not seeing a token, they're seeing you, you know, and then like reading that back and thinking, yeah, I've I've been called, this is me in all my fullness, and and they're seeing that and seeing me being called. I I don't know, maybe maybe it wasn't, but I just that's really helpful.

SPEAKER_02: 4:46

I actually yeah, yeah, have all the paperwork. There's so much paperwork, right, from discernment. But um, it's it's really encouraging for me to read, and and when I feel low and and feel like tired of ministry, um, those are the words I'll go back to because they are so encouraging and and and I can see that they have seen me. Um yeah, so I I did feel seen and heard um during that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

And so do you do you like resonate with any of that that experience?

SPEAKER_00: 5:09

Is it Yeah? So that story really resonates with me because I can remember being in the discernment process and someone saying to me with great excitement, they they were like, This is fantastic. You're you're under 32, you're a woman, and you're an ethnic minority. And I it is really positive. There, there is it was it was intended in a really encouraging and supportive kind of way. And I think I'm reflecting now on sort of why I found it quite um, I guess, shocking. I I think it was just a way of looking at myself that I hadn't really kind of encountered before. And I think it's probably because so I grew up in Tooting, Southwest London. So it was quite a kind of um ethnically and culturally diverse kind of place. Um and so throughout school and also in my university days, actually, I I had never really kind of seen myself as being uh an ethnic minority in that specific way. I think I because I was just so used to being sort of part and parcel of spaces with people of from lots of different kinds of ethnicities and cultures. And so I think it was this sense of it being a rarefied thing to be an ethnic minority, I think, I think really kind of stood out for me. It was a new way of seeing myself in relation to other people.

SPEAKER_01: 6:33

Interesting. Yeah, thank you. And Sharon, what about your your dis discernment journey? Uh what was your experience of discernment like?

SPEAKER_03: 6:42

Yeah, well, my experience is um different to Angela and Sharon, whereas I'm a mature black woman um with years of experience of um work and secular work and um experience of of pastoral work, yes, within the church, but also within the child protection arena. Um so my experience of discernment was one of initial shock that God might be calling me out of secular into something that was quite profoundly um sacred and um something that that I'd never really thought about before. So to have that initial call as a mature black woman was um something that I hadn't really contemplated. Um I was part of church, yes, and uh wanted to serve. The aspect of um having a call was deeply shocking um to me personally, um but also profoundly um satisfying to know that that God was leading me into a new stage of life and into a new calling. So discernment for me was um lots of different people saying, I I think you should look should go and explore ordained ministry and the people within the church and the people that I was working with at the time as a child and family worker. At that at that time I'd gone into a new role within the church, and were very supportive and very in tune with what God wanted, I think, at the time, looking back now, um, for me to be aware of God calling me, but also being aware of other people prompting me and encouraging me was very um very supportive and also gave me the opportunity to, without any fear, explore the whole discernment process.

SPEAKER_01: 8:50

Thank you. Let's talk um a little bit about training uh and and and something of your experiences of of training and um and yeah, what was what we we were chatting beforehand um bit before recording this and um Sharon, you you shared something that was quite interesting in your your time of of training. Do you wanna do you wanna share something of uh of of kind of your experience of of coming across a an essay and uh uh and a reading list?

SPEAKER_02: 9:17

I cannot remember what essay I was trying to write. Um but yeah, I was having a look at the reading list, and it was a long reading list. Um, and I just remember looking down it thinking, there is no one on this list that looks a little bit like me or sounds a little bit like me. Um and so I was just a little bit dis disheartened because I know that there are many different theological voices from a variety of different backgrounds um who could have been speaking into my essay that I was writing. And so my question was why um, yeah, why is this reading list why does it reflect only one kind of person, essentially?

SPEAKER_01: 10:00

Um Can you remember the title?

