Meet Marie, Charlie, and Becky

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Oh Marie, Charlie, Becky, it's uh great to have you with us uh this this afternoon to think a little bit about self-supporting ministry or whatever you want to call it, and we'll uh talk about that in in due course. Uh but why don't you just begin by introducing yourself, saying a little bit about uh who you are and what you do, Marie.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

So my name is Marie. Um by trade I am a technical translator, copywriter, and editor, and I've been in that line of business for over 40 years. Um, and on top of that, I'm a chaplain and I'm also a reflective pastoral supervisor, and of course, I'm a priest working in a parish.

What Is Self‑Supporting Ministry?

SPEAKER_02 0:45

I'm Charlie. I'm um I do a whole host of different things, have to remember what I'm doing each day of the week. Um, but I'm employed full-time by the National Health Service as a um forensic psychiatrist. So I work with people um in the criminal justice system who have got um mental illness. Um, and sometimes that's in court, sometimes that's in hospital, um, sometimes that's in prison or indeed in the community. Um I spend a bit of time also as um, I'm the fellow in medicine and public theology at Gerton College in Cambridge, um, and so spend time doing some uh teaching primarily of undergrads and a little bit of research as well, um, both in theology and and in medicine. Um, and then I'm uh the associate vicar of St. John the Divine uh Church in Kennington in the Diocese of Southwark, um, which is where I spend uh much of my evenings and weekends.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

My name's Becky, and I have been a theatre composer for over 20 years. Um that looks like a whole plethora of things. So I write music for um musicals mostly. So musical theatre is my specialism. So um I did a PhD in musical theatre analysis, and so there's also been a kind of academic strand to my work, lecturing and researching and writing books. And then I also um write musicals, family shows, pantos, music for plays. I originally trained as a film composer, but mostly work in theatre. Um, so that all works on a freelance basis, kind of a whole melting pot of things. And then I am the curate at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge. Um I'm a second year curate, so I was just priested um a month ago.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Fantastic, thank you. So, one of the interesting things about self-supporting ministry is that it's quite new on the scene uh in the Church of England. Uh Becky, I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of the of the history uh to set the scene.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

I think relatively speaking, it's quite new. I think it grew out of an initiative in Southwark Diocese for worker priests. It was a vision that there could be priests among workers in all kinds of um fields of employment. And particularly, um, I remember reading about um wanting priests in the docks, and so there would be priests um who were dock workers who would then also be able to celebrate communion um at work. So rather than about bringing people into the church, it was very much taking um ministry out to the people.

Language: From Non‑Stipendiary to Volunteer

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And I think that initiative began in about the 60s or 70s.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Okay, and now it's it's a plethora of different things and can mean all sorts of different things to different people. And one of the interesting things is the language at play, right? So we talk about self-supporting. We used to talk about non-stipendry, but that tends to go now. How do you tend to refer to yourselves as all of this different language around?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

I think um, well, yes, I we we don't use non-stipendy anymore. However, it um sent a very strong signal to congregations that we did not receive a stipend uh from the church. And uh in in my various congregations, it's been very, very useful uh when they said, but Marie, where does your money come from, for example, you know, when they're curious? And I said, Well, not from the church, basically, oh, so you are a volunteer priest, and I said, Yes, and they really understood then what it was. So I think I I like to call myself, as my various congregations have called me, a volunteer priest.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, I think it's it's interesting, isn't it? Because there's a whole host of different people who are involved in this kind of ministry who come at it from whole different uh sort of walks of life and stages of life and reasons for doing it, and so on. And and so, in a sense, it's really hard to come up with a single word to describe this group. That's why, in a sense, volunteer is a good starting point because it at least it at least labels something which most of us have in common. Yes. Um, but actually all of us are coming at it with really radically different, um, radically different perspectives and also radically different life situations. So, I mean,

Priestly Identity in Secular Work

SPEAKER_02 5:00

I suppose I see most of uh, and and we can probably talk about this, I see some of my thinking for it of internally. I see a lot of my my life as being priestly in character, but I'm not sure that would necessarily be seen from the outside by people. So the sort of formal elements of the kind of ministerial priesthood is often found in quite traditional senses. So in the church, at funerals, weddings, um, you know, at chaplaincy and that kind of thing. Um, but I feel like internally quite a lot of my life is kind of at least in my own mind um expressed in more priestly terms than perhaps it was before. And so, am I a minister in secular employment? Well, I'm a minister and I'm in secular employment, but does that best describe my relationships with the church? I'm not sure. And I suppose I've never really quite come up with a word or a phrase which best describes how I see my ministry, except for just knowing that it's changing endlessly and that that's not necessarily itself a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

