Biblical Hebrew, studied by trainee priests, can often pose a challenge for aspiring ministers.For Rajiv Sidhu it posed more of a struggle – and led him to discover he was, in fact, dyslexic. That in turn taught him to look at how the Church communicates the Christian faith in a new way.Despite working as a Geography teacher for 10 years, it was only through Hebrew that he realised he needed special education support. Now, he has said that his own struggle helped him understand why others may find Christian teachings based on words, rather than symbols, can be challenging.Rajiv, 32, was raised partly in Malaysia with his grandparents and has taught in Dagenham and the Isle of Wight. “I had always assumed that my vocation was to be a teacher, although I now realise that you can have different vocations at different points in your life,” he said. Supporting his local parish already, Rajiv was encouraged by his priest to consider becoming a vicar. With support from the Diocesan Director of Ordinands, Rajiv explored his calling for a year before resigning his post as a teacher and beginning theological training in Oxford. He then completed a placement with the prison ministry in Malaysia. During his training, Rajiv studied biblical languages. He said: “It was my Hebrew tutor who suggested that I might be dyslexic, which gave me a deeper insight into myself. “We are all created in God’s diverse image - and this applies as much to our minds as anything else. What does this look like for Church? How can we include, welcome, and celebrate neuro-diversity in Christian spaces and places? We often shy away from the images and symbols in church, though these can be the most effective teachers of the faith.”Rajiv will, alongside six others, be ordained at Portsmouth Cathedral on Saturday, June 26.
Emily Emmerson-Finch’s journey started when she got the bus.Not catching a bus though: at the age of 22 she took the extraordinary decision to spend her savings buying a double decker bus and transforming it into a youth and community centre.A church youth worker, Emily drove the bus around the York and later the Scarborough coastal areas. She hosted sessions for young people on board the bus, with the opportunity to pray afterwards, as well as drop-ins for families and youth work training to churches. When she left to move to Newcastle in 2018, its work had touched the lives of 5,000 young people and the Bus Stop charityhad been established. She remains a trustee of the charity and it is still going strong on the North Yorkshire coast.Now she is embarking on a new journey – of training to become a distinctive deacon in the Church of England. “The young people I met through working on the bus called it their ‘second home’ and a place where they felt that they really belonged,” she said.“They described the bus as their church and they challenged preconceptions of what church is. I started exploring ordination four or five years ago. It was when I was on the bus that I felt that God was maybe calling me. “But I was confused at that time as I thought then that a vicar was very much inside the church. My passion is for reaching out to people who don’t come to church.“Then I found out about the diaconate – I am going to be trained as a distinctive deacon and my focus as a distinctive deacon can be described as being at the door of the church, welcoming people in and also encouraging the church to go out into the world.”
I can still remember one of my secondary school teachers who was so passionate about her love for physical geography that her enthusiasm rubbed off on her students and led me to apply to study the subject at university. I can still picture the teacher talking to us whilst standing in a middle of a river or pointing out the dramatic awe and wonder of the glacial landscape of the mountains when we were on a geography field trip.Most of us can identify a teacher or someone in our lives who has helped to shape us and encouraged our formation and development as we have transitioned from childhood into adulthood.This week we are looking forward to the opportunity to celebrate the work of our teachers through a national Thank a Teacher Day that takes place on Wednesday 23rd June. You can send an individual card to a teacher or school staff, or if you prefer you can contribute to a national Thank a Teacher card which will include contributions from children and adults from all over the UK.We know from the different accounts in the Bible, that people referred to Jesus as Rabbi or teacher and that he made time for children and listened to them. In Matthew’s gospel, there is a powerful account of Jesus rebuking the disciples for trying to turn the children away from him:"Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there."Jesus sends a strong message that children are precious and important to God and should always be welcomed and cherished so they can be nurtured and flourish.This week we would normally be welcoming over 3,000 Year 6 children to the cathedral as part of our annual Leavers’ Services to mark their transition from primary to secondary school.Due to Covid restrictions, it won’t be possible to do this in person and to see the children’s faces light up as they walk through the cathedral doors with their school banners. However, the Education team have produced some great Leavers' Service resources and materials so that our schools and churches can come together to offer a Leavers’ Service for the children and parents in the church or in the school.Our forthcoming Diocesan Synod on 30th June provides another opportunity to hear and listen to children in our Diocese, when children from two of our Church schools will be sharing how their own faith has grown and developed through being part of a Christian community – their school.
