Vicar's Family in Training » calling http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk on being the family of a woman training to be a priest in the Church of England Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:20:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Advancing with Plasticine http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/archives/44 http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/archives/44#comments Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:33:19 +0000 husband http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/?p=44 VIT is away on a retreat.  (In a few weeks I’m going on a retreat too. Except that the dynamo that is leading it for our company  says he does not “retreat” and so we are having a “Company Advance.”)

Anyway, VIT is on retreat, and so today the wonderful people from the spouses [...]]]> VIT is away on a retreat.  (In a few weeks I’m going on a retreat too. Except that the dynamo that is leading it for our company  says he does not “retreat” and so we are having a “Company Advance.”)

Anyway, VIT is on retreat, and so today the wonderful people from the spouses group laid on a bring and share lunch which was a relief on both the catering and childcare front.  This was no soggy quiche experience.  The stew and the puddings were fab.  Smallest VIT ate a full portion of both.   :-)   One marvellous person spent almost her whole lunchtime painting an inexhaustible line of small children, including smallest VKIT who now has a Liverpool logo on one hand and Toon Army stripes on the other.

Various absent spouses had communicated from the diocesan advance house is the wilds of the countryside. Some have texted, at least one has managed a Facebook status update. (I think he’s the one with the turbocharged telephone, since all the others claim the signal is awful.) There has evidently been some serious late night whisky drinking (I like to imagine them at 2 in the morning deciding to invade Scotland even though they claim to have been praying for each other) – and lots of intense stuff about their vocation and future plans.

MorphIt’s an odd business this vicar factory.  Church of England training uses the word “formation” a lot.  Are they are being “formed” like Plasticine into a C of E mould like the familiar character opposite?  I don’t think so, but there’s something a bit disturbing about the term.  Some of the VITs are single, some just married, others like us have been married for longer than most life sentences.  I’ve known my VIT for more than half my life.  It’s quite easy to slip into fearing that this formation process risks forming them into a shape you don’t know any more, and I think they fear this too at times.  Except that the end result is something they believe and feel called to in an inexplicable and inescapable fashion.  So this should actually help them become more perfectly formed.  Let’s hope Coverdale Hall takes care of them during the moulding and that they all end up with as much of a smile as Morph.

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]]> http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/archives/44/feed 1 Becoming a Vicar’s Family in Training http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/archives/7 http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/archives/7#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:33:18 +0000 husband http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/?p=7 Ever since I’ve known the Vicar in Training (VIT for short) she’s wanted to be a priest – no, more than that – she’s felt this inexplicable “call” to priesthood. It won’t go away. If she’d been applying for any other job she’d have told the Church of England to get stuffed long, [...]]]> Ever since I’ve known the Vicar in Training (VIT for short) she’s wanted to be a priest – no, more than that – she’s felt this inexplicable “call” to priesthood. It won’t go away. If she’d been applying for any other job she’d have told the Church of England to get stuffed long, long ago. But God is more persisent than that. So finally, 25 years after we met, and 22 after we married, she’s an Ordinand. This means she’s training to be a priest, and that means that the rest of us; husband, three kids, a dog and a cat are the Vicar’s Family in Training – or VFIT for short. (Actually that’s the registration of one of Richard Branson’s planes – but aviation can wait till later.)  It’s going to take some adjustment, practically and emotionally.

The kind people at the training college – let’s call it Coverdale Hall – have arranged a thing for spouses  (I guess there aren’t too many unmarried partners…) and in some cases their multiple and quite often small children.  But as a forty-something male with a job which requires being away a lot I am not sure that a coffee morning with small kids (been there, done that, love that my children are growing up) or a morning Bible Study is going to do it for me.  But that’s not to diss the idea completely.  This, the welcome dinner, the fact that families can eat in college any time and for no extra charge, and the evening the college laid on explicitly for spouses, all adds up to the most pastorally sensitive things any church body formally involved in this process has done to this VHIT (work it out) for some time.  So, initial reaction is BIG TICK TO COVERDALE HALL.

Tomorrow begins a new test:  I’m away for nearly 48 hours for work.  Can the VIT and the VKITs (I’m sure you can work that one out too) cope?  I’m quite sure they can, but the logistics and the emotions are different to when VIT was simply at work.

And I’m genuinely grateful for the invitation to the coffee morning.  Honest.

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