Application Form

I don't know about you, but the phrase "application form" has always sent chills down my spine. I am more than happy to write a CV or an essay on a given subject, but an application form is so regimented and controlled; neither of which I do well with.

This said, the form was part of the process and I was learning to put my own desires, prejudices, fears and dislikes to the side and follow the path I was shown. So with as little procrastination as possible I sat down with the form and started filling it in.

Name, Address, Contact details - all fine so far
Baptism and confirmation dates - trip to the filing cabinet and I found those
Parish details - straight off St Nicolas website
Family and Health - straight forward enough
Education - it took time to find the certificates but again, nothing too taxing by the end of page 2
Past employment - taken straight from my last CV
Present employment - and this is where the challenge started.....

Present employment. employment! employment? How does a full time mum define her employment? It is surely the greatest and most challenging job I have ever had but how is it defined by me, by others, by society? I must have written a dozen drafts before I realised that