Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Several times in the last week or so, I have received a communication from someone which says ‘I know you are very busy…’ and these have stuck in my mind. One of these said ‘I am sure you are very busy—I know that I am.’ A couple of things struck me immediately. The first, and …
The harsh reality of demographics means that the numbers of stipendiary clergy will continue to decline significantly over the next ten years. What will that mean in practice for the future of the Church? What issues does it raise—and is anyone actually facing up to these questions? Save the Parish, who are campaigning (not least …
I first posted this a year ago, and was intrigued to re-read it. The particular reason is that, as I wrote, I had just experienced four months with a pulled hamstring, finding walking, sitting or driving very painful, and requiring that I took a cocktail of painkillers. I was facing a biopsy under general anaesthetic …
Like millions of others, I stayed up on Saturday night to ‘see in’ the New Year, which for us included watching on TV £1.5m going up in smoke (with some spectacular lights) on the River Thames, and the obligatory replay of the last ten minutes of ‘When Harry met Sally’. In some ways, seeing in …
Emma Ineson was Chaplain at the Lee Abbey Community in Devon, then Principal of Trinity College Bristol. She is now suffragan bishop of Penrith in Carlisle Diocese, and has just published a book Ambition: what Jesus said about power, success and counting stuff exploring the issues around faith, vocation and the question of ambition. She kindly agreed to …
Three times in the last week or so, I have received a communication from someone which says ‘I know you are very busy…’ and these have stuck in my mind. One of these said ‘I am sure you are very busy—I know that I am.’ A couple of things struck me immediately. The first, and …
In the previous post, I explored how the language of vocation is used in contemporary discourse, (expressing individuation, interiorisation, stratification, self-actualisation and marginalisation) and then began to reflect on the rather different description in scripture. God calls creation into being; his disruptive call to Abraham both completed the past and opened the future; God’s call …
Vocation has always been an important term for the Church of England as it thinks about patterns of ministry, and it has recently been hitting the headlines as the ‘number of vocations’ has been increasing, particularly amongst the young. But ‘vocation’ is also a common term in wider culture; once you are aware of it, …
What do you think is the biggest question facing our culture? Is it to do with Brexit, and questions of national identity? Is it about social media, and questions of truth? Is it to do with sex and gender identity? Or are you facing personal questions and challenges that dwarf these? My conviction is that, …
A little while ago, I read a blog post which started by mentioning ‘one of the most powerful Christian leaders in the world.’ I don’t think I read much further. What on earth could such a comment mean? I was particularly struck by because of a conversation I had had a couple of weeks earlier. …
My post last week on whether ordination ‘makes you a priest’ provoked a good deal of discussion and debate. As part of that, I receive a long response from Simon Oliver, who is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. I got to know Simon when he was the highly respected head of …