SPEAKER_02: 10:02

I have no idea. No, it is really bad, isn't it? This is No, I have no idea. Um but and that wasn't the only you know, the only time, but it was just this particul this particular day um that happened. And and another time when I was doing a an essay on on preaching and homiletics, um, and going to the library and picking up a book that I shall not name, but having a picture of um four um Caucasian men. And the the title was about these are the best preachers basically, um, and I in instantly um felt annoyed and angry because I know that there are amazing, powerful preachers um that do not look like them. Also, um I know it's just a book, and it was a it was a good book, it was helpful um for my essay, but I sort of from that started um thinking what why are certain voices um uh silenced? Uh why don't we yeah, listen um to different voices that do not look like us? Um and and because of that, I I went to study homiletics for a term in Vancouver. Um, and there in in the homoletics class, uh the lecturer forced us to listen to a whole bunch of different preachers that we would never think about listening to, that were just all so different to to um yeah, different to me. Um and I remember thinking this is this is yeah, what preaching should should be like different uh theologies, uh different minor um yeah, ethnicities, different genders. And it's when we're listening to a whole bunch of different voices that we really understand and and get the whole of God. Um and and so yeah, for me that was that was a big part of training.

SPEAKER_01: 12:01

Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Uh Andrew, do you want do you want to bring in a perspective of the fact, you know, obviously you're you're now teaching at Queens and and something of what what Queens has has been doing in this kind of area and know through through the years, but also more recently.

SPEAKER_00: 12:16

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess I would say Queens has had a really long-standing interest in contextual theology. So kind of theology which is done from different contextual spaces and places. So, for example, you might do theology from the perspective of being a UKME GMH person, from the perspective of being a woman, uh, from the perspective of being disabled, from the perspective of being from a working class background. And there are lots of intersections between those different things. So, so for example, you might be UKME GMH and a woman, as we are here in this podcast. You might be a woman and be disabled. And so there are lots of different and unique sort of contextual points from which we can um encounter God and say something meaningful um about who God is. And within within Queens, there's the Center for Black Theology, which is a place where um Black students from lots of different churches, so Pentecostal and other churches too, um, can gather to study for qualifications and kind of and explore who God is from um black theological lenses, lots of different uh black theological lenses. And I I would like to kind of briefly think about my experience of studying black theology. So so on the kind of ministerial formation track at Queens, um, everybody does a black theology module. Um, and so I'm from a uh mixed ethnic background. So my mum is Sri Lankan and my dad is white British. And I remember doing black theology, and it was sort of around the time of George Floyd. I can't remember exactly uh what the relation, but I remember kind of these experiences being pretty close together. And I was I was sort of thinking about um where I identified in the discourse of black theology um as someone with a mixed kind of ethnic um and cultural background. So so that was really interesting to me of kind of navigating that space of thinking, well, my dad's white, um, but my mum's not. And like I'm sort of I'm I I do see myself as mixed, and so I'm kind of in the UK M E GMH category. But then if I if I think about lots of black theology, where where do I kind of locate myself within within that whole mix? Um, and so yeah, I remember really kind of really wrestling with that and really thinking about my own identity in ways that I hadn't before at that time in college, thinking actually, what does it mean for me to be to be a mixed person and how do I enter it enter the discourse around racial justice in the church, for example? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:00

Thank you. Yeah. Sharon, anything you want to add on in terms of your your training experience?

SPEAKER_03: 15:07

I I think for me, um, coming as a mature student, there was elements of being a bit rusty um around study, and um I found myself having to ask for some help, um, which was um given abundantly. Um so I think for me, being patient um and generous with um kind of an old rusty brain um coming to um study theology um after many years of bringing secular work. Um that that for me was one of the the hurdles of of getting back into study. Um I really enjoyed um the opportunities of learning and um learning with younger students as well. And looking back, um I can see that we had many similar experiences um through learning, um, lots of opportunity to to question, to debate, to argue, um which gave me um a rounded view of um different approaches to to how people come into um thinking about theology and and how that impacts how you want to serve and how you want to minister. So it was a it was a it's a good time of of learning different opinions and different thinking.

SPEAKER_01: 16:31

Were you aware of any kind of decolonizing of the curriculum kind of going on?

SPEAKER_03: 16:35

Um I think a little bit. Certainly with uh we we went through COVID and the George Floyd um tragedy um kind of really hit home. And I remember preaching as a student preaching on part of the experience of um George Floyd um saying that I can't breathe, I can't breathe. Um I remember um kind of the the debate of um well, where are we learning? Uh what are we learning? Who were the theologians that we're taking our learning from? Um and I think things have changed a little um from those types, and I think the curriculum has reflected some of the the more recent changes.