I've learned over the course of my training to use so originally when I started, we were um NSM, so non-stipendry ministry. Um, then it became SSM and now SSOM, um, really as recognition of the fact there are so many types of self-supporting ministry. It's not just about ordination. Um, there are um many lay ministers as well who also do so much um self-supporting. Um so I've sort of used the labels that have been sort of more widely adopted as I've gone. Because I I agree, Charlie, it for me as well, um, exactly as you say, while you have a sort of priestly attitude to everything you're doing, I don't have a formal role as a minister in my secular work. So though those labels don't feel like they quite apply to my situation.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Um do you so would you say, do you feel like you are a so one of the terms is like a priest in secular work? So is is there a sense in which everything you do kind of is uh brought brought within this kind of realm of priestly vocation? Or or is it more that you have a dual vocation? That's what some people talk about, uh a vocation to this and a vocation to that. But that's quite that that perhaps feels a bit like there's there's two two of you, you know, and and you're a one integrated self. So how how do you manage some of some of that? Is it is it a dual vocation? Is it all wrapped up in priestly vocation? Is it how how do you guys talk about it? Maybe differently.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

So your question raises in my head an image, the image of the hourglass, and you shift the sand from the top to the bottom and then turn around, and the sand shifts again from and for me, the sand is always in the middle, and both secular and non-secular work mingle and mix all the time. And I don't think uh I could live without one or the other. So, in a way, I think the two are intricately um together in my life.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, I think it for me it travels in both directions, so it's not that the whole thing is wrapped up in the church ministry, it's because sometimes it's about taking that into the secular world. So um yeah, it is it's a sort of ebb and flow backwards and forwards. So I I found it really important to try to find an interior sense of unity and harmony to all of that, but um, but that's not necessarily what it looks like from the outside.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah, I mean, uh again, without wanting to open the question so wide that you can't engage with it. Um, I think there are questions about what ministry means and what, and and I that that's one of my questions always about minister and secular employment. You sort of touched on that. Well, actually, all Christians are ministering in some way or form, and so we're talking about a very particular form, a very distinctive form of ministry, ordained ministry, which historically has taken quite a distinctive form itself. So we we were able to point to what was ordained ministry, what was not ordained ministry. But then when you throw secular employment or the workplace into that, um, for example, I I haven't celebrated the Eucharist at work, and and celebrating the Eucharist seems to me to be quite central to what it means to be a priest, and and and or indeed very what it what it means to distinctively be a priest rather than not a priest. And so, so in a sense, I think these these things are quite fluid, and and I think it's it I think we always need to be careful that we don't we don't ignore the ministerial presence of others, for example, in the workplace, particularly lay people in the workplace who are ministering uh in an equal way. And and and so I think we, yeah, so for me, being being priestly does require a connection to the local Christian

Boundaries, Balance, and Burnout

SPEAKER_02 9:45

community in a sense, um, however that that that is borne out, but I do think it does impact upon how you relate to your day-to-day job, to the people that you might never see in in as part of a Christian community, but nonetheless, I think amongst whom you're called to in some way embody something of your priestly identity.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Right, so there's that sense of yeah, priestly identity, which then outflows in in different ways. But this kind of integrated self raises for me a question of boundaries, right? And how do you navigate some of the tensions, some of the boundaries that I think must be more of a of an even more live question for you who are trying to juggle multiple roles, multiple hats, if I can put it like that?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I hope these two have an answer because I'm yet to work out how that um yeah, balance.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Balance is the key word. Um I've done a lot of juggling every uh every day since I was selected at BAP. Um and it's not easy, uh, but I would say in in order to manage this well, you need to be really well organized, and you need to have very strong boundaries. Uh, there is a time, I mean, that great wisdom, a time for everything, but there is a time for everything. Even if you are a priest at heart, there is a time for secular work, there is a time for conversations with people at work, there is a time for conversations with people who are extremely different from you in your workplace. There might be a lot of atheists or people of different faith. All of that is is um is is enriching uh ministry. So you I suppose you hold everything in balance, you try to be flexible, um, and yeah, you try to apply some some boundaries so that you don't um, well, very simply you don't burn out.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Do you think do you I mean the big bold question here, but do you think that the the church has kind of yet, given it's only 50 years old or whatever, this this kind of ministry, do you think the church has yet kind of properly got to grips with self-supporting ministry? No.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Absolutely

