Initial Ministerial Development: Phase 2
Introduction
Welcome to the third year of Initial Ministerial Development (IMD). This is the year when time does strange things – only a few months ago you were half-way through your curacy, and now many of you are beginning to think of moving to a new post. But don’t panic! Although formal IMD training will finish at the end of the third year, there is still more to learn and you can continue in your curacy until the end of your fourth year for those on a stipend and fifth for SSMs.
This 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. This is your chance to add experiences to complement your training so far and to explore other areas of ministry that you might not normally be able to.
Bishop Rachel aims to meet with all curates wanting to move on to an incumbency early in the Spring, and those moving towards being ‘assistant’ later, but before Easter. ‘Incumbent’ curates are seen early so that you can be confident everything is in place and you have the Bishop’s permission to apply for your next post. Although you cannot leave until July, suitable posts are often advertised from Easter onwards, and occasionally earlier than that.
This is a year of change whether you are moving on or staying in your context. So the relationships you have built up with one another become even more important in providing care and support for one another. Please continue to make your peer supervision group and IMD sessions a priority and keep your colleagues in your prayers.
There will be some days when you are expected to be experts in ministry, and you feel like you’re just a beginner. There will be other days when it seems you are treated like a beginner while you feel ready to lead your own communities. The important thing for this year is to take responsibility for your own training and learn all you need to in order to feel confident in your next post. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you do that.
David Treharne, Collaborative Ministry: Foundations Lead, Diocese of Gloucester
A handbook for Curates and Training Incumbents – The Third Year and beyond
The Shape of the IMD Programme
Formation Criteria for Ordained Ministry
Training incumbent’s review form
Curate’s feedback to the training incumbent
For A Leader
May you have the grace and wisdom
To act kindly, learning
To distinguish between what is
Personal and what is not.
May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you never put yourself at the centre of things.
May you act not from arrogance but out of service,
May you work on yourself,
Building up and refining the ways of your mind.
May those who work for you know
You see and respect them.
May you learn to cultivate the art of presence
In order to engage with those who meet you.
When someone fails or disappoints you,
May the graciousness with which you engage
Be their stairway to renewal and refinement
May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So that you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw its enrichment form the old,
And you never become a functionary.
May you know the wisdom of deep listening,
The healing of wholesome words,
The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,
The decorum of held dignity,
The springtime edge of the bleak question.
May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.
May you have good friends
To mirror your blind spots.
May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth.
John O’Donahue
