Step 1: Explore your calling

God often speaks in ways that are easy to miss. As you read the Bible, pray, or spend time with others, take time to reflect: 

• What gives you energy or a sense of purpose? 
• Where do you feel drawn to serve? 
• What needs or people stand out to you? 
• What gifts, strengths, or experiences has God given you - and what do others notice in you? 

These can be signs of where God may be leading. 

Prayer isn’t just a helpful tool – it’s the foundation of discerning your calling. As you seek direction, you’re invited to bring everything before God, trusting him to guide each step.

God’s story is bigger than any one role, and each calling is unique.

For some, it leads to a specific role in church leadership. For others, it’s lived out in everyday life – through work, relationships, and community.

Often, it’s about discovering how God is at work in all of it.

You don’t need to rush or decide everything now. 

From an early stage, it’s actively encouraged to talk with your local church leader, who is normally your priest, about what you are discovering; this is a safe, informal part of exploring your calling and does not commit you to a specific path. 

You don’t need all the answers to begin responding to God’s call. 

I grew up on a council estate on the other side of Birmingham. Bournville was a place that we drove through. There were highs and lows on the estate. There was a solid community and I learned what it meant to help people. We looked out for each other. But the estate was poor, deprived and run down. My dad was married with two children aged 17. He was a brick layer. He broke his back in his 20s. It was really tough. My parents went without so we could eat.

Church wasn’t part of the picture, but we went once for a few weeks and I had an encounter in those weeks. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I left school after my GCSEs and worked with people with dementia. When we had our second child, I realised I couldn’t do that anymore. My sister was a manager at KFC and she said, “Come and do a couple of hours for me”. I signed up for six hours a week.

There was an armed robbery. He fired the gun at me. It didn’t go off. In that moment, I thought I was going to die, but I felt a deep peace that everything was going to be OK.

I was so ill for the next two years. I had PTSD. I had counselling. I never went anywhere on my own.

We decided we wanted to get married in church. We rang up the local church to book a wedding. We went along to hear our banns read. We went up for communion. When the vicar put the bread in my hand, I felt my hand was going to burn off. It became part of me. I felt that same peace. I didn’t understand it. I knew I had to ask some questions.

I’ve been at St Francis for a year and have been ordained Priest for two weeks. Without other people encouraging me, I would be in a different place. I realise that this is what I was born for. Everything that has happened is so amazing.

For me, meeting God in Jesus has transformed my life. It’s transformed everything. There’s a sense of completion.

I have to convince myself that I’m a priest! That was always something that other people did, people who didn’t sound like me, not someone from an estate. I thought God didn’t call people like me.

If God calls me, then God calls all the people and that validates them, doesn’t it? People nurtured me. We do what’s done to us, don’t we? I have had so many people look out for me and that’s all that I have tried to do here at St Francis.

I really believe that God calls every single one of us. God calls us all to ministry. I want to see every single one of the people here be encouraged. I want to grow disciples who can share their story and share their faith.

There is nothing better than serving God in whatever form it may be.

I believe God calls a whole variety of people to serve him in ministry, which is demonstrated so clearly in the 1 Corinthians 12: 12-27. Whether we are called to serve as a priest or any other member of the church, we each have a part to play.

I didn’t respond well to God’s calling on my life, as I felt it was a rather silly idea! As a wheelchair user I was expecting a lot of negative perceptions as to whether I could fulfil the calling that I had. My disability is one part of what makes me who I am, but it isn’t the only thing that defines me. I bring all of me into ministry, not just my disability. We need each and every member to play their role in God’s church.

I was ordained in 1996. My Diocesan Director of Ordinands was brilliant. He said that “If God was calling me to be ordained, then it was the role of the diocese to enable that to happen”. None of the process was negative in regard to the way people responded to my disability, indeed I think if anyone had said anything negative then I would have been happy to call it a day. But God had other ideas!

When I mentioned that I felt I was being called by God into ordination to the church leadership the only response I got was “if God was calling you then it is the best job in the world, but if he wasn’t then it was the worse job in the world”.

The main struggle I had was more to do with finding an accessible Theological College. At the time the choice was very limited. Nonetheless I found the experience of theological college a really exciting and challenging time, and during that time I was able to start looking at a biblical message of disability.

If there is anyone who is considering whether God is calling them towards ordination then I would want to encourage them to pursue it. It may not lead to ordination, but God reveals himself through the process towards whatever he is calling us to. There is nothing better than serving God in whatever form it may be.