Has the Church Caught Up Yet?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

not. The church needs to learn, and when we say the church, let's call it for what it is, I think stipendiary clergy needs to be educated about day-to-day life of a working priest, uh, very simply. So I imagine bishop study days, I imagine meetings or socials or anything, any event that can connect stipendary clergy with priests in secular work and you know, so that they understand each other, particularly so that stipendary clergy gets a real deep understanding of what life looks like uh for us. And then they will be much uh more able to work with us, I think.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

I think, yeah, I think there's one of the things which kind of connects the three of us is that we're all working alongside, say working in what I would um it unfairly perhaps call the real world, um, but we're all working outside the world of the church, um, as well as expressing some kind of ministry within it. Um, and sometimes I think that the work that we do beyond the church, and whether it's a vocation or of the same type or whatever else to priestly ministry, nonetheless it's work which is clearly fulfilling and clearly work that many of us have discerned is work that we should continue to be doing because and and that it is not some kind of barrier or bar to us being able to be priestly, but is actually part and parcel of what it means to be priestly in our own situation. And I think sometimes that work is just seen as the kind of way to enable priestly ministry, hence the self-supporting. This is how you support yourself to do the priestly thing. Um, as opposed to recognizing that that being in the world and working itself is very is very important, I think, for our own sense of self and identity and vocation, but is also really helpful for the church because it means that you have clergy, um, and clergy are not the be all and end all as we know, but clergy who who are both doing the ordained ministry thing and also living in an and experiencing the world beyond the cloister. Um and and I think that can be really fulfilling for churches to understand and get a bit more of a grip about what we are doing and what what our congregations will be doing um in the in the working world. But it can cause tension because sometimes it feels like, well, if you can't make the funeral on Thursday afternoon, then well, well, that's a bit inconvenient for the church. Or if you can't do this wedding on a Saturday afternoon, it might be inconvenient. Or if you have to work, I often work um night shifts or or or day or long day shifts at the weekend. If you're working a long day shift on a Sunday, it's not something that you can really set aside. It's something that you have to do because it's it's part of those kind of obligations in the wider world. So those tensions

Tensions with Parish Expectations

SPEAKER_02 15:10

that underlie all of this are very real, I think. Um, and sometimes we might be able to understand and implement boundaries, but those boundaries might be more difficult for other people to either understand or to be able to accept. And that that's that's a conversation, isn't it? I think, which happens during during any kind of ministry, but particularly when you have another set of obligations beyond the the walls of the church.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

I think there's a big difference between the church with a small C and the church with a capital C. So what's good for the church with a capital C is the the kingdom of God, building the kingdom of God out in the world, um it's it's good for the church in that sense, but those same things are not always necessarily convenient for the church with a small C, the particular specific church that you're you're in and the the life of that particular specific place.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

There's a lovely theory that, oh, you know, that someone who's in in in secular employment is doing something that on a in a liminal place is there's an allowing some kind of fluidity and making sure that the church is speaking to the world and the world to the church, but actually on the ground, oh you can't do the funeral on Thursday, where are you? Yeah, and and the and the tension that that kind of um uh raises. That's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah, there's something very diaconate about being priest in secular work, I think. That bridge between the world and the church with one foot very firmly in both.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

I'm really fascinated by this. It's like I've never heard it before, but this this phrase of a volunteer priest, right? Because someone who volunteer that is a sense of it being additional, or maybe volunteer minister, but it there's something additional to in terms of it, it still puts an emphasis on perhaps your priestly vocation in in the workplace or your or your vocation to that, whether you call it priestly or not, to the workplace, and then you're doing some voluntary work as well as that. Absolutely. In contrast to a self-supporting, which kind of says all of that is in order to enable this that really matters. Yeah, I and that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

