Session 8 post 2 (catch up) : Reader Ministry Something Practical to Do.

'Ask a lay member of the leadership team in your Church why it is that they ‘signed up’ to this role'.

I have been a Christian for 26 years after doing an alpha course and attending the church I attended throughout my childhood which was 30 minutes drive from where we lived. After building faithful friendships and deep rooted foundations in Jesus through generous mentoring and discipleship from my church leader (during which time my husband also became a Christian), we discerned God's call to the church in the town where we lived at that time and still live now. We have been members of this church for twenty years. During this time there has been a faithful focus on the idea of 'Every member in ministry' and the 'Priesthood of All Believers'. Many church members, under the encouragement, supervision and authorisation of different church leaders over the years were empowered, equipped and called to identify their spiritual gifts in order to serve others in the name of Jesus.

Due to this approach to ministry, I have only ever known of two licensed Lay readers in our parish. They were members of the church when we first joined in 2003 but have both since sadly died. We currently don't have any Lay Readers as part of our leadership team and are currently in parish vacancy.

I know a lady who is married to one of our previous church leaders. She went on to undertake Lay Reader Training at the next parish they moved to. She was kind enough to speak with me about why she decided to 'sign up' for the role of Lay Reader.

She explained that at the next parish, she became more involved in leading services and sometimes preaching and that it felt like the right thing to do to formalise the role and come under the authority of the Church of England in leadership. She used the time for learning and to understand aspects of liturgy that hadn't been very familiar to her previously. She said that the student group was a real blessing to her despite the presence of a spectrum of many varying Christian theologies from liberal to charismatic evangelical. She gained many valuable insights into others' thinking.

This actually added to her learning and allowed her insight into others viewpoints which taught skills in communication both listening and speaking the truth in love and respect to brothers and sisters in Christ.

Interestingly, she was realistic and did say that it wasn't all a positive experience and that some of the learning was challenging dependent on the delivery style and approach of the course tutor. I have experienced this when studying for other qualificatiions and think this can be pivotal in the student learnng experience.

Tracey