Shoppers and visitors to Cambridge may have got used to the sight of Lee Welham, the charming and enterprising Big Issue seller most commonly seen outside the town’s famous Round Church. But eagle-eyed pedestrians passing his pitch on a recent summer’s day may have spotted another familiar face wearing the red hat and tabard of a magazine vendor: Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.The head of the Church of England has been on study leave in Cambridge since May and the pair have struck up a friendship over the weeks. It didn’t take long before Welby had been persuaded to swap his robes for a Big Issue tabard and spend 40 minutes in Lee’s shoes.Lee, a former market trader, is no stranger to looking after other vendors in his co-ordinating role across Cambridgeshire. He took Welby under his wing before sitting down for an interview on religion, hope and homelessness.Justin Welby: I was really nervous before I started because I thought, I’m going to be very conspicuous and, surprisingly enough in my job, I hate being conspicuous. But you were very encouraging, Lee. And it really struck me that people weren’t looking me in the eye, people were head down, I could see people crossing the road. Lee Welham: You’re a confident man. So can you imagine how it would feel for somebody who has no confidence at all just having someone ignore you 70 times a day, you can see why it would feel so demoralising. JW: But when someone did buy a magazine it really felt good. LW: It does feel pretty good, especially if they’re a fella or a lady that normally doesn’t get it. And then you know what, they walk back and they’ll say: ‘Oh, go on, you’ve made me laugh, I’ll buy it.’JW: It’s an extraordinary thing that you’re doing. Because I’ve discovered you are a franchisee for Cambridgeshire. So what you’re doing involves selling, but also organising, and a lot of pastoring. You’re looking after these folks. And presumably some of them are still sleeping rough. LW: I made, like, £40 in two hours when I first started selling. That was amazing. It’s just so easy after a while. I can handle rejection as an old market trader and a funfair guy. But if you ask 1,000 people you’re bound to get at least 20 or 30 buying the magazine and that’s my ethos really. And I’ve got loads of cheesy lines. JW: I’ve heard! LW: The cheesier you are the better. It makes people laugh and I like to make people laugh, I’m a bit of an entertainer. You like my puns don’t you? JW: Yes I do! I come from a family of both parents being alcoholic and my mother stopped drinking half a century ago and never went back. My father died of it. What happens if vendors who struggled with a similar thing go back on the booze or the drugs?LW: For me, personally, I understand if people slip up because I’ve learned addiction is not so black and white as I thought it was. I’ve been quite lucky in life. I did a lot of my silly stuff when I was younger and I haven’t really got any addictions, except maybe to chicken. I don’t mind if my vendors fall, it’s about getting back on the horse. That is what I try and teach them. As a guy who has failed quite a lot in life, I teach people to get off your high horse in life and get yourself a pony – when you fall off it doesn’t hurt as much.JW: I couldn’t agree more, I think that’s really good. I shall use that!LW: I’ll be honest, you doing this is really going to help me get my voice out there. We really need to change the way we think as a society. JW: We need to change the way we think, we really do. LW: We’ve spoken about this and it’s in your book [Reimagining Britain]. We don’t want to go back to normal because normal didn’t work, did it? We want to have a better life now and we’ve got a chance of starting something. JW: And there were some amazing things we learned last year. I know Brendan Cox quite well, the husband of Jo Cox, the MP who was murdered. He asked me to chair an organisation [The Together Campaign] that brings together loads of people in the evenings, which is about saying we’re not going back to the old normal. It’s trying to get people in their own area to make sure that we don’t. We learned that last year 4.6 million people started volunteering for the first time. And 75 per cent would volunteer again. What that says to me is what you’re trying to do, that really says there’s an important change which we can pick up on.LW: Kids right now are thinking in such a different way to any of the previous generations. This is why this project is so important. I’m going to send the video of this interview to primary schools in Cambridgeshire and I hope the kids are going to watch this and they are going to be inspired. It’s hopefully going to change the way the kids think so we can create this better time. Like it says in your book, after World War 2 we obviously had to rebuild and think about community. We created some amazing things, didn’t we?FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN WELBY AND LEE WELHAM PLEASE BUY A COPY OF THIS WEEK'S BIG ISSUE
