Church launches first Ministry and Calling Sunday

Parishioners across Wales focused on people called to the priesthood at services today.

There were special readings, reflections and prayers at services for those thinking about being ordained and for those already being trained for ministry.

This is the first time the Church in Wales has set aside a Sunday to focus on vocations and it is part of its drive to seek and inspire future church leaders. Named Ministry and Calling Sunday, it is expected to become an established part of the Church calendar.

The Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, who is leading the initiative, said, “The aim of the Ministry and Calling Sunday this year is to invite all members of the Church to pray: to pray for vocations, to pray that we may be a Church which invites and nurtures vocations.

"We’re drawing everyone’s attention to the need for vocations, to the need to draw people’s attention to the fact that God may be calling them to ordained ministry. Above all else, we’re inviting congregations to pray that God will be active in calling a new and active field of ministers to assist in leading the Church into the future.”

A quarter of the Church’s current serving clergy are due to retire within the next decade and less than 10% are aged under 40. The Church launched the vocations strategy last month with the slogan, Here I Am. Send Me, to encourage people to consider whether they were being called.

Bishop Cameron said, “This is an opportunity to search out and develop new ways of being Church, and exercising ministry to sustain our life. But we remain convinced as a Church that the ordained ministry has still got an important role to undertake, and we need to do some work in seeking out vocations – especially among younger people.

“This Sunday comes just at that point of the Church’s year when the disciples were waiting for the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and we are waiting for God’s spirit to renew our Church in our own day.”