What's it like being a Reverend? Part 1

A number of people have asked me what it is like now being a Reverend, does it feel any different. This two part musing is a response to that question. And the answer is; Yes! It does feel different now, being a Reverend. However not in the way that you might imagine.I’m not sure what the Anglican Church means for you, though if you attended Monday nights Annual Trinity Lecture with Dr Tim Chester you may be in a place of re-working that out for yourself (I believe the audio of lecture will soon be uploaded onto Trinity’s website).For me, what the Anglican Church meant was irrelevance, unpopularity, embarrassment and unsuccessful (declining, lack of influence). My Church experience was ‘mum making us go’; it was unfair ‘cos she didn’t make dad go (how come he got out of it?). Furthermore, in the Anglican school I went to, it was universally agreed among the students that the two worst places a kid could ever have to be were the once a term Eucharist, and the once a week Chapel service. You wonder if I exaggerate?? I’m just trying to think of anyone I know from school that is currently in a church let alone in a ‘career’ of being a minister in the church... none; oh, me! That makes one.At a deeper level, what the Church really meant for me as a kid was rejection. I really wanted to be accepted and befriended by the important kids, the successful kids and the cool kids.I never was. And in actual fact, when I was 14 and experienced for the first time the breathtaking power of the Holy Spirit, my elders in the church merely responded that ‘God doesn’t do that any more. He stopped with the Apostles.’ Rejected by the very church that caused me to be rejected by my peers in the first place! Ouch! Rejection upon rejection! It’s fair to say I hated the Anglican Church from that time on. And my life emphatically reflected that.When I gave my life back to Christ at 23; the second breathtaking experience of the Holy Spirit touched me, ironically, in an Anglican Church. However, I went to Bible College and identified myself with the successful, relevant, popular and growing Pentecostal Church. Why? Because if I had to be a Jesus follower, at least I could be a cool, relevant, successful and popular one.Imagine my disappointment when God spoke to me a couple of years later and said; ‘I’m going to put you in ministry in the Anglican Church.’ Thus began my journey into this engagement with the nemesis of my youth! I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been a real struggle. However what I can say is that this struggle that has finally brought to light this woundedness of rejection/relevance has forced me to see where thus far, my identity has  mostly been found…Part 2 continued next week.Nicholas