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Initial Ministerial Development: Phase 2

Introduction.

I am delighted to welcome you as a newly ordained curate in this Diocese. I have responsibility for you, on behalf of the bishop, for the next stage in your training for ordained ministry. This is the second phase in your Initial Ministerial Development (IMD). IMD continues your training and formation through a) your practice of ministry supervised and guided by your training incumbent b) regular peer supervision groups and c) core and optional training sessions on aspects of ministry during the first three years of your curacy. An important part of your formation is the commitment you make to your colleagues in ministry, the pastoral care and support you offer one another and the learning you receive from one another. This is also a period of discernment where, together, we will discern the shape of ministry that God is calling you into and the particular gifts and attitudes that you bring to that ministry. It is an exciting and demanding time – I look forward to getting to know you and working with you.

You will also be in contact with the IMD secretary in the Department of Mission and Ministry, Julie Mansfield. She is responsible for the practicalities of organising training events and is often the person to send out information to you. She will often remind you of training events coming up so please answer her emails!

This handbook sets out the aims and some of the detail for this vital stage in ministry, explains recent developments in establishing national expectations for initial ministerial training, and incorporates an indication of local practice. It has been developed in close collaboration with the Dioceses of Worcester and Hereford, with whom we work especially closely, within the wider West Midlands Regional Training Partnership.

In our three dioceses, the heart of our programme is the desire to see you flourish as ministers, confident in and able to take responsibility for who you are before God. We believe that your relationship with God is of primary importance and needs to take priority amongst all other demands of training and ministry.

To this end, we have agreed these shared core aims for the training programme:

  1. To provide an overall discernment process for the first years in ministry, this will seek to help you acquire the values of public representative ministry and, to point the way forward for their future public ministry within the Church of England.
  2. To provide a peer group which you can belong to and from which you can explore the varieties of ministerial responsibilities and experiences, receiving both nourishment and challenge within a safe and nourishing environment.
  3. To provide ministerial training and formation that will be truly transformative.
  4. To equip you with all the skills necessary in order that you may be fully formed into the public representative ministry of an ordained minister.
  5. And, above all, to equip you to maintain a deep seeking after God amidst all the busyness and activities that go to make up the life of an Anglican minister.

Each of the four years of the programme will have a particular flavour or characteristic:

  1. The first year will seek to enable you to settle into the new and demanding world of public representative ministry and to begin to cope with the problems and challenges of being a public figure.
  2. The second year aims to equip you with all the skills and resources necessary for the life of a distinctive deacon or priest.
  3. The third year will begin to build on your skills and gifts and to provide you with opportunities to explore ministry on a wider basis beyond your parish or team. Short placements will be offered for you to experience areas of ministry which you feel drawn to, or to address gaps in your training.
  4. The fourth year is a time of transition. The training programme will be completed during this year, and most curates (though not all) will be preparing to move on.

You are not ‘ministers in waiting’ but part of the family of clergy serving God in this diocese. The overall vision is that ‘We commit to go out and share the transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ, so that people may know life in all its fullness.’ You are an important part of that vision for today as well as preparing to form the vision of tomorrow. This process depends heavily on the commitment of curates and training incumbents to the Formation Criteria and I am grateful for all that you will invest in this over the next few years.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if anything is unclear or you want to make suggestions for future development. On behalf of the bishop, thank you for your commitment to the future ministry of Christ’s Church.

David Treharne, Collaborative Ministry: Foundations Lead, Diocese of Gloucester

NB – A note on terminology:
Gloucester Diocese use the terms IMD – Initial Ministerial Development for the period of a curacy and CMD – Continuing Ministerial Development for all that happens thereafter.
Nationally you will find IME and CME tend to be used where the ‘E’ stands for Education.
You will also find IME phase 1 referring to training in college or a course, and IME phase 2 referring to the years served in a curacy.

A handbook for Curates and Training Incumbents – The first year

The Curacy Itself: Getting Started

The Training Programme Overview

IMD Portfolios

Long Reflections

Appendices?

Prayer attributed to Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to
enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.