This picture appeared on college social media yesterday.  I am pleased and proud to announce that, from September, I have been called to serve a congregation just two miles away from Vicar School.

This a story of a beautiful circularity and the God who weaves wonders from the threads of the ordinary.

Back in my student days we had a thing called 'College Sunday' where you would be sent off to preach at various churches who, in turn, would make a financial donation to the college.  From Wales to Yorkshire, down to the Midlands and almost up to the Borders, I preached in all sorts of places.  One of them was this church in Manchester - and I recall being terrified because not one but both of the college New Testament tutors were in membership (fortunately neither was there the week I preached!)

When I was called to my first pastorate in 'Dibley', I asked one of those tutors to 'preach me in'.  I can't recall very much of what he said, apart from that his observation that 'she's not the Messiah, she's a very naughty girl' went over the heads of most of the congregation. 

Now, I find myself working for the college that formed me, and called to serve the church with whom so many tentative links already exist.

From college in Manchester to Dibley to the Gathering Place to Railway Town and now to bi-vocational ministry in Manchester... a delightful circularity that brings me back to where it began... a lived pastoral cycle... a spiral staircase of learning and growing... lots of 'things that make you go 'hmm''... a weaving of thread into a Persian carpet... and in it all a God whose essence is unchanging even as everything continues to change.