It's um it's a gift we give as as volunteer priests, we give, we give our time, we give of ourselves. It's extremely self-sacrificial. Um, and it's important that the church uh uh with with a little or a big C realizes that we are a gift, we are gifts to the church. We give and we are gifts, and as such, we should be treated with respect um and with compassion. So let me tell you a little story. Uh when I was uh in my curacy, um I had a paper diary, and on my paper diary I had written a few appointments that were pertaining to ministry, but um the blank spaces were for work because I knew I was working those days. And funnily enough, my training incumbent at the time peered over the table and said, Oh, you have a lot of me time in your week, not understanding that the blank days were days where uh when I was working full time. So, in order to

Dual Vocation and Sustainability

SPEAKER_00 18:20

establish some boundaries and give a graphic image of what I was doing, I started crossing out all the days and writing either the name of my client or the name of my employer later on. So it became extremely clear that every single day was actually full to the brim. And so, and sometimes it takes an image like that to to make stipendary um clergy understand uh what what what our life is like.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

It strikes me that perhaps, particularly as someone who was freelancing at the time and working with self-employed, that that that was perhaps a boundary that was even harder to navigate, right? Because it wasn't like a set thing, I'm employed and I am out of the house from nine till five Monday to Friday. It was slightly more fluid than that. Exactly. Every kind of self-supporting ministry, although we've just kind of put to bed that term, but it it has its own charism, its own difficulties, its own shape, and and and therefore its own boundaries to navigate as well. That sounds a bit.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

But you do it because you're called to it. And I think that's one of the things which um I don't think being a self-supporting minister, or whatever we're gonna call it, um, is a second best. And I don't think it's a second best either for the church or for us as individuals. And for me, I feel very much called to the very distinctive role of uh self-supporting minister. That that is what I feel. I don't, and I don't feel that I'm I I mean, I I always make the joke that why do one thing well when you can do two things badly. But I actually think I could not inhabit my priestly role as effectively if I did not have this other part to my life. Um, and I think that's true of a huge number of people in um non-stipendent ministry that I've met, that this is not, this is not actually, oh well, not quite doing the priestly thing as much as you, you know, as as much as someone who's in stipendary ministry might be able to do it. It is doing it in a very distinctive way and in a way in which we feel genuinely called to. So I I love the fact that I can do both. And with all the tensions and the frustrations we've talked about, they're all very real. But there is something about being able to um to inhabit this role, which makes me feel more that I'm doing what I should be doing than if I wasn't able to inhabit this really complicated, full of tension, challenging, frustrating, incredibly tiring role at times. Um, but if I wasn't doing it, I feel like I would be less me. And so, and and I do think sometimes that's what at the heart of why are you non-stipendry, won't you one day want to become stipendry? A large part of me wants to yell, maybe not, because actually at the moment, and who knows what the future brings, but at the moment, this feels like how I should be expressing my priestly ministry.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Yes. Even if life doesn't feel integrated, you are, you know, this is this is who I am. I mean, as a psychiatrist, I'd never say I'm ever so fully integrated, but I know what you mean. Sure, sure, sure. Uh at the moment though, we we've kind of been talking uh in slightly binary terms, right? Of either self-supporting uh or a stipendry. But of course, there is a kind of a an in-between kind of area uh, you know, of some people that that might do they might still very much feel called to a vocation that's in both within the church and uh out in employment, but actually might be part-time stipendry or do Becky, do you want to say something a little about your own story for that?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yeah. Um so I I think for me it's been uh there's sort of almost three three things to conjure up. One is uh Marie, I love the way you've been talking about your diary. I I too have had just unbelievable numbers of diary tools to try to sort of figure out what the balance is in any week of of any of how it all mixes together. So there's been a a diary, and then um the sense of God's call and and what that is and what the balance of that is, I feel very strongly that I have, I think probably I would use the word dual vocation, um, that those two things are so fundamentally part of who I am, and that they speak to each other and are are sort of one side is kind of a gift to the other as well. Um, and then trying to listen to God's call

How Work Shapes Ministry

SPEAKER_01 22:30

in what the balance of how that can actually work is. And then the third, just a very practical um element of finance and how one can actually support yourself. Because the the word self-supporting almost sort of like somehow we're we're conjured from like I have all the will in the world to do it unpaid, but there is a certain um just sustainable sort of element to to to how that is possible. So I'd always imagined when I started this that I would continue working full-time um in music, and then ministry would be more a kind of like a day a day a week kind of thing. But as I've been more and more in ministry, that has grown. Well, you you start to see the need as as much, and that really sort of calls to you, and and and that has sort of grown and grown what I've wanted to be able to offer. Um that has kind of gone beyond what I if if I follow what I believe to be God's call in that way, um, it won't be sustainable, self-supporting anymore. So then it starts to raise the question of okay, is there a a balance that is part-time stipendry and um and my work as a musician as well?

