Candidates timetable

October - make the application to candidate
Nov-Jan - conduct assessed services/compile personal statement (application)
Feb-Mar - Circuit and District approval (and the psychotherapists report)
April - National approval
June - Conference approval

I would appreciate your prayers throughout the process

Working life

I finish work at the end of the month although I have now got nothing to do. I have been filling my time with looking for work, finishing off assignment work and reading.
I have not found any church related work yet and I am hoping that October and November will see some vacancies. I am looking for alternate types of work that would fit in to expanding my experience of working with the older generation but we will have to see how that goes. Still looking in the Sheffield area although the circle is widening.

Calling

I will now be candidating for the Methodist Ministry as a presbyter not a deacon. Presbyter means the Methodist minister you might usually see looking after communion and baptisms and everything else that goes with the role). The decision was really the end of a process and this blog has listed some of the key reasons and reinforcements along the way. I recognise that this is still part of a testing of the calling and I will list separately a timetable that I will have to follow over the next 12 months. It is exciting to move into the next step although the timing with giving up work means that my focus has really switched to trying to get another job at the moment.
I hope that the next part of the process is as helpful as the last year - I have learnt so many things and have some great memories.

Assignment

I have now completed the 3rd assignment - Urban theology. Good learning opportunity and the Castleford regeneration project was screened on C4 at just the right time. The assignment highlighted the challenges for Urban theology which seems to have a lot to do with outdated preconceptions. This means I will have done 3 out of 4 assignments. I believe that will leave a dissertation and a piece of self directed work. I need to think about which module I might do next term as the God in Film and Society looks right up my street.
I am just about starting to learn how the writing and referencing need to work in order to write academic theology.