The something old being the carol service. The first I've been to this year. The somewhere new was New College, and the event was the end of term carol service.
The service had a lot of people involved, and while that can sometimes be a recipe for disaster, the whole service smoothly switched from person to person with no visible technical hitches. One of the readings was given by the chap that gives speech training to ministry candidates. As would be expected, his delivery was flawless, and I'm looking forward to taking instruction from him next year. He certainly knows his craft well.
The acoustics in the room were less than perfect, and loud music played outside. Despite that, the choir excelled themselves.
The sermon was given by the Right Reverend Albert Bogle, the current Moderator of the Church of Scotland. Before his sermon, he told us that he has told many people the same thing this year, that ministry is the best job ever, and that he encouraged everyone to follow their calling. Now there was a time not too very long ago that nearly everyone in that room would have been training for the CofS ministry, and that part of his message would have been pointless. But as I looked around the room, there certainly wasn't the dozens of candidates that there would have been in years gone by. So how do we get more people into the role that the Moderator, and many other ministers I have met finds so fulfilling?
Unfortunately I was having a bit of a low couple of days. While the Mod spoke about ministry being so great, I was having a bit of a moan to Mrs G. as this part of the training is a bit isolated. I'm not attending a physical uni, so I don't meet my colleagues, and due to my work circumstances, I've not been able to visit New College as often as I'd like. I'm also not part of the training networks that full time ministry candidates are involved with. And the online forum that I set up hasn't exactly taken off. It can be a bit lonely sometimes.
Looking around the room, there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for those gathered to join together in worship before we all go off to our respective charges. So it's a privilege to be able to share worship at New College.
Right up there with you re the isolation of distance learning sometimes you feel like the only person in the world doing Church Law or whatever( I'm on Sacramental Theology in January ) and while colleagues, spouses etc can be helpful I'm sure having fellow students to ounce ideas off would be ten times better. Tht probably doesn't help you much, but just you ain't really alone there's loads of us. Keep looking forward and enjoying your fifty acts while you can!
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