If you had told me a year ago that after finishing my masters I would become ministry trainee at a church I would probably have laughed at you. Me? Work at a church? No, thank you! And yet, it’s happening! On the first of September, I will start at Globe as ministry trainee and I am beyond excited about it.

Following Yusuf and Anaïs, I have some big shoes to fill but I sure am ready to give it my all. As ministry trainee, I’ll primarily be doing three things: learning about church ministry, doing ministry and serving the church family practically. For example, that looks like doing the Cornhill Bible training course, leading a Focus group, doing lots of one-to-one’s and helping out with cooking and setting up.

I haven’t always had a very good relationship with church. I grew up in church, but I never quite felt at home there. I had trouble matching my experience with God from my personal devotion time with the way he was presented at church. I had given up on church, thinking I would be perfectly fine following Jesus on my own. And then I joined Globe last September…

The past year has completely changed the way I think about church. I really do love studying political economy, but studying what I love at a world class university is so not the highlight of the past year – it’s been The Globe Church! That’s one of the reasons I decided to apply to the trainee scheme.

I had been thinking about something ‘faith-related’ after my master’s, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like, until someone suggested I look into the ministry trainee scheme. I love studying and wrestling with difficult issues, whether it’s about economic inequality or predestination, so I can’t wait to get started at Cornhill. Hanging out with people from Globe and helping each other grow in our understanding of who God is has been so amazing this past year, and I can’t wait to do more of that in September. And serving is such a joy, because even if it can be a hard work at times – don’t you love it when you see someone happy because of something you did? The job description fit so perfectly with what seemed healthy for me at that point. I was thinking how cool it would be to be able to read the Bible not in a hurry ‘because I need to get to class’ but as homework. And after misunderstanding what church is about for such a long time, I figured it’d be a good idea to spend more time understanding church.

I prayed about it, talked about it with friends and family and I ended up applying. After I was called to say they’d take me on, I literally had trouble sleeping for a few days because I was so excited. There will probably be tough times and disappointments because well, we’re on earth rather than in heaven. But I still can’t wait to get started!

There are two of us doing the trainee year this year; as Ryan Gray and I get started next week, please pray for us to adapt to our new roles well. September will be very busy, but pray that the busyness would not just tire us out but help us grow and love Jesus more. For me specifically, I’d love for you to pray for my knee. I’m getting ACL reconstruction surgery on September 3rd, so please pray that the surgery will go well and most of all that I will be patient enough with myself to properly go through the months of rehab afterwards.