We are continuing the series of stories celebrating our soon-to-be Reverends from our Caleb Stream as we head towards their ordination on Sunday. Today's story comes from Sue Langwade.
How was Sue called?
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of God’s presence. My mother’s family was Roman Catholic and this is the faith I grew up in. When I went to university to study Drama, I joined one of my friends attending the Salvation Army, enjoying weekly tea and cake with the wonderful Annie and Ethel Smith.
After university, we both joined a house church, populated mainly by actors, but accountable to elders from Holy Trinity, Brompton. When God directed that group to disband and join local churches, I was led to the Methodist church for a few years and later to a Baptist church where I remained for over 30 years, until God called me very clearly to move to St Peter’s Church in West Molesey, where I now hope to be a curate!
In every one of these settings, I found people with a heart to serve God and to follow Jesus, which transcended all preferences in worship styles and some theological differences, and which is what continues to fuel my love of ecumenical unity.
Over all these years, I served in children’s ministry and made use of my dramatic gifting. However, it was only when I became part of St Peter’s that I moved into a leadership role, as a Churchwarden, and from there was encouraged by my incumbent, Revd Alex Munro, to develop my gifts of leadership and discipling and eventually to join the Caleb stream.
I thought the Caleb journey would help me to become more useful to my parish, but my goodness, it has been so much more than that. There have certainly been struggles and a degree of unravelling necessarily involved in the formation process. These have served only to make me even more sure of my calling and increasingly desirous of learning more about God, His word and developing my abilities, not just to serve, but to inhabit the role of servant. It has truly felt like coming home.
I still love to exercise my creativity in serving God, writing, dabbling with puppets and taking ‘Truth Be Told’ storytelling sessions into care homes. I have been surprised by a growing love and respect for liturgy and the sacramental elements of ministry.
I would honestly encourage anyone feeling nudged towards pursuing a vocational calling to do so because, whatever the outcome, the process itself is incredibly rewarding. When we ‘take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of (us)’ there is such joy and peace to be found.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
- Philippians 3:12