God has brought me safe to this point though, and I’m pretty sure that he’ll see me through this stage.

As a quick reminder, the BAP starts at 5pm, there is a ‘personal inventory’ this evening (it’s lots of written questions that help the interviewers interview better). Tomorrow is 3 hours of presentations in the morning, followed by three interviews Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. It’s all over by 4pm on Wednesday.

If my mobile phone works, I’ll twitter some updates at twitter.com/bezzer

Yesterday the lovely Catherine got the results of her final assessments and she now has all the learning she needs to be a social worker. She still has a dissertation to complete and hand in, but she will qualify either way. That’s good news!

Earlier this week our house went on the market. You can check it out on Rightmove.

I’ve been reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham. It has the unusual characteristic of being mostly true. I say mostly, he is being sued by one of the characters for libel.

The new me starts at work on Monday, so I’m definitely going to be doing something different in September and meanwhile the countdown to my BAP continues…

Units of measure
The Parish
The Church of England is built up of parishes that cover a particular geographical area. Everywhere in England is covered by one parish. These form the basis of the Church’s mission. For example, St Michaels, Inkpen, or St Lukes, Maidenhead.

The Benefice
In the Church of England, a benefice is a group of parishes that share a minister. They are more likely to be found in rural areas and are becoming more common as they are often seen as a money saving measure and the only way to preserve a Church of England presence in an area. St Michaels, Inkpen falls within the benefice of West Woodhay with Enborne, Hamstead Marshall, Inkpen and Combe. St Luke’s Maidenhead is not part of a benefice.

The Deanery
A deanery is a group of Church of England parishes and benefices in an area. They often cover a town or a borough council type area. St Michaels, Inkpen is one of 44 churches in Newbury Deanery and St Lukes is one of 24 churches in Maidenhead and Windsor Deanery. (Remember, not all the churches will have their own minister, some will be grouped together in benefices).

The Archdeaconry
The Archdeaconry is a collections of deaneries. Both Maidenhead and Winsor, and Newbury are within the Berkshire Archdeaconry.

The Diocese
If you’re still with me, a Diocese is a collection of Archdeaconries. Berkshire Archdeaconry is in Oxford Diocese, and is one of 3 Archdeaconries that make up the Diocese (Buckingham, Oxford and Berkshire).

The Church of England
The Church of England is split into two provinces, Canterbury and York. York is made up of 14 Dioceses, and Canterbury 30 (including the Diocese of Europe!).

The Anglican Communion
Finally, the Church of England is part of an international expression of Anglican churchmanship called the Anglican Communion.

Phew! Well done if you’ve made it this far!

There are three stages to pursuing your dream of wearing a cassock and dog collar.

Discernment
Training and
Curacy (although technically you get your dog collar and cassock after the training stage)

Discernment
Unfortunately, it is not possible simply to speak to your vicar and say “I really think the Lord might be saying I should be a vicar” and that’s that, although that would be the place to start. If your vicar agrees that the Lord might be saying you should join the ranks s/he will start you on the discernment process. What happens next varies from diocese to diocese, but essentially is a process of trying to hear from God and making sure that this is what he wants!

Typically, you have to meet with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands (no wonder everyone calls them the ‘DDO’) who is paid to listen to you and God and work out whether it’s right that you are called to ordained ministry. Usually you will be sent to see someone else too, usually not a vicar. In St Albans, for example, they like to make this person someone who is trained in psychotherapy, in Peterborough Dioecese a lay person who has experience of testing vocation. This is to get another perspective on the hearing process.

Once the DDO is satisfied, they will send you to see the Bishop. The Bishop will chat to you for a while and have read a report about you by the DDO. It is up to the Bishop to make the final decision as to whether you should be allowed to train for vicarhood. If they think you are a likely candidate, they will send you to a Bishop’s Advisory Panel which is a 3 day event where you have 3 interviews, a group exercise and a pastoral letter to write amongst other things. The Bishop’s Advisory Panel then advise the bishop (strangely enough) as to whether you should be trained for vicarness.

The Bishop then decides. He can accept the panel’s advice, or he can ignore it, it’s his choice. If he says yes, you will then start training. From the first conversation with your vicar to this point can (exceptionally) be a few months, is most often at least a year and in St Albans diocese they like to really really know you want to be a vicar, so the process takes around 2 years.

Training
Training takes either 2 or 3 years, depending on your age and whether you have done any formal academic theology in the past. As a rough guide, if you are 30 or older, or you have a degree in theology already you will do 2 years, otherwise it’s 3. That’s all about to get more complicated though as a result of the Hind Report. Usually, training takes place at a Theological College (the Church of England does not call them bible colleges!), and is full time. It is possible to do the training part time over a number of years, but if you’re training to be a full time vicar, you will usually do the training full time.

Curacy
Once you have graduated Theological College you will spend four years doing ‘on the job training’ as a ‘Curate’. Your dream of vicardom is close at hand. At the start of the first year you will be ordained by a Bishop in a Cathedral as a ‘deacon’, which allows you to take services, funerals and baptise people. After you’ve completed your first year you’ll be ordained a second time, but as a ‘priest’ which means you can take a service of holy communion and marry people (I mean take the marriage service rather than get married). Then after the four years is up you can apply for a job running a church of your own!

So, from first thoughts to full on ‘I’m the vicar’ takes around 8 years, it’s not an easy process…

It’s a challenge. I’m starting to prepare for a Bishop’s Advisory Panel (yes, they really decided that the zenith of the selection and discernment process should be called a BAP). It’s not like a normal interview. Amongst other things you have to demonstrate self awareness and that means answering the “strengths and weaknesses” question honestly. Personally I like the way you do it in normal job interviews “My weaknesses? Only that I’m too committed and work too hard”.

Being realistic about yourself without deciding you’re totally crap or the best human being since Jesus is hard. I’ve got about 3 months to get really good at it!!

I need to be set free. I know that I could love people better, I know that I could serve people better, I know that I could make a difference. But I need to change.

I’m reading loads at the moment, about mission shaped church, world as sacrament and about evil and the justice of God. It’s all good information and I desperately want to be able to articulate the things I believe about God in a much better, more convincing and compelling way, but I’d rather be a more compelling and convincing advertisement for the Grace and power of God.

In some ways it’s inevitable, change is a slow process and I am in such a different place to this time last year, I have much to be thankful for. But I long for more change and preferably today.

Maybe I need to learn patience or something!

I feel that this is key to my future as a priest and as a christian, but I know that at the moment I’m not up for the challenge. I’m way too me centred to make this happen. But I feel that change is coming, I just can’t see how!!

Reasonably predictably, as I’ve started to think about it, God has started to speak to me about it and events are conspiring against me. This weekend I started readingMission-Shaped Church and I got a facebook event request to a prayer meeting for people who live on my estate. After the prayer meeting (which was this evening) I went to a worship night (if only my whole life were so holy) and felt God speaking about being an Isaiah 61 church. And I feel moved and like I should do something about it. I really do.

But what next? Emotion and promises without action are pointless. Jesus tells the story of a father who asks his two sons to go and work in the vineyard. The first says he won’t go, but does. The second son says he will go, but doesn’t. I feel like too often I’m the second son.

I don’t know how this is going to work out, I really don’t. But there is some kind of excitement in me somewhere that maybe my mission impossible might somehow be achievable.