SPEAKER_01: 17:16

Yeah, I think I think that I think that's right. The question is, well, this was the question uh and Angela posed uh earlier, so I'm nicking it. But that says actually, is there still a canon in which you add things on, or actually are we are we in a place now of of totally rethinking and and turning that upside down? Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_00: 17:37

Yeah, so so I would say there's definitely a big question here around so how are we decolonizing the curriculum and are we tacking on kind of contextual theologians as we call it onto a kind of reading list that is still dominated by classical systematic theologians who are predominantly white men? So are we is that the way in which we're going to do it? And that that work is really important. Um, but I would say, how do we think about the whole reading list or or even much broader, the whole of theological education and which is which is broader than reading books? And how do we how do we understand what it means to to have a whole different approach to it in terms of the format? For example, how do we how do we teach and how do we learn about theology? Is it should it be through for just through formal reading and writing, or is are there other ways that we can learn in which which um where we can ex absorb the wisdom from different cultures and from different um expressions of church from different ethnicities and in different parts of the world?

SPEAKER_01: 18:42

Thank you. Great. Uh bit of a whistle stop tour, I know, but let's let's move on to to now think about your experiences since ordination. Um and I I wonder if and just ask, you know, if you have experienced racism uh as as a as uh a clergy, you know, as a clergy, as as a minister in um since since being ordained. Sharon, do you want to kick us on?

SPEAKER_03: 19:13

Um I think as a as a curate you um experience various aspects of um pastoral work and um my experience of of racism was through um a home visit to taking a home communion where um the mature elderly lady um had an um a thought about um how she had given birth and her experience of postnatal care was to be denied the help because she wasn't black. Um and she thought that if she was um would have been a black person, the help that the nurse would have given her would have been more forthcoming, which was um quite a surprise as we were getting ready for um communion, um and just generally talking about past experiences of of of her childbirth and her family experiences. So for me, um having to kind of put that to one side and really think about the sacrificial nature of communion and give that and share that in love was was a as a key element of approaching what was said. Um it wasn't necessarily something that was indicative of um outright racism, but I think it was something to do with I think the person's culture culture um and age. And I think I took it as something that was a pro a product of her of her age and culture and was able to overcome any initial shock and introduce the the sacrament as as something that that Christ wants us to give as a as a thing of beauty and forgiveness and love and um and care. So that's how I experienced that incident, but it's also something that I felt that I had to um share with love and forgiveness and generosity of heart.

SPEAKER_01: 21:27

I mean that must have been really uh tough, like sharing communion, like in some ways you know, I guess you probably didn't want to be in communion with that person right there.

SPEAKER_03: 21:36

Um I think I do I did want to, I think I did want to be in um experiencing something that that is beautiful and something that is sacrificial and giving. And um enabled, I think God enabled me to lay aside what my thoughts or where my thoughts would have taken me in that time and recognise that as um as a servant of of Christ, that this is what I've been called to do, um, regardless of what was said or how it was said, it was said in um not in vindictive um content, but something that was indicative of culture and age. So for for me it was something that was um something to overcome, but overcome with love and generosity of heart.

SPEAKER_02: 22:32

Um for me, I would say it it's a couple of those micro aggression um comments being made. I remember um being in church one day and we were sort of having um a meeting and catching up with someone, and I had my my natural Afro-E hair out at the time, and and he looked at me and said, What have you done to your hair? Um to which I laughed at and sort of said, Nothing. This is just its natural form and and and dismissed the comment straight away, didn't didn't think about it much. But then a day or two later I was still thinking about it and it seemed to be bothering me. Uh so I brought it up um to a friend and and that friend said, That sounds like you should have said something that doesn't sound um right. And I thought, oh, if he hadn't pointed it out, I would have just not really thought about it. Um, but yeah, I think it's those is that those little comments that that people don't mean to offend, um, then they don't have intention of offending, um, but it's sort of just not really thinking a great deal before speaking.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

