THE JOURNEY TO ORDINATION

Dedication Sunday on July 2nd saw us give thanks for the building and dedication of our church here in Fulham, which has been a house of prayer for over 900 years. It saw JASS singing Jonah Man Jazz wonderfully at the 9.30 service. And it welcomed Rev’d George as our Associate Vicar at the 10.30, with the sermon preached by his mentor The Reverend Canon Julian Reindorp and a mass composed specially by Elliott Park. The service was followed by celebrations in the Vicarage Garden. Here, George shares his journey to the priesthood.

I was born not too far from London in a village in South Buckinghamshire but, as is often the case for clergy families, we moved house fairly frequently I grew up on the Wiltshire/Dorset border and stayed in Dorset for school When I got back from a year in India after my A-levels, we lived in Exeter – so I think of myself as a West Country boy. Reflecting today, the call to ordination came early, but I was very slow to listen and respond. There was a ‘nigglingly feeling’ that never quite went away that I ought to think about it and many people suggested that I might be called to ordination It was easy and convenient to write these thoughts off; people probably thought I should be a priest because it is what my father does. I really didn’t want the real reason to following this path to be because I knew it and because my father did it

So I prayed very earnestly (and slightly arrogantly) that if God really did want me to do this, he would have to make it crystal clear in a Damascene moment that, beyond all doubt, God wanted me to be a priest for Him Looking back, I was so earnest and worried for such a clear cut answer, that I wasn’t listening properly to the ways he was calling me Like many journeys of faith, mine wasn’t a straight road, but one with many bends and diversions. Moments of driving fast with great connection and moments of having to get out and push the car. Some key points in the journey so far stick out as leading me here

Faith was normal

Growing up in the loving family I did, faith was normal and part of life Some people struggle growing up in a small community where your identity is tied up with your family unit – being known as ‘the vicar’s son’ rather than ‘George’ in my own right, and all that living in a vicarage means in terms of the blurred line between family life and the availability of of the vicar and the vicarage. While I’m sure some of that was