40 years ordained together

Two Methodist minsters have celebrated 40 years since their joint ordination with a service at Woodside Avenue Methodist Church in Coventry.

Pauline Warner and Stuart Jennings both grew up as residents of Glenfield in Leicestershire but, despite being from the same village, the pair knew little of each other's path to ordination.

"As far as we can remember, we did not even meet on the day itself at the Reception into Full Connexion when we would have been at the same lunch and in the same church, Birmingham Central Hall," says Pauline. "The first time that we actually spoke to each other was when Stuart rang me a couple of years later to discuss health concerns about a mutual colleague. During our careers, our paths have rarely crossed."

Stuart Jennings

"Had my eighteen-year-old self been at the event to celebrate 40 years of ministry, he would have been absolutely baffled by what he witnessed. Before the age of 18 I had only been inside a church once and that was when I was 10 weeks old to get christened by the vicar.

Like Mr Wesley, ‘I went very unwillingly’ to a youth club all those years ago when all eyes turned round to see this scruffy young lad enter the church, I made straight for the back pew. After 10 minutes, to calm my rising frustrations, I took out a cigarette and lit it up, you smoked anywhere in the 1970s. One of the kindest stalwarts of the chapel turned round and gave me a kind but disapproving look. Not knowing I was in the wrong, my first thought was: ‘bless her she has left her fags at home’ so doing the right thing, I took out the packet and offered her one. From such unpromising beginnings my faith journey began.

Glenfield Methodist Church graciously nurtured me through such pitfalls and my change from observing faith to having faith.

The hardest and yet most rewarding experience was of a ministry of quiet service as I sought to care for my wife through the final years of her early onset familial Alzheimer’s. I had to retire slightly earlier than intended and felt somehow my ministry had been diminished but actually discovered that serving, caring and loving is integral to walking with Christ. I cared for Carol for a number of years, and she died in my arms, at home, allowing me to hand her back to God, the giver of all good things.

The gratitude I owe the Methodist Church and the people called Methodists for allowing me to be a minster is beyond words and I am truly grateful for their love and prayers that have sustained me throughout my ministry."

Pauline Warner

"I felt the call to ministry at university when I was thinking what to do after I left. I pondered what I was looking for in a career and the only thing that fitted was the ministry. It was a definite moment of clarity. I was shocked but apparently nobody else was surprised.

It feels a cliché to say it, but it does not feel like 40 years. I have learnt to trust God now more than I ever did at the beginning.

Back in those days the role was much clearer. The Church held a definite place in British society and being a minister held a certain status. Over those 40 years that has changed considerably.

Now we cannot assume that anyone we are talking to knows even the basics about Christian faith. We have to find ways of communicating to people without relying on traditional language. That is really challenging and exciting.

I guess the advice I would give to new ministers is to remember that Methodism really took off when the Wesleys moved outside of church buildings and preached a personal relationship with Jesus. And Jesus himself had an ambiguous relationship with his faith tradition. He was both obedient to it and challenged it. We could do well to follow that example."

Stuart and Pauline are finally going to become colleagues, at least for a year, with Pauline a chaplain at Coventry University and Stuart a chaplain at University of Warwick.