Yeah, I I guess I I I have a kind of story that I've been sort of thinking about in this kind of vein. And it's a story actually about which I experienced when I was at a friend's house not that not that long ago. So, so it's it's it was while I was at college. And um, so the context was that there we had booked to stay at a hotel um which had had um to be cancelled. The booking had to be cancelled because um the hotel was being used to house refugees. And I remember we found out when I was at my friend's house, and my friend's mum said, Oh, that's the trouble with these refugees. They come here to this country and then they go and get um COVID, because that was that was the other detail was that um COVID-19 had spread in that hotel. Um, so they'd had to kind of close the place down, I I think. And I I remember sort of that comment about refugees um really kind of hit home to me because so my mum came to the UK as a result of a massive um civil conflict in Sri Lanka. And so, like, I guess in my head, like the concept of of someone being a refugee was a lot closer to my own story than I had realized. And I suddenly felt, I suddenly felt very afraid, and I didn't say anything, but I and I can remember afterwards thinking, oh gosh, should I have challenged that comment because I I knew it was wrong. But I remember kind of I remember feeling just completely unseen. Um, yeah, un and and almost like there was this aspect of me that was that was being rejected, I think, by this woman who actually would see me as probably someone who, you know, from quite a middle class background, someone with a with an English accent, and you know, someone who was quite socially privileged in many ways. And so would and and you know, I remember my friend said afterwards, oh she she definitely wouldn't have meant your mum. Like when she said that, you know, obviously he he was like, My mom shouldn't have said that, but but she did, she didn't, she wasn't thinking about you and your family. And I and I suddenly, I was like, Yeah, but I I've experienced it as if she was saying it about my mum. And I just, yeah, I it took me a long time to get over that, and it it really shocked me. I think I'd never encountered that political kind of viewpoint before in quite that way, it'd never been said to my face in that way, and so I guess that would be it. It's that encountering a different and quite unwelcome perspective um and sort of recognizing something about myself in that process as well.

SPEAKER_01: 26:44

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, um gosh last few minutes together. I just wonder if there's the there's anything that you particularly kind of would would like to to share. You know anything that you haven't said of of your experiences or or things that you think people need to hear, you know, um that that that that you want to share. Um Angela, do you wanna do you want to kick us off? Uh since you're kind of connects maybe to what you're just sharing about, really.

SPEAKER_00: 27:16

Okay, yeah, definitely. I mean, I would say my my kind of number one thing would be around sort of support networks for people who are UKME GMH in the discernment process. It would be around think about who are the people that you can call upon to kind of hear your experiences, to kind of share wisdom and to stand with you in the process. So there are networks in the Church of England, which I'd if you if you don't know about them, do check them out. So there's um a group called UKME Ordinance and Curates, uh, which is for ordinance and curates, as the name says, but also people in the discernment process and people exploring vocation are really welcome to kind of check it out. And there's also the Anglican Minority Ethnic Network as well. Um, but do have a look and see what's out there and think about who are the people who can support you and who can um sort of stand with you on this journey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:16

Sharon, Sharon, and anything you want to add is absolutely fine if not.

SPEAKER_03: 28:19

Yeah, I think asking for um the support networks or who's out there to um help walk along with you, I think it's important. Um and if you're in that that um discernment process at the moment, um Ely do have um the support mentoring and um the networks that are available. And um I'm available to walk alongside someone in discernment. So I think it's um if you're not quite sure and you think that you need um someone to talk to or someone to support you, you you may not know that that might be available for you. So I'd ask your DDO to um signpost you and direct you to that person that that can provide that hand holding for you.

SPEAKER_02: 29:06

Yeah, I think I would just echo what's been said, but like I speak from someone who's had a really positive discernment um experience and curacy, um, even though we are in vacancy, um, and it's been really, yeah, really positive. But for my colleagues, I know, uh and friends, that's not been the same, you know, same case. Um, and it's been a real struggle for for certain people, and I recognise that. But I think, yeah, there's always someone to speak to, so do um be proactive at reaching out and finding someone to talk to. Um, but yeah, I would say that you know the thing that's going to keep you in ministry in the long run is is that God has called you to such a time as this, like um and remembering, yeah, who's called you and the God that sees you um is with you as you journey along and and do ministry. I think that's yeah, that's the the main thing that will. Or keep you strong.

SPEAKER_01: 30:02

Hey, thank you very much. Uh in in sharing some of your experiences, it's been great chatting to you. Thank you so much. You've been listening to Reflections on Ordained Ministry, a collaboration between Ridley Hall and Ely Diocese, hosted by David Newton, produced by Matt Cooper, and funded by the National Church of England.