Formation

Being prepared for ordained ministry involves three aspects:

• Understanding – being shaped in and by Godly wisdom
• Skills – offering faithful and truthful practice
• Being – living lives formed by grace

The interplay and interaction of these different dimensions is called formation: it is the way in which we are transformed, re-formed, conformed, informed as people who can more adequately and faithfully represent the Church as deacons and priests. There is no blueprint to make this happen, but there are structures, ingredients, frameworks and processes that enable it. These can be described in the following ways:

• Sharing common life. Whatever pathway you follow an essential ingredient is sharing this with others who are travelling similar vocational journeys. Formation requires that time and energy is given to being with other people, receiving from them and giving to them, learning and teaching, being challenged as we come to realise our differences, and being encouraged as we recognise all that we have in common. Some of this happens in formal and structured ways, through cell groups for example; often it happens in conversations in the bar or at a meal. Since ordained ministry is always in and for the Body of Christ, formation is always something that happens with and through others.
• Sharing common worship. Worship is the setting in which our community learns, celebrates and struggles, and does so explicitly and intentionally before God. Common worship requires time and space to gather together – for some on a daily basis, for others at residential events – in which we continue to learn, receive and give. It allows us to experience patterns and styles of worship that broaden our horizons and deepen our spirituality; it enables us to deepen habits and disciplines of prayer; it opens our lives to be shaped by the wisdom of our churches as patterns and forms of prayer are woven into us. Sharing common worship also means being bound together when we are not gathered, for example by praying daily for others in the Foundation.
• Learning together. All study and learning has the capacity to change us and reshape our actions and praying. Some learning focuses on this and makes this process explicit. For those in day-time programmes the Monday afternoon formational groups that in year 1 explore Spiritual Formation (incorporating the Spirituality module) and Ecclesial Formation (incorporating Ecumenical Theology and Denominational Studies) are central to this. They seek more than learning about spirituality and ordination; they invite us to inhabit the Christian tradition in new ways, and to enter more deeply into what it means to be a representative person in a Methodist tradition and to embrace its gifts as well as its demands so that we can more fully represent these to others. For those in weekend programmes the residential events seek to embody this integration of study, practice, reflection, and worship, but for many the Easter school programme in year 1 that includes sharing the Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday crystallises this process.
• Developing new roles and skills. Whatever pathway you follow we expect you to be taking what you learn into church and/or work settings, and to be bringing into your training the reality of these contexts. Placements and regular involvement in home or link churches enable you to take on new roles, to practice new skills, and to reflect deeply on how this is changing you, and how other people are seeing you in new ways.

A prayer for formation:

From the cowardice that dare not face new truth;
From the laziness that is contented with half-truth;
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth;
Good Lord, deliver me.

Prayer from Kenya, John Carden ed, Morning, Noon and Night (Church Missionary Society, 1976)