Movement Magazine Issue 163

THE RIGHT PLACEMENT
AT THE RIGHT TIME
SCM is not just for current students – many of our members are recent
graduates, exploring where they are called to find home and work after
their time studying. Here, four SCM members share their experience of
spending a year doing placements with local churches, and what they’ve
learned along the way about themselves, their calling, and their faith.
JOSH HARRIS
Like many of my peers the lack of a smooth transition
between the end of University and the adult world meant
that when I finished my degree I immediately had to work
out what I would do with the next stage of my life while a
global pandemic carried on in the background. I was in the
Church of England vocations process but that hardly counts
for certainty. So in order to gain more experience of what
ministry would be like in a different context to the rural church
that I am familiar with I applied to be a Parish Assistant in
Putney. After an anxious summer of waiting and wondering if
I would actually get to go in September I finally arrived.
My experiences of being a Parish Assistant so far feel a bit like
being a human Swiss Army Knife. There are different tasks
every day where I have to tap into different skills and assets
that I have. One morning recently I sat in and participated fully
with our Toddler Group, then I slipped back to the office to tidy
up some admin, then a homeless man came into the Church
looking for help and I managed to get hold of his caseworker
for him, and after that I got to work repairing our old font
for a baptism that week. Each of those scenarios called for
My experiences
of being a Parish
Assistant so far
feel a bit like being
a human Swiss
Army Knife.
a different response and a
different use of my time, but
I found my sense of ministry
and calling in each of them.
Sometimes this need to
spread oneself so thinly
can be entirely draining.
Statistically speaking the
more things you have to do
the more chance there is of
getting something wrong. But in the congregation in Putney
I couldn’t have found a more supportive group to help me on
this journey. Everyone is warm, friendly, and engaging, and I
have learnt so much from our conversations together.
Being in Putney has helped affirm my vocation and calling
to live and work in the Church. The rest of the journey is
not all in my hands and I await to see what is instore for me
next. But if anyone else is finishing university and discerning
a call, I would enthusiastically recommend a year work in the
Church to truly get to experience ministry first hand.
16 MOVEMENT Issue 163