A Church of England bishop today launched a campaign for more younger priests in his diocese. The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill, wants 50 per cent of Ordinands to be aged under 35.
The diocese has launched a new website - itmightbegod.org – and on Sunday a special video ‘news’ report by television journalist Robin Powell will be played in churches across the diocese, which includes Staffordshire, the northern half of Shropshire and most of the Black Country. The video will also be posted on the diocese’s YouTube channel – pewtube.org.uk – from Sunday.
At a press conference today, the bishop said:
"More and more young people in the West Midlands are going to be made jobless this year. Already the percentage is higher than anywhere else in England. It is particularly depressing for those who have never had the opportunity to work to find themselves at the back of a long queue.
"Christians believe that God has made each of us for a purpose. He calls all of us to find out what that purpose might be so that we can fulfil the plan he has for our lives. He wants each of us to be the kind of person we were created to be so that we can make an impact for good. God’s plan includes people in every walk of life, in every kind of career, doing all sorts of voluntary work.
"When I went to Singapore for the 100th anniversary of the Diocese, people were touching grateful for the English men and women who, 150 years ago, answered the call of God to go and start schools and churches in S.E. Asia. Today they are a fast-growing and vibrant set of churches; but they are still appealing for us to send young people for a gap year’s service, and for people to give a couple of years to teaching English as a foreign language and help plant new churches.
"One of the most satisfying careers of all is to spend one’s creative energies in building Christian community: in preaching and teaching the Christian faith, leading worship, making new disciples, transforming communities. It is a way to become rich beyond one’s wildest dreams; not financially but in every other way, as all the surveys show. England needs more young vicars.
"I was sixteen when I first sensed that God might be calling me to ordination but I soon put that notion away and pursued other paths. Later when I was coming to the end of my student days I was praying in the Staffordshire Moorlands and suddenly it came to me that what I really wanted above all else was to be involved somehow in preaching the Good News of Jesus. I went to see the chaplain at Keele and in a few months found myself visiting the Diocesan Director of Ordinands at Lichfield. The rest, as they say, is history.
"But I hope that every young person in this diocese will be praying about what God might want him or her to be doing with their lives. In particular I invite you to think about a gap year, to go on one of the vocations conferences being specially organized by the Diocese to help people find God’s guidance. He is not bound by recessions. His purpose is for the whole world. Don’t settle for anything less than his best for you."