We now have not one, but two curates in the parish! David Camp was ordained deacon on July 2nd at Guildford Cathedral, the day after Stella Wiseman was ordained priest, also at the Cathedral. Both are serving in the parish on a part-time basis.

Stella was ordained priest a year after her ordination as deacon and will continue her ministry here. As priest she is now able to expand that ministry and can baptise and marry people, as well as conduct funerals, and can also preside at the Eucharist.

Stella Wiseman

Stella reflects: “It is a real privilege, and a slightly scary one, to be an ordained priest here to serve the people in this parish, and I am grateful for all the support and love that has been poured out. The past few years have involved a lot of learning and this is not about to stop! In fact, I am always going to need to carry on learning – the more I try to learn the more I realise I know very little!

“One of the services I am learning to preside at is the Eucharist and this feels a particular honour, as this is central to our worship here in the parish. To be there recalling the immense generosity of God in Jesus, and the welcome which God extends to all of us in drawing us in to share in the bread and wine, which in some way is God’s presence, feels extraordinary and humbling. There is also a lot more to do physically than I ever realised during the Eucharistic Prayer and the actual consecration of the bread, so I probably have a look of extreme concentration as I do this!

“I am also trying to discern exactly what my ministry will look like. I feel very drawn towards the link between faith, creativity and inclusion, but working out what that means is a process and I am trying to listen to God to see what God wants of me and where God is asking me to step.”

David Camp

David says: “After six years of discernment and theological training, becoming ordained has come as something of a relief, having not come from an academic background. The path towards ordination was challenging and as you might expect filled with unexpected highs and lows, and not just on the academic front, but rather as a formation of my own theology as I sought to understand God’s activity in the past and the present and, perhaps most importantly, how God through us will shape the future. Christ’s body, the Church, is going forward into an unprecedented time of change. Final destination assured, but how do we best make use of the time given to us? Perhaps we should ask ourselves this from time to time. I find myself doing this more and more post ordination.

“I don’t think I was quite prepared for the sheer magnitude of the ordination event; in many respects it mirrored the Coronation. A cathedral setting, a beautiful choir, Bishop Andrew proclaiming to the gathered masses our calling to do our duty responding to God’s call. The clergy dressed in the robes of office all in their finery; for a simple lad it was all rather overwhelming. On reflection, perhaps it needed to be grand in order for me at least appreciate the weightiness of self-expectation.

“That may sound like a strange thing to say given our Lords revelation in Matthew 11:28-30 ‘For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. And yet the process of unburdening I feel is not reserved for the congregation, but for the clergy as well. I don’t think burden becomes light just because you’re ordained. For me at least, it’s about learning to live with that burden of my expectation in communion with the body the church, so that it begins to feel comfortable, familiar or a lightness of spirit. Even Christ uses the term ‘My burden is light’, he doesn’t say you won’t be burdened, but that it will be light. Or perhaps bearable. If you have read Pilgrim’s Progress, the main character, Christian, embarks on a similar journey of faith weighed down with a burden of worry for his loved ones who have refused to join him on his journey. It’s only by the help of those good people he encounters that his burden becomes lighter. So, in essence I am most looking forward to journeying with you all, as we begin to discover what it means to have a lightness of spirit.”

Pictured from left are Alan Crawley, Stella Wiseman, David Camp and Lesley Crawley at  David’s ordination