Ordination Reflection by Rev Simon Macaulay

My vocation journey was not a simple or straight road. After many turns and twists I was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England but for various reasons I left ministry before I was priested. Or at least, I thought I left ministry. Vocation never leaves us, and ministry finds a way to continue, even if feels more like weeds forcing their way up between the paving stones rather than a well-tended rose-garden. I’m so glad for my decision to go into the Gustaf Adolf Church in Liverpool. It had taken me several weeks to pluck up the courage to find an excuse to go in, but I did. I was instantly welcomed, and in a short space of time I was one of the worshipping-community and eventually, through the support of Maris, my vocational journey recommenced, at full pace; which in turn brings me to the day of my ordination at Gustaf Adolf. I cannot express how much it meant to me that my ordination was able to take place in the Church whose welcome had reignited my sense of call. Being surrounded by my friends from Church, the people who were about to become my congregation, as well as my family and other friends from throughout my life, and the new clergy family of the LCiGB, was a very special experience. In all of this, the love and of God was present – God’s love, the one and only constant throughout our lives. Coming together to worship God is always something meaningful and powerful but being embraced by friends and family at a service which acknowledged, affirmed and empowered God’s call to me made the ordination an especially moving time. What further enhanced the joy of that day was being able to share it with my ordination buddy, Elina, who will be such a blessing to the Church. Now, some weeks in, having been able to preside at the Holy Communion service, having baptised for the first time at Gustaf Adolf, and having shared in some of the wonderful cultural celebrations, I can look back on the day of ordination as a wonderful blessing.