God in the Life of Three NSMs

It was during my training as a so-called ‘mature student’ (I was 25) at Culham College, then a teacher training college, thatthe seed of ordination was sown. I decided to specialise in teaching children with special needs. It was whilst I was teaching at a London school for children with emotional difficulties in London (in 1977-1987) that I decided to test my vocation to the priesthood and was accepted on the Southwark ordination course.

At the time I felt that the church was out of reach of many of the families that I came into contact with, and as a priest in secular employment I felt that I could be a kind of bridge and bring the church to them. Since I became an NSM, there have been many times when I’ve been able to be that bridge.

Working with disadvantaged, sick children has helped me to see God more clearly. It has certainly helped me to see God’s wonderful patchwork of humanity. But working alongside extremely disabled and perhaps dying children means that I often have to wrestle with God.

My work as a teacher means that I am not always available to those to whom I have grown close in the village community where I have been an NSM for 20 years. Sometimes I am asked to take funerals and I have to ask if they can be during lunchtime. As I ride a motorbike, I am known by some at the Radcliffe and the Crematorium as the ‘Revving Rev’.

Many people do not know what ‘NSM’ means. I have been described as a ‘not so serious minister’ and even ‘a non-smoking minister’! The priesthood is not something you switch on and off, and therefore I do not see myself as a part-time priest. My ministry very much enriches my daily work.