Education, education, a wedding .and a building

A day that began with prayer, included a meeting at the Diocesan Offices in the morning  about the training of curates (I am a member of the leadership team for this and teach some of it), moved on to a school governors meeting at St James School, followed by a wedding rehearsal at St Anne's and, concluded with a meeting with the church architect and treasurer, also at St Anne's.

IME (Initial Ministerial Education) is a three year course for curates run by the Diocese after their ordination. They meet up for a day of lectures and seminars per month and have other pieces of study in between. The idea is to complement their 'hands-on' 'on-the-job' training they are getting in their churches, with a chance to continue to learn and grow in their knowledge of the Bible, theology and the skills of ministry.Our particular concern in this meeting was to deepen the 'mission' element of the course and to prepare the third-year curates for their next post - for many of them, an incumbency.

Today was also a day to say goodbye to our leader, Canon Jane Steen, soon to become the Archdeacon of Southwark.

It was my first governors meeting at St James School. We met in the infant department and as such were obliged to perch on very small chairs - I always remember this as a feature of the previous primary school governing body on which I used to sit. That was a community school, not a church school, and so never started as our meeting did today: with prayer, led by our chairman, and Member of Parliament, Simon Hughes.

There are 513 children in the school, of whom 62% have free school meals (compared with the national average of 16%), and wonderful work is being done by a highly committed staff.

Sadly, not everyone who wants to attend a Church School can do so. There is simply not enough space in local CofE schools and that makes the school's admission policy, which we were discussing today, a delicate balancing act between the needs of different parts of the community. There is no perfect policy but the present arrangements seem a good compromise..

Finally, to St Anne's for the meeting with our architect, Graham. This was a catch up exercise to bring me fully in the picture. The building needs a huge amount of work and these are financially straitened times. Please pray for St Anne's PCC as we give ourselves to this challenge and as we seek God's will for the future.