Obstacles to ordination

Went to a diocesan ‘Vocations fair’ recently. Initially very encouraging, until I spoke to the DDO.

Obstacles to ordination:

• Finance. I still need to clear the defaulted credit cards left over form my unemployment before they will consider me. They are sceptical even of my plan to change it to a structured loan – it would still be an unsecured debt.


• I have recently (within the last year) left my old church, in hot anger and wanting to thump someone. Not metaphorically either. I have made massive progress towards forgiveness of some of the main players, but forgiveness is not complete without reconciliation, which I have not achieved. This is not what they are looking for in a priest.


• They will, as part of their process, talk to those people about their perspective of the story, and since they still don’t accept their own faults in the matter they can only paint me in a bad light.


• … not telling you about this one even on an anonymous blog …..

Added complications:

Mrs is now considering ordination as well, as a possible to solution to her current crisis which results form the things done to her at our old church (see above). She is considering adoption, and considering becoming much more involved in the children’s work at our new church (which is looking very encouraging at the moment, by the way), but (as a further string to her bow) would like to explore ordination.

I support her in this: I think she would be very good especially if ordained to a special children’s ministry. But she only wants to do the training if it results in a stipendiary position.

I am very keen on the scenario of us both being ordained, but can’t see a scenario where we would both be ordained to stipendiary ministries. We could try to sell it to them on the basis of only needing one vicarage between two priests, but I can’t see them buying that line.

So, should she become a stipendiary minister while I just go for LOM and carry on engineering? It would be rather galling for her to be my boss, and the LOM wouldn’t feel like a sufficient step up from the Readership. But she is often more spiritual than me, and I have to take this scenario as a possible and valid outcome. Maybe God wants me to swallow my pride and abandon my sense of superiority and my residual sexism (I don’t have a problem with women priests per se, only when it is my wife who gets into the job that I was applying for first with the effect of ruining my chances of fulfilling my dream). GRRR. But I do support her in it, and look forward to what the future might hold.