This week's lesson...

Well, I have survived my month as a Student Minister and what a month it has been. A funeral, two weddings, meetings about new church signs, meetings about meetings, visiting the old, visiting the young, and a few acts of worship to top it off. I have been pushed to the edge of my comfort zone and beyond, but not without being told first!

After a year of academic study, it was really good to get out and get experience of what it really means to be in pastoral ministry. Standing in the pulpit occasionally is not the same as working a six day week where preparing Sunday's morning service, though an important part of the week, sometimes takes a backseat to everything else. This I think has been one of the most important things I will take away from this month, and today it dawn on me why. My supervisor was talking about how he has always considered pastoral work as being the things that needs to be got right if you want a church to come together. The one thing that most people need is to feel valued and that is one of the key purposes of pastoral work. And how true this is, if people feel like valued members of a community then they are more likely to work at being part of that community.

So as I put my feet up for a couple of weeks, here are a couple of other important things I have learnt over my month as the apprentice:

• Always write in pencil in your diary
• A fountain pen is an essential piece of stationary
• Black coffee is drinkable

A fantastic month and I'm going to miss it.

A shacking and a quivering...

This Sunday I had my first experience of preaching in a Cambridge church. Now, this isn't the first time I've preached and I'm always a little nervous; but this week...

But why? What made this congregation any different from all the other congregations I've stood in front of? Well, my College Principal was there, then there was a former College Principal, several other retired ministers, quite a few people with PhDs and the list goes on. The CVs of the congregation are impressive to say the least. But should people's qualifications really matter on a Sunday morning in the pews?

If I was presenting an academic paper I could understand why it matters. Not that I'm saying a sermon should not be well researched or be without academic rigor. But, a Sunday morning (or any other time in the week when God' people gather) is about worshipping God together; offering the events of the past week and the events of the coming week to God and exploring together God's message to us in the Bible. It is the place where everyone is equal, because we are all equal before God. And we are all human--though some may seem super-human at time.

All I have to do now is remember this the next time...

What's the difference between a URC minister and an engineer?

Well if I was under any illusions of what life would be like as a minister in the United Reformed Church, I'm not any more! Two weeks into my month-long church placement and I've realised the value of that one day of the week I get off! Though days can be long and it can be hard to see when you will get time to actually prepare Sunday's morning worship, it does have its perks... for one thing you get to sit and drink coffee with people and call it work :o)

So now that I've seen what lies on the other side of my four years of training, do I want to put the theology books back on the shelves, wave 'goodbye' to my library desk and return to the piles of medical journal articles and further ponderings on how to cool the kidney?

This weekend I was very much reminded of my old day job and what use to get me excited (and if I'm honest, still does a little). And yes to design something again, see it built and then being used to make a difference would be amazing, but that isn't the only thing engineering is about and was only a very, very, very small part of what I did. Learning about new technology, understanding how, if at all, it could make a difference to patient care, was a lot of what I did. But is being a Minister of Word and Sacrament very different to that? Ok, maybe I'm not reading articles on the latest methods for measuring levels of B-type natriuretic peptides, but I do have to read about and interpret what God was saying to Amos in the vision of the plumb-line and then communicate what I've found out to others. Requires the same skills, there are just fewer pretty tables involved!

So apart from the reading material, life really hasn't changed much. I still sit through endless meetings, try to read my way through piles of books and even consider the pros and cons of purchasing a defibrillator!

A long road trip for a very good reason...

So I've completed an academic year of study, but of course this is not the only education an ordinand needs if they are actually going to minister effectively in the Church. And though I am training to be a Minister of Word and Sacrament, leading worship on a Sunday morning is not the only thing I will have to do, as I have discovered this week. In fact, finding time to prepare worship for a Sunday morning will be a challenged!

Though as a first year, it is not a requirement for me to undertake a placement this summer, I thought that this might be a good use of some of my summer vacation. Yes, I know some of you are now saying "what a swot" and maybe I am, but would you have me any other way! However, there is a specific aim to my placement - pastoral encounters - which has led me not just to be a shadow to my supervising minister over the past week and for the coming weeks, but to also spending time reflecting on what relation things have to being a pastor, as well as going a long road trip.

As I sit blogging, in another window I have the live stream from the United Reformed Church General Assembly running. Ok, maybe I should find something else to do with my Saturday afternoon, but there is a point to this. As part of my consideration of pastoral encounters, my Supervisor and I felt that though we were not to be members of General Assembly this year, it was actually very important to be there, if only for a short time. Therefore, I found myself in Scarborough for a day, and now find myself listening to the live stream.

As a denomination, the URC is trying to look towards a future that 40 years ago it didn't think it would be facing. It is a church of diversity, which we celebrate, but also one which seeks to be uniting, if not united. However, there are some issues that are difficult to discuss and discern the right way forward. But as a gathering a Christians we have a common mission (as we were reminded by the new moderator Michael Jagessar in his address to General Assembly) - sharing the good news of God's of full life (salvation) for all. And in what we do and say we are not alone, because God is there in the midsts.