FROM retired police officers to recent school leavers, people from all walks of life are training to become ordained clergy in Hampshire.

With the Diocese of Winchester’s locally-based training programme for ordinands commencing its second year, the Diocese has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of people commencing training to become ordained clergy since 2016.

Since September 2017, the Diocese has facilitated training for the priesthood within Winchester itself, meaning that students now have the option to study part-time and closer to home.

The new academic route enables students who might not have been able to explore their vocation to do so.

The Winchester model provides a bespoke training course, built around each student’s previous experience and reflecting the areas of study where they need the greatest support.

The students training for the priesthood train alongside those training for lay ministry, which has also seen an increase in numbers.

The flexibility of the course enables those with work or family commitments to study alongside fulfilling those commitments.

We caught up with three of the students.

Peter Goodall has recently completed his first year of studies for the priesthood. The 62-year-old from Southampton is a former senior police officer who retired in 2010.

Peter was brought up as an Anglican but drifted away from the Church of England before rediscovering Christianity through a charismatic non-denominational church when he was in his 20s.

For more than 30 years, he worshipped at one of these churches, until, shortly after he retired, his brother-in-law died. His wife wanted to pray in a quieter, more reflective church environment, so started attending the local Anglican church.

Peter continued to worship at the charismatic church, but occasionally attended services with his wife too.

In 2015 the local vicar invited him to join a parish trip to visit their partner parish in Uganda. He went on the visit, and afterwards offered to help out in the parish however he could.

By this time he and his wife had become good friends with the vicar (Andy) and his wife (Nicky). One evening, whilst the two couples were enjoying some Ugandan gin, Nicky asked him if he had ever considered putting himself forward for ordination. He hadn’t, but after a few more conversations approached the Diocesan Vocations Adviser.

At first, Peter thought he would be too old to be ordained but the new Winchester Diocesan pathway has been designed to support a wider range of people to pursue their vocation.

More and more people are working past the traditional retirement age and this increased flexibility recognises that they too can have something important to offer the Church.

Peter believes this pathway is more flexible and accessible than traditional routes to ordination, and this enables people with work and family commitments to explore their vocations too.

Marianne Forster, from Winchester, started training for ordination this term. She is 41, but first thought that she wanted to become a vicar when she was just five years old. At the time the Church of England did not allow women to be ordained, but she still knew that this was what she wanted to do when she grew up. As an A-level student, she undertook a careers assessment and the top recommendation was that she become a religious minister, but she knew that this (at the time) was not permitted, so she followed the career path which was the second placed recommendation, and trained to be a social worker. She has been working as a social worker in various different settings for the past 20 years, and now specialises in safeguarding. In that role she provides training for head teachers and school and college safeguarding officers in Hampshire, and helps to write multi agency training and policy. She also works in a local primary school as the safeguarding and pastoral care lead. Her work in safeguarding has been informed by her Christian faith, and she considers it to be about transforming unjust structures in society.

However, as an adult, Marianne had moved away from the Church of England. She met her now husband at a Christian youth club when she was a young person, and started to attend his church with him, which was a non-denominational church in Brighton. After they and their children moved to Winchester she became involved in a women’s group at Christ Church Winchester. Her family became more and more involved in the parish and eventually they became regular worshippers there, returning to the Church of England after nearly two decades’ absence.

In her time away from the Church of England, the desire to become a priest had never left Marianne. After she started attending Christ Church Winchester, fellow parishioners started asking her why she was not ordained. She thought that perhaps she had left it too late and that she was now too old. Then one day the vicar, asked her, “So, when are we going to talk about ordination?”. She applied, and after an 18 month process was accepted as a student. She is studying part-time, which enables her to carry on working alongside her studies.

At 20, David Roberts, who began training for ordination this term, and is the youngest ordinand in the Diocese.

David was brought up as a member of the Church of England, and his father is a vicar in Bournemouth. He grew up in a home which was “full of Church” but initially had never considered ordination for himself – he saw it as something his dad did rather than something for him. He pondered several career options as he grew up, including becoming an architect, but from the age of 14 he felt called to the priesthood. He then went to a vocations day organised by the Diocese and after that joined a vocations group to think and reflect further on his calling.

After he left school when he was 18 he took a gap year and spent time in the USA and New Zealand, and still felt that God was calling him to ordained ministry in the Church of England. Upon his return he spent a year on the Church of England Ministerial Scheme (CEMES), a national scheme for young people aged between 18 and 30 to explore ministry within the Church of England. While on that scheme he applied to train for the priesthood. When he applied he did not know anyone else his age who was making a similar application, and thought he might have to fight his corner to be accepted as a candidate, but to his surprise found that he was made to feel very welcome and his application was accepted. He has found the Church of England keen to invest in young people, and believes he will be well-placed to minister to other people in his age bracket.