As we approach the time that we usually celebrate ordinations in the diocese, my particular prayers at this time are with clergy – and amongst them, two groups.
 
First, those who have been preparing for many years for the ordinations that were meant to happen this Petertide. Ordinations will now happen on 10 October. Please do remember all of them in your prayers – particularly some ordinands who will be moving into their parishes at this time ahead of their commissioning as licensed lay workers by Zoom next Wednesday 1 July.
 
Secondly, I’m praying for all clergy who will be busy managing the implications of Tuesday’s announcement by the prime minister. Theirs is not an easy task at this time. For above all the practical implications of a gradual return to our church buildings, there is an increased awareness of the need to serve a new community – those who have joined us virtually.
 
One of the blessings and challenges of 20 years ministry in Wales was bilingualism. Every time I led worship, I would need to establish whether it was to be exclusively Welsh, exclusively English, or bilingual. Leading bilingual worship was always the most rewarding and challenging. It required the skills of a jazz musician in being able to improvise, respond, and connect with the particular needs of the context and occasion. I feel there’s an element of bilingualism that is facing England now too as we attempt to minister to both a physical and virtual church. Like most cases in Wales, there probably isn’t usually the capacity or resource to offer both languages exclusively, and so we’ll need to learn to be jazz musicians. And as we do that, we’ll need to help and support each other – not beating ourselves up when we get it wrong or driving ourselves into the ground by doubling our work in attempting to minister to both communities exclusively.
 
Every time we commission new leaders in the Church of England, we hear of our task to ‘proclaim afresh in every generation’. For me, those words have a new poignancy. As we approach Petertide, we wonder at the ways in which the distance between the world of Peter and our own is increasing at an alarming rate. And yet, Jesus speaks to us with the same words as he did to Peter: ‘do you love me… feed my sheep’. That’s the task of the priesthood of all believers – encouraged and enabled by the ordained priesthood. It’s not one that any of us can accomplish in our own strength and so we pray particularly at this challenging time, for clergy and all of us, that we may daily increase in the Holy Spirit more and more.
 
Archdeacon Paul
 

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