Changing direction, changing lives

What persuades someone turn their back on a successful career to become an ordained priest? Sally Jarman asked three people from our diocese about their life-changing decision and whether they hope their previous experience will enrich their ministry.

Dr James Kennedy
This September Dr James Kennedy will swap his white coat for a dog collar as he leaves his role as Clinical Lecturer in Urology at the Nuffield Department of Surgery, University of Oxford, to begin training for ordination at Wycliffe College.

In the 10 years since he qualified as a doctor, and later a surgeon, James, 35, has become a respected figure in the world of Academic Surgery, investigating a new non-invasive cancer treatment (High-intensity Focused Ultrasound - HIFU) and subsequently helping to set up and run the first dedicated clinical HIFU unit in the UK. But he reflects now that passionate as he feels about medicine, he has never truly felt it to be a vocation.

Conversely, since coming to faith in 1998 through an Alpha course, along with his wife Emma, he says has consistently felt God's hand in the direction his life has taken until in 2006 he felt compelled to explore ordained ministry.

He explains: ‘Once I had made the intellectual and spiritual decision that I wanted to be a Christian, I felt God continually opening doors for me as I prayed about the next steps to take in my career. Then last year I started to feel He might have other plans for us.

At St Mary Magdalene Church in Woodstock where the family worship, he and Emma had already set up a home fellowship group and – spurred on by having young children – a children’s church. Then they were asked to help lead an Alpha course.

With the support of his vicar the Revd Roger Humphreys, James says the chance to take a leadership role, and pass on what excited him about Christianity grew increasingly thrilling and important to him until he recognised that his priorities had changed and it made practical sense to look at full-time ministry.

He says: ‘It had never been a topic of conversation in our house before but for a few weeks we talked of nothing else and Emma was apprehensive, naturally, but also excited and supportive. I was surprised that everyone, including my boss, encouraged me to explore the call more deeply.’

Answering the obvious question as to whether God doesn’t need his talents and skill in the medical profession as much as in the pulpit, James says: ‘It has just seemed very much the right thing to do and I think my experience and knowledge gained in medicine will be invaluable in my future ministry. I’m used to relating to people at their most vulnerable and I’m told I’m very good at explaining complex issues and procedures in an accessible way.

‘I get a real buzz from teaching and communicating and want to get people interested in looking at their faith and asking questions about God. Much of the reason I wasn’t interested in going to Church as I grew up was that so often the guidance from the pulpit felt flabby or non-existent, and I want to change that.’

Kay Peck
For someone who has spent her working life as a teacher, helping and encouraging people to recognise and use their talents, Kay Peck admits she has also been an expert at stubbornly ignoring her own vocation as a priest.

Kay, aged 56, was head teacher at Marston primary school, near Oxford before making the decision to leave and become a supply teacher while studying with the Oxford Ministry Course.

She says she always thought her ministry lay in secular teaching and rejected ordination as for others, happy instead to support various friends through their ministry training and help out at her church in Marsh Gibbon.

But she says: ‘In retrospect I had been blocking out God for a long time. Even when I went on a training course for people looking at different types of ministry I told the organisers off because they had focused too much on ordination and that wasn't for me!’

Her epiphany came at a later Church meeting when she met a woman she could really relate to – someone who had been in business and who had a strong need to be in control: ‘That was the crux of the matter really,’ she says, ‘I realised that I love to be in control and that I was shutting off a big part of my life and saying I knew better than God. I had to learn to let go which was a big step of humility for me. Talking to friends, family and colleagues I found nothing but support when I was considering ordination. They had all seen it before I did!’

The Oxford Ministry Course was a ‘wonderful surprise’ she says with so many people from different professions, and churchmanship which she says has better equipped her to reach people in service and leadership.

And as she prepares for her curacy with the Swan Team Ministry she is confident that her years as a teacher will be a help in relating to her parishioners.

‘It all boils down to communication and trying to reach people and I'll definitely be drawing on the tools I have used in teaching. Also I’m obviously used to working with children and I would like to create a multi-sensory family service in which everyone comes away feeling enriched.’

Natalie Garrett
‘I’m a classic textbook Alpha graduate really,’ says the Revd Natalie Garrett who is curate at St John the Baptist church in Burford and married to the Revd Tim Garrett.

‘A shy child, I had found that the stage was the only place I felt confident to express myself and had followed that path after university, ‘launching’ myself in Clapham in my mid-20s and throwing myself into the acting lifestyle that made it difficult to commit to anything. So it was amazing that I even signed up for the Alpha course that involved weekly meetings and a weekend away. And it was a decision that literally changed my life!’

With her newfound faith Natalie says she initially expected perhaps a miracle breakthrough in her career making her the next Cliff Richard of the acting world. But that didn’t happen.
What did happen was that she found herself comparing unfavourably the intense but short-lived relationships made through acting with the deep fellowship and community she found at her church. And she realised that her spiritual and physical well-being required her to stay in one place and re-think her job.

Having made the decision to stop acting she went on retreat where she says she had a strong sense of God telling her to work in the church: ‘I said don't be ridiculous. It took him six months to get his way.’
She began working at a local church, involving herself in everything from admin and social action projects to teaching on Alpha courses and leading services – an all-round grounding in the daily life of the church. But ordination didn’t even occur to her. ‘I laughed when someone suggested it. Vicars were intelligent middle-aged men as far as I could see and I didn’t fit the bill.’

But somewhere in the back of her mind she says a spark was lit and after taking part in a huge production of the story of Jesus she felt God’s guidingWhat persuades someone turn their back on a successful career to become an ordained priest? Sally Jarman asked three people from our diocese about their life-changing decision and whether they hope their previous experience will enrich their ministry.