SPEAKER_03 23:47

But still that sense of a dual vocation, it's not switching from one to another, but holding on to the dual vocation, but again in a slightly different way, in the sense that we're exploring that actually there's there are as many different ways of uh of doing this. No, I'm no longer sure what we call it, but ministry in as many that you know, there are there are people, there are ways, right? It's yeah. Um we've been going so fast, and now I've got a bit of stuff. Where do we go now? I'm glad we're not alive. This hasn't actually happened before.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Um I love the how is min your ministry different from what you expected. Yes. Your questions there. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Uh and what have you learned? Anything else you want to particularly pick up, Charlie? Anything you since we're pausing, we might as well pause.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

No, uh, no, I don't think so. Uh maybe, maybe just how does the it's the kind of we've asked the question about how ministry impacts upon our other life, but maybe how our other life impacts upon our ministry. Might be an interesting flip round. So, you know, what what's different about your ministry um because you're in secular employment, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

And I think um for for those who think of embarking in um uh self-supporting ministry, um just a little piece of advice when you start your curacy. Um be careful. You you know when you can save it, save it, save it. Yeah, so so when you when when you um you know you you are you are sent to a uh training incumbent, to a parish, and um you are presented as you know that's the opportunity for you to do your curacy, uh meet with that person, have a conversation and see where it leads. And so um it can mean that at the end of that interview or the second interview, we'll see you you will agree that yes, you can work together and you sign the contract there, and then you you sign, you know, do you remember you you sign a paper saying yes, you know, this is where I will serve my accuracy. I would say to ordinance, work out the working agreement before you sign. It is

Advice for Curacy and Agreements

SPEAKER_00 26:10

it's vital to agree the working agreement before you sign, because we cannot obviously read the mind of training incumbents, and sometimes we fall short of their expectations. They have incredible expectations. And in fact, you sign on the understanding that the training incumbent understands that you work full-time at the time, in my case, it was full-time, but in fact, it might not be the case. Then they might not really understand, or they might not be willing to accept that you will still be working many, many hours in the week. So work out the working agreement before you sign your life for three years.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Okay, uh, so we're gonna pick up from um where you were, which was talking about dual vocation. We'll we'll do these final three questions. Okay, great. So you didn't stop recording, did you? But we're okay. Well, for Matt's benefit, here we go. So we're this dual vocation, a sense of actually how how does that work? Oh, I suppose one of the other questions around is so how how do they influence each other? And particularly what from your secular employment do does that bring to your ministry in church? How does it change it? How does it how does it impact it?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

I've been able to do that in a very practical way, actually, which was um I uh embarked on a creative project with the whole community at the church. Um we were running an arts fest, and um we took Ecclesiastes three, um, so for all things there is a season, um, as our passage, and I did creative workshops with um lots of different groups in the community um in the church and sort of open workshops for anyone to come along to, and gradually pieced together a musical which was a community response to Ecclesiastes III, which we then performed as a church as part of Arts Fest. So um it was a really creative way to be able to engage

Joy, Surprise, and Priesthood as Identity

SPEAKER_01 28:20

with the Bible, um, to be able to really bring about a community voice in response to the Bible. And so um it felt like a real privilege to be able to offer that as sort of my my musical and writing skills to be able to say, well, let's bring this into my role here.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

