Revd Richards Letter ( October 2024)
A Thought from Rev’d Richard
As I write this, the season is definitely changing. And that got me thinking about
change.
Change can be difficult. One of the things we often get told as prospective vicars and
as trainee vicars is that it can be very difficult to change the way a church does
things: if you do something differently one year, it is an innovation; do it the same
way the following year and it is still new; do it a third year and it becomes a tradition,
and traditions are so firmly rooted in human experience that we don’t like changing
them. You can have good change, and you can have bad change, and frequently the
only difference is your particular viewpoint.
But recently, I’ve discovered that not changing can also be difficult.
When I arrived in the Reepham and Wensum Valley Team of Churches, I knew that it
would be for a period of no more than three and a half years. I was being licensed to
the post of Assistant Curate, for the purposes of training. (A curate is someone who
has the cure of souls in a parish, but these days we most often – though not
exclusively – use the term to denote a training position). At the end of that training, I
would be signed off by a bishop and be free to apply for my first post of responsibility,
which would involve another house move. We knew that this would be the way
things worked.
I was signed off by the bishop at Easter this year. Most of my fellow stipendiary
(paid) curates, ordained at the same time as me in Norwich Cathedral, have moved
to their first posts of responsibility. The two that haven’t will have done by the time
you read this. That just leaves me. I’m still here. Still the Assistant Curate. Expected
change has not happened.
And I have been surprised at how this lack of change, even though I know that there
is a very good reason for it, has made me feel. I have felt a bit like the student in a
class that gets held back for some reason. I’ve worried that outside observers will
look at the fact that everyone else has gone off and got a new job whilst I remain in
my training post as a sign that I’m not, in some way, good enough to move on. I
know that these feelings are unfounded: I haven’t moved because I haven’t wanted
to; I haven’t moved on because of a lack of ability but because this is where I feel
God calls me to be. But the feelings are hard to shake off.
Why do I tell you all this? Because change, whether it is expected or unexpected,
and lack of change, whether welcome or unwelcome, are facts of life. We all face
them at various times in our lives. And we may find the experience difficult
regardless of whether the change is exciting or scary. But God holds us. God knows
how we feel and is there for us. God is with us in the changes and when things don’t
seem to change. God is the one thing that, ultimately, doesn’t change.
change.
Change can be difficult. One of the things we often get told as prospective vicars and
as trainee vicars is that it can be very difficult to change the way a church does
things: if you do something differently one year, it is an innovation; do it the same
way the following year and it is still new; do it a third year and it becomes a tradition,
and traditions are so firmly rooted in human experience that we don’t like changing
them. You can have good change, and you can have bad change, and frequently the
only difference is your particular viewpoint.
But recently, I’ve discovered that not changing can also be difficult.
When I arrived in the Reepham and Wensum Valley Team of Churches, I knew that it
would be for a period of no more than three and a half years. I was being licensed to
the post of Assistant Curate, for the purposes of training. (A curate is someone who
has the cure of souls in a parish, but these days we most often – though not
exclusively – use the term to denote a training position). At the end of that training, I
would be signed off by a bishop and be free to apply for my first post of responsibility,
which would involve another house move. We knew that this would be the way
things worked.
I was signed off by the bishop at Easter this year. Most of my fellow stipendiary
(paid) curates, ordained at the same time as me in Norwich Cathedral, have moved
to their first posts of responsibility. The two that haven’t will have done by the time
you read this. That just leaves me. I’m still here. Still the Assistant Curate. Expected
change has not happened.
And I have been surprised at how this lack of change, even though I know that there
is a very good reason for it, has made me feel. I have felt a bit like the student in a
class that gets held back for some reason. I’ve worried that outside observers will
look at the fact that everyone else has gone off and got a new job whilst I remain in
my training post as a sign that I’m not, in some way, good enough to move on. I
know that these feelings are unfounded: I haven’t moved because I haven’t wanted
to; I haven’t moved on because of a lack of ability but because this is where I feel
God calls me to be. But the feelings are hard to shake off.
Why do I tell you all this? Because change, whether it is expected or unexpected,
and lack of change, whether welcome or unwelcome, are facts of life. We all face
them at various times in our lives. And we may find the experience difficult
regardless of whether the change is exciting or scary. But God holds us. God knows
how we feel and is there for us. God is with us in the changes and when things don’t
seem to change. God is the one thing that, ultimately, doesn’t change.
