New Beginnings

It’s a time of new beginnings! I am excited to announce that I have a job, back in Leicester, which I will be starting on 21st September, and that I, hopefully, have found a very cute 1 bed bungalow to rent, close to the church that I am thinking of joining! I will be Property Services Administrator for Advance UK, a charity providing support workers and/or housing for vulnerable adults, primarily those with learning difficulties, mental health problems, or both. I am looking forward to this new season of my life, and discovering what it means to serve God a) in a secular work environment, b) with the particular team and charity with whom I will work and c) in serving the vulnerable adults who are our customers, to the best of my ability.

I am, at the same time, nervous. This will be first ‘proper’ job, and it wasn’t one which I ever envisaged myself doing. As I left St John’s last year, I was very insistent that I wasn’t going to work in the secular job sector, but would look for jobs in churches and Christian charities, as I struggled to see how God would use my particular skills, personality and passions within the secular sector. That’s not to say I thought I couldn’t be used, just that I wasn’t sure how! As many of my friends from school and university probably remember, I am very passionate about sharing the good news of Jesus, and whilst I understand the importance of how I act and live as part of that, I also firmly believe that that, on its own, is insufficient. As Paul writes in Rom 10:13-15

…for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

I have always believed that how I live is a witness to others, but without the opportunity to share why I live as I do, and who it is I serve, those people to whom I am witness will never know what, or rather, who, I am a witness for! And so, I talked about Jesus with almost every opportunity. It used to be half a joke in my family that pretty much every conversation I had would end up being about Jesus! In many ways that is great, but witness within the secular world has to be much more subtle than that. Whilst I knew that that is also true within Christian ministry, I was scared that I would be a ‘caged bird’ if I went to work in an environment where I might not be able to mention Jesus’ name freely.

In March, my vicar and DDO suggested that the next step for me (after the internship I have just completed) would be to apply for work within a secular workplace for at least a couple of years. It would be an understatement to say that I wasn’t keen on that! So what changed? Well, I’m not entirely sure, but having left that meeting with an agreement that the next year would be another internship and THEN I’d look for a secular job, God started to do some new work in my heart. I knew that my vicar and DDO had suggested that because, ultimately, I need the life experience that such a job would give me, and that the primary reason for me not wanting to do so was not some great theological point, but that I was afraid. And, over the next couple of months, I had a growing feeling that another year’s internship, at a different church, just wasn’t right. It wasn’t the first suggestion of my vicar and DDO, and whilst it wasn’t ‘plan B’, it wouldn’t have been suggested if I had been happy with the suggestion of secular work. I had a growing sense of disquiet about following the second suggestion, and, following a day helping in our staff team ‘play in a day’ in a local school (which, yes, it was more ‘Christian’ than a usual secular setting), and conversations with my mentor and vicar, we agreed that I should, albeit a few months later than originally planned, start looking for a secular job. And God has provided. The assessment part of the interview went so badly that I said to myself as I left “if I get offered the job, it’s definitely God”… and a few days later, I received the offer call… so here I am!

I am still nervous about the ‘hows’ of serving God in this new work place, but it is clear that this is where God wants me for this season. The job combines my experience in administration with my experiences from last year and my passion for serving vulnerable adults within the UK. It will be challenging, and I know that I will have to go into the office each day totally relying on God. But I think, if it was anything other than that, I’d probably be in the wrong job! I can only serve Him in His strength. I can do nothing in my own strength, whatever my abilities and skills. There will be many new things happening over the next few weeks. But even if they weren’t new, I’d still need to rely on God. And I know that Jesus is always with me, be it in a new job, house and church, or whether things are staying the same. I’m excited to discover how God wants me to repair the broken walls of people’s lives, in the community in which I will live, in the workplace both the lives of our customers, and my colleagues, and in and through the church that I join.