End of term!

So we've come to the end of Hilary Term - one third of the way through my training already! This has been a ridiculously busy term, with lots of essays, supporting pieces, formational stuff and more! Some of the highlights:

Worship

Working with members of my College Group to put together a Creative Eucharist was an excellent experience. We had some differences of opinion during the process - inevitable when the group is full of leaders - but it was a valuable learning experience and resulted in a service which flowed very smoothly and enabled a lot of people to meet with God.

Another highlight happened two days later, when a member of our group (not me!) performed some highly entertaining tricks with a thurible during the service commemorating Edward King, a principal of Cuddesdon over 100 years ago.

Placements

Both placements this term have been good, especially the opportunity to preach at St. Barnabas. I will also be acolyting there on Easter Sunday, which will be exciting! The Steppin Stone placement is nearly at an end - one Thursday to go - and I will be sorry to finish there. It has been so important in keeping my training grounded in the realities of ministry.

Studies

Best course of the term has been Reformation - a huge gap in my knowledge up until now, but not any more! I have two supporting pieces to do on this over the holiday - have already started the first one, on the reason Erasmus & Luther disagreed over free will. Fascinating stuff!

College Life

I am officially part of the new Kids Church Leadership Team - a colleague and I led the last one of term Wednesday just gone. It is nice to be back involved with this!

I am also continuing as Assistant Social Club Treasurer for the next year - the guy who gets to tell everyone how much they've been spending at the bar!

Easter Holidays

We're going to be back and forth over the holidays, with me having the two essays to write, as well as revision for exams (first week in May). But there is a wedding at St. Mark's to look forward to, as well as experiencing how St. Barnabas 'do Holy Week'. And we will be visiting family at various times as well. Then it will be back for a new term, and getting ready to say goodbye to those who will be leaving college in June - which will signal one year left for us here!

Preaching tomorrow!

So I'm preaching at my placement church tomorrow (St. Barnabas) - the first time I will have preached since we moved last August. We don't have to preach in our first year, but I didn't want to go a whole year without having preached, so I'm grateful for the opportunity.

It's an interesting sermon to have prepared, because St. Barnabas use the Roman lectionary, rather than Common Worship, which means that tomorrow's Gospel reading is Luke's version of the Transfiguration. (In Common Worship, it comes just before Lent). So it's been interestign seeing why the Roman lectionary has it during Lent.

Basically, it's because, during Lent, Christians are called to participate in "the Paschal Transfiguration of Christ". Now, this phrase is a new one on me, so I had to do some research to find out what it meant! And I found this from a sermon by Fr. Jan Rokosz (a Polish Roman Catholic priest):

A paschal transfiguration occurs in the life of a Christian immersed in Christ. It awakens life in places where there is death, power – where there is weakness, joy – where there is suffering, forgiveness – where there is abuse, good – where there is evil, love – where there is hatred, and resurrection – where there is the cross. And all this happens, thanks to the love, power, and wisdom of God, which are continuously revealed to us through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in the Community of the Church and for her strengthening, and ultimately – for our everlasting good.

I think that says it all! And so I am incorporating that quote into the sermon tomorrow!

Update: essays, swine flu and catching breath!

The last two weeks have, frankly, been a whirlwind. There has been so much to get my head around that I only now have a half hour window to finally get onto the blog! So here's a whistle-stop update...

Essays

I think I have mentioned that I have to produce an essay a week, to be discussed in Monday afternoon seminars. They are alternating between Old & New Testament texts each week; so far, there have been essays on Paul's presentation of himself as a model to the Corinthian Christians, an analysis of the Genesis flood story in comparison with the other flood stories of the world at that time, a look at Paul's use of the word 'body' in 1 Corinthians, and, the current one, how (if at all) the book of Deuteronomy can be used in Christian thought.

It's all fascinating stuff, and it can be very easy to get sidetracked into a particular idea - I have to be very careful to stick to the question being asked!

Lectures

These tick along, with the addition that the Thursday morning Oxford University lectures have begun. We have three of them back to back (1 hour each): Old Testament, Patristics and Paul. It's a long morning, but again very interesting.

Placement

St. Barnabas Church has been very welcoming to us in the two weeks we have been there. It is a very different spirituality to anything I have seen before - and I have a fair amount of experience! - and there are lots of questions I would like to ask about the way things are done. To give one example: the Gospel isn't read - it's sung! I have never seen that done before, so am keen to find out what the theology and/or spirituality is behind that.

College Life

We are well settled now, and are getting used to the different rotas there are. Next week, my Group is on Worship Duty, so we lead services, read, assist at Eucharist, etc. I shall be wearing my cassock for the first time on Monday! I will also have a new experience at Wednesday Eucharist, when I will be Assistant 1 - this means that I lead Confession and read the Gospel (nothing new there), but also that I prepare the table - and this will be done from behind the altar (facing the congregation). Obviously, I have assisted as sacristan loads of times before...but never from that perspective. I have a feeling that it will feel very different!

Swine Flu

Last, but by no means least, this has been a very tough week, because poor Clare has caught the dreaded Swine Fle (as has half of college). She's close to recovery now, but was wiped out for the first few days. The Tamiflu brought her high temperature down straight away, thank goodness - it doesn't do that for everyone. Of course, it's meant a lot of dashing backwards and forwards for me, as I haven't wanted to leave her on her own too long. But, like I say, she's nearly back to full health, thank goodness!

That's a very quick update for now - I hope to have time to do another post over the weekend, but with this essay on Deuteronomy to finish, we may have to see about that one!

Lectures underway

So much for the plan to post more regularly! Last week - the first full week of lectures - has been so busy that it's been hard just finding time to draw breath! Add to that a stinking cold which affected me for a few days, and it kind of feels like I've been treading water recently, just to stay afloat. But it seems to be on the mend now, so hopefully next week will be better!

As I'm on the Bachelor of Theology course, I have twelve lectures a week (all in the morning, and three of them in Oxford on Thursdays). Some of these are specific to the BTh, others are standard in this term for all 1st years, and one of them - Greek - is optional.

Afternoons are generally set aside for personal study, reading, essay writing, etc, although I do have a seminar on Monday afternoons, and a placement on Thursdays.

Speaking of placements, I have been given mine for the first two terms. I shouldn't talk about the Thursday one yet, as the person who will be my supervisor is away at the moment, but my Sunday one will be at St. Barnabas, Jericho (in the centre of Oxford). I don't know a lot about it yet, except that it is Anglo-Catholic - and that is what I had asked for, having little experience of it to date. Clare & I are going there tomorrow, with another 1st year, so I will report back on my first impressions afterwards!