A Country Curate

If you're a reader of my old blog, welcome back. If you're not, there follows a bit of background - for more information than that, follow the link and enjoy the read!

After being a volunteer youth leader in Dorset for 5 years, God decided that he had plans for my life that didn't involve working in electronics. I followed his lead, and I've just spent two years at theological college in Cambridge doing the necessary academic training in order to eventually become a Church of England priest, with the ultimate target of becoming a vicar.

After academia, it's time to get some practical experience (not that the course was exclusively in the library - see the old blog again!) living and working in the real world, being trained alongside somebody who has been there. So having been ordained in July I'm living in North Wiltshire, licensed to the Greater Corsham and Lacock team as their curate.

The team comprises five churches, and I'm working across them all, although I am heavily focussed on Lacock in order to give me a fixed point of reference and the chance to get to know a congregation well. I'm attached to the Vicar of Lacock, Rev Sally Wheeler, who in the role of 'training incumbent' is responsible for making sure I get exposed to everything that is necessary for my professional development.

I'm here for up to four years - that's partly dependent on how well the training goes, partly on what positions are available in 2013/14, and partly on my children's life choices with the timing of GCSEs and A-levels. As it's a really busy team of churches there is no lack of experience to be had here - there are 35 weddings this year, and I've already been to more funerals in the last 2 months than in the rest of my life previously.

I hope to use this blog to share a flavour of what it's like to be a curate in the English countryside. I know several readers of the previous blog were considering or were about to enter training, and I'd like to think that what I write here will help give them a better appreciation of what the curacy phase can be like.