Reflections on my first year as a candidate

My first year as a candidate is over!

Fri 3rd Nov:

It’s Friday afternoon. The last Friday of the academic year. As I sit with my fellow-first year candidates in our final peer formation group for the year, there’s a sense of grief as we look at each other around the table.

“Well, that’s it then: the end of our first year.”

As we reflect on the year, and offer it to God, we are all struck by how quickly this year has passed.

It really has been sobering to see how quickly this year has passed. It worries me that the rest of my candidature will go screaming past just as quickly, and I will get to the end of my training, feeling as if I have only just started, and still have SO MUCH to learn. (Although, I suppose this would be a good attitude to have, going into my first placement as a ministry intern, as no matter how much study I do, or experience I get, there will always be much more to learn).

Last night we celebrated the College Valedictory service and dinner, where we formally farewelled the candidates who have completed this part of their ministerial training and are about to go (or have recently gone) into a ministry internship placement, or other area of service or further study. It was a special time, and also a bit sobering as those of us remaining realised that will be US being farewelled very soon!

It's not just about the academic study
I have been truly blessed since arriving here, to not only have the chance to catch up with existing friends in Melbourne, but also to have made many new friends, among the candidates and faculty of the UCA theological college, and also with a number of other students from my various classes. I have formed a number of close friendships which feel like they will last long past our days at College.

I remember a comment made to me by a couple of friends in Hobart, when I was accepted as a ministry candidate. They said that the church needed more ministers like me, who were "real". I understand what they meant by that comment, and why they said it, but have to say that as I look around me at the faculty and fellow candidates in the theological college (and also at the candidates for ordination in the Anglican and Jesuit colleges) I am certainly not the only person who is "real". There is a wide variety of personalities (and the faculty especially are all mad as cut snakes- and I love that! :-), and people all bring stuff from their pasts that have helped to form them; and even things they are going through now- I have really learned a lot about faith and grace amid suffering from some of my fellow candidates. I can only hope that when life gets tough for me, I can face it with comparable integrity and guts.

I am also active in the UCA Theological Students’ association, and was elected Secretary for 2007, and have also been the Uniting Church candidates’ rep to the wider students’ association for the UFT (which also incorporates the Trinity Anglican, and Jesuit Theological Colleges).

Spiritual Direction
During the year I have also been working with a Spiritual Director, which has been great, and (among other things) he has helped me to identify the source of some of the excitement for me- it’s in the fact that my studies are enabling me to engage my intellect with my faith in a profound and new way. That’s why I think the Groundwork in Theology unit was my favourite subject- it really gave my brain a workout and made me look at some of the aspects of my faith that I had taken for granted in a new light. My SD has also helped me to work on developing a deeper intimacy with God, through different ways of praying, and he has also helped me to recognise and celebrate the "God moments" in the everyday stuff of life. I'm looking forward to continuing my work with him next year.