Faith in the Community: a vicar's pride at daughter's ordination
by Canon Tom Kennar, rector, St Faith's, Havant
I imagine you will know what it is like to feel proud of a family member.
Perhaps someone close to you has just finished GCSEs or graduated from university? Perhaps they’ve made a great life choice or launched a new career?
You may recognise that sense of bursting pride as they step forward onto the specific road they’ve chosen. Excess pride is obviously something to guard against, but on Saturday (June 29), I allowed myself a moment of it.
Among 17 others, my daughter, Emily Ashworth, was ordained by our bishop, Jonathan, and became a member of the clergy. I now have to get used to calling her ‘Reverend’ and seeing her in a clerical collar.
It has been a long and winding road for my daughter to reach such a point, but that is her story to tell. Even after observing first-hand the toll that ministry can have on a person, she has chosen to follow in both her Dad’s (and her Grandad’s) profession.
Among the 17 others ordained for the first time on Saturday were other people who I have accompanied along their journey of faith, at various times – especially a dear colleague from my own parish, Sandra Haggan.
They were all ordained as ‘deacons’, which means they are set aside for a special ministry within the church – a ministry of service to others. The word ‘deacon’ actually comes from a Greek word meaning ‘servant’. Some may later be ordained again, this time as ‘priests’.
The first deacons served the Christian community that was growing up around Jesus’s disciples. Since those early days, deacons have developed ministries of serving, teaching, leading and administering their church community; equipping it to serve the wider community.
In that sense, a deacon is a kind of ‘icon’ – a living picture of what true servanthood looks like. All priests are first ordained as deacons, though not all deacons go on to become priests. They are content with the calling to servanthood first.
We live in world polluted by excess wealth, status and power. The icons of our media are so often those who seek riches and fame, rather than the chance to offer another way. Genuinely being a servant to others is incredibly counter-cultural.