I’m feeling Supersonic

“I need to be be myself, I can’t be no one else” (Supersonic: Oasis)

The Bailey, Durham

I just found this post on my computer from the last time I logged into my blog. A year and one day ago. I found this post that I had written but not published. So, a year late but here it is…

It was a sunny Tuesday in March in 2017 and I was walking along the cobbles of the Bailey in Durham, headphones in striding with purpose. I was looking for Cranmer hall, as I was visiting to attend an interview upon suggestion from the DDO (Diocesan Director of Ordinands) As I walked along I recall the opening bars of ‘Supersonic’ pouring out from the earphones and the unmistakable voice of Liam Gallagher declaring “I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else…”. I remember it vividly as it was exact what I needed to hear in that very moment.

I was in Durham exploring the possibility of training for ordained ministry in the Church of England. The very thought was ridiculous to me, a man hailing from a Teesside council estate that had ventured no further than sixth form in the academic realms. I had more in common with the Gallagher brothers than I did with the image of the Church of England vicar that existed within my mind. I was Northern, loud and often outspoken. What business did I have here?

I believed unreservedly that God uses all kinds of people to change the world and to take the message of hope across it, I just wasn’t as confident that the Church of England did so. Throughout the process to this point, various people had reassured me that the Church needed more people like me. Bishops, friends, family members and colleagues explained to me the need to be myself and now LG was reminding me.

I spent two days at Cranmer hall and during my time there I worried that being myself would be to my detriment. Everyone seemed to use different language when they talked about theology, faith and church, and most of them sounded proper posh 🙂

There were so many words that I didn’t understand and so many references and questions that just went over my head. I worried that being myself in this environment would not be a good idea. Over those two days I also felt an undeniable prompting that this was the place that I should train. Two days later I sent an email accepting a place, should I be recommended for training after I had been to BAP (Bishops Advisory Panel).

The BAP is part of the process where an individual goes to a centre for a couple of days with others discerning whether God is calling them to ordained ministry and after a series of interviews, discussions, presentations and other such things, a panel will prayerfully discuss and reflect in order to make a recommendation to the Bishop.

Again, when i arrived on BAP I had another severe case of ‘impostor syndrome’. There were very few people that I could easily identify with from initial impressions and exchanges. I am sure that others felt similarly, but to me the others all seemed more alike to one another than I felt to anyone. I had a limited experience of the Anglican church and I felt it so much in this place. The others seemed to know the correct responses in the book with the ribbons that I was just staring at in the same way I used to stare at my Tricolore textbook in High school. I started to sweat when it was announced that we were going to read the psalm antiphonally.

What was I doing here? It was clear that I didn’t belong here. The question kept running through my mind, but then I kept getting taken back to my previous interviews before I even knew what a BAP was. Various people had said: ‘you just need to be you’. This culminated in my interview with Bishop Philip North when he agreed to sponsor me and in the same meeting had urged me to stay true to myself and not to change. It was especially significant coming from him as on the surface he displayed everything that I thought that I was not and everything that I thought the Church would expect of it’s clergy. It was clear though from that meeting that we both shared a deep love of God and of people. I was worried that I didn’t fit into the ideals of an ordained minister due to the differences that I saw between myself and others in the same boat, yet I totally ignored the things that mattered. God used and continues to use people from various backgrounds to work through, I had read it in my Bible and had seen it in my life.

I needed to be myself, I can’t be no one else…

So that is what I did. In two wonderful years at Cranmer Hall, after a cautious start where again the same turmoil wrestled within me, I chose to focus on what unites me with those alongside me, rather than those things that separated us. The more I did that the more I realised the various things that I held in common with the individuals within the community

Yesterday (29th June 2019) I was ordained as a Deacon in the Church of England by Bishop Jill Duff. In the preparation for the Ordination I had met with Bishop Jill and she had once again spoke affirming words to me and over me that reinforced the notion that God wanted me to be myself.

Right now I am feeling Supersonic…