Tomorrow afternoon I will be at the induction service of the last ministerial student who overlapped with me at college.  Overall that means I've had seven or eight years celebrating with newly ordained folk as they set out into the mysterious world of being a minister.

I have enjoyed the diversity that being Baptists allows us.  We have swung from chandeliers and shared pre-printed liturgies.  We have used symbols and seen Powerpoint testimonies.  We have met in Victorian barns and contemporary worship centres.  Some wore dog collars, most of us did not.  Most of us wore suits, a few did not.  We ate quiches and sandwiches, looked on politely as the last slice of cake disappeared before our very eyes, and drank chapel tea from the ubiquitous blue/green/yellow/pink cups.

It has been both pleasure and privilege to share with these fellow disicples on their various pilgrimages.  We are as diverse a group of Baptists as you could wish for - conservative and liberal, charismatic and liturgical (sometimes both at once), traditional and post modern, male and female, older and younger, married and single... But I think, whatever our experineces of college were like and. let's be honest, some thrived, some struggled, some loved, others loathed, we learned to value each other and to see how God calls such diverse people as are needed.

I'm not the person I was in 1999 when I started training, yet actually I am.  I'm not going the kind of thing I imagined doing, yet more than I dared dream.  I'm not always happy or fulfilled, but I wouldn't now do anything else.

As I look back, and look forward, it is with gratitude both to God and to those, students, tutors and friends, who shared the last eight years, and with hope that the future will be as much of an adventure in faith and discipleship.

May God bless you, Liz, as you take this next step in your own story of ministry and discipleship, with courage and companionship, and, above all, the assurance that in all things Christ is with you.