I think um when I was going forward for all day in ministry and my um my ministry has pretty much followed my medical um training. So I I qualified as a doctor and then um trained for the ministry at the same time. Um there was a lot of conversation about dual vocation, and I and I I think there are, I think there are, I thought there is a dual vocation here, but I'm not sure the word vocation means the same in both cases. Um the vocation to the priesthood feels to me to be a very distinctive kind of vocation. My vocation to medicine is no less real, but I think it means something slightly different. Um, but I do think that my I I my my medical career has certainly been impacted by my sense of calling to the ordained ministry. I don't think I would otherwise be a psychiatrist. Um I certainly don't think I would otherwise be a forensic psychiatrist. And I think a lot of the call to work with the people that I work with comes very much from um from my call to be a priest, to hold a an ordained role in the church. But I think the other the the alternative is also true. I think that my priestly ministry has been really quite fundamentally um shaped by my experience of of medicine and particularly of psychiatry. And that that's both in terms of theology, so my you know, working in a high security um hospital or a or a or a cate. Prison changes the way you engage with questions of theology. It certainly stops you from taking the shortcuts. And it means that you have to ask some searching questions, which a lot of people wouldn't ever need to ask, I think. But also, I think just your being being in a different career, whatever that career is, and being in a different persona and so on, allows you to reflect a little bit more on what it means to be priestly and what it means to be a priest in the context of the church. Different institutions work in different ways, but have some similarities. So I think actually we are shaped quite a lot by the secular environment in which we also find ourselves working. And I think that does helpfully impact upon what it means to be a priest. And indeed, back to your point about big C, small C church, about what it means to be a priest within the church, not simply for ourselves, but actually what does the Church of England think a priest is, I think can be fundamentally reshaped through the fact that we have self-supporting ministry and that it is just as much being a priest as someone who has a snipe end.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yes. Yes. It's interesting. They were so kind. And the head of the panel said, Marie, it's great because you will be able to translate the word for people. And at the time I I understood literally, I said, Well, there aren't many French, Italian, or German people around me, you know. Not of course, and it's when I left, you know, Bapta, oh Marie, seriously. Of course, I understood. And it's true that my my vocation, because I do see translation as a vocation, has shaped the way, um, um, the way in which as a minister I communicate with uh congregations. I've done a lot of exploration courses uh where uh we we take a difficult passage or a difficult um concept, and I realize that I'm it's easy for me to translate it into layman terms and explain what it is without going into very high thinking concepts, etc. Bring it down to earth and say, Well, actually, how about it means maybe it means this? Ah, yes. So uh this connection with the people, and I'm so grateful to to my job for having given me that that gift of translating uh for for people. It's uh um it's been a great uh connection uh tool.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Rui, you mentioned uh your BAP and a final question for for all of you. Uh I wonder you think you're thinking back to when you began and discernment and BAP and so on, and to how things are now. How is your ministry different from what you were expecting?

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Right now, I would say it's pretty much as I would expect it. Um it's busy but very enriching, uh, with a great team of lay and ordained people, very supportive. Uh, it's varied, and I have the freedom to do um my my secular work and my ministerial work. So it's it's pretty much how I envisaged it, and it makes me very, very happy. But that's um, yeah, that's now. It was not the case in curacy, but now it is, and and it's great.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Becky, for you you're you're having to rethink the kind of the balance of what you're expecting.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah, that's definitely different from what I was expecting it to be. I think I've learned that you know, ministry doesn't fit in a box. So it's um and and so it's sort of always trying to discern which way, you know, how how that's going to manifest itself. Um I think something actually that's different perhaps from what I expected as well is quite how joyful it feels. I was quite nervous about it and um actually just feel filled with so much joy, even when things are are tough. Um, and I also think there's more freedom in the role to be listening for God's voice and and how that's going to play out in the next part of the journey than maybe I thought there would be.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Yeah, two very brief surprises. The first one was how many of us there are uh in non-stipendry or or yes, in non-stipendry ministry. Um, and that includes people of working age. Um, and there's a lot of us of working age, of all different working ages, who are doing very different things, but all of whom seem to have this call. And that seems to me to be telling us something about the church in the in the in the contemporary world. Um, and I'm surprised because I had I never really imagined that there would be so many people who would be in the same place or same position um as me. And I suppose the other thing which has surprised me a little bit is how much of the church I feel, despite not being um full-time in the church, um, and how much my of my identity is priestly. Um, I'd heard a lot about how it would be, um, but I'm never sure I really believed it. And I felt I'd be much more compartmentalized. I could be a priest at the weekends and evenings than during the rest of the week you weren't. But I feel utterly priestly in who and what I am in everything I do, and very, despite all of its frustrations and irritations, I feel very much part of the church and very much, very much kind of responsible because of that, but also very much uh, you know, in love with the fact that we get to serve the people of God um so regularly in the way that so many others have through the generations, and to feel so connected to the organization, but also to the institution and to the theological entity that is the church surprised me hugely. And I I think that's I think that's a gift and a reminder, probably to me, that that that this matters. Um, and it is really everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Thank you so much for coming and sharing something of of of being priests who are also in in secular employment and some of the the beautiful things and some of the challenges associated with that. It's been a real delight to have a conversation with you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Thank you.