The September Residential weekend (6-8 September), organised by the Diocese of Winchester Mission and Ministry Team, has welcomed new and returning students who are training with the Diocese of Winchester for licensed ministry. The event ran from Friday night to Sunday lunchtime at the University of Winchester and comprised of times of worship, prayer, study and fellowship, aided by fantastic food!
On Saturday morning Bishop David joined the group to preach at a Holy Communion service. The day followed with learning sessions focused on topics including preaching, studying the Old Testament in context, exploring leadership and self-care in ministry.
Students were at different stages of their learning, with people training to become Licensed Lay Ministers, Licensed Lay Workers or others preparing for ordained ministry. Some are at the beginning of their training while others are coming to the end of their journey.
The September Residential marks the beginning of the new academic year with participants joining from across the Diocese of Winchester, from Bournemouth to Basingstoke, Andover to Alresford.
We spoke to three of those taking part in the weekend to hear more about their experience:
Suki Coe from the North West Hampshire Benefice
Suki is doing one-year bespoke training having already been licensed as an LLM and is now an Ordinand. After completing her training, she hopes to be ordained as a Deacon in June and a priest in the following June.
She said, “This residential is important because for me, it’s a bit like a fledgling returning to a nest and it’s wonderful to be feeling comfortable and embraced and held, with other trainees. We’ve all come together, we’re all from different places, with some just starting out and some continuing training. It’s wonderful to start the year together and then we go off and do all our different work and learning and come together at various stages in the year. It’s good to have the fellowship and the shared purpose that you get when we come together. My training last time was through Covid and so we were a bit disparate and everything was on screen. It is wonderful to be here in person and make friends and meet people who have connections with you that you didn’t know before. That fellowship is really important.”
Adam Marsh from Christ Church, Colbury in the New Forest
Adam is a second year LLM student. He only started going to church four years ago when he was getting married and went to have his banns read. He lost his job before Covid and began volunteering at church. He did a BCM worship course and then decided he wanted to become an LLM. He now works as a pastoral support worker in a school. He’s also considering training for ordination.
He said, “I’d always fancied the idea of being a vicar – I think from watching Father Ted! At that time though not knowing anything about church. I’d always had a nagging thought that there was something else that I should be doing in my life, rather than partying, and then being out of work during Covid gave me space to look into faith and find God. I worked for a time as an undertaker during Covid which also brought it all home, you see all the despair but also people’s faith. We then had a baby and that cemented for me that there’s someone much more important helping and guiding us. It’s brilliant to be on this residential. Last year was our first year and we didn’t know anyone and were all nervous but now we have our fellowship groups and WhatsApp each other. We all study together and that’s a rock because if you get an assignment that’s hard, you can contact someone in your fellowship group, have a chat on the phone and pray, and you know you’re not the only one struggling. I’ve spent the summer looking forward to this residential. It’s a chance to pray together, to worship together, study together and eat together. Without that support, it would be a lot harder. It’s that ability to rely on your other trainees that makes it so good”.
Mel Osborne from Brockenhurst Parish Churches
Mel is starting her second of three years of training as an Ordinand through the Diocese of Winchester. She is the Children and Families Worker at Brockenhurst Parishes. She initially planned to study Theology at St Mellitus College in Plymouth after becoming a Christian but deferred the course during Covid. She then felt God telling her to look at ordination as well.
“This residential is so important as I don’t think you can underestimate the value of community. The training takes quite a lot of dedication and you can sometimes feel a bit isolated and I think it’s so important to meet face to face and be able to share life and how it feels. What’s lovely is that people come with different stories but there’s a common bond of understanding and empathy. It’s really lovely to meet the tutors in person rather than on Zoom and have those conversations as well. It’s good to have this at the start of the year. I think it’s important that we have that delineation, that we are starting a fresh year, we’ve got our timetable and we know what we’re looking forward to. I like to plan ahead and see what we’re going to do and get really excited about modules as well”.
Will Howard is one of the licensed ministry training tutors at the Winchester mission and ministry team. He said, “This weekend is about training people for both lay and ordained ministry in the Church of England in the Winchester Diocese, equipping them to fulfil their calling from God, either as priests, licensed lay ministers or all varieties of ministries. This weekend brings everybody together. It helps us have a sense of who we are as a community and for my part, I get hugely encouraged by seeing what the students are doing and how they’re getting on. You can see the students, in their conversations with each other, they have that sense of excitement that starts to bubble up as they see what God is doing in their lives and in their fellow students lives, and that we’re all part of this bigger broader picture which is wonderful”.
Some of the students will become licensed lay ministers at a special service at Winchester Cathedral in October before continuing their studies for the rest of the year. Others will become deacons next Summer.
To find out more about Licensed Ministry training in the Diocese of Winchester, visit https://winchester.anglican.org/mission-and-ministry/licensed-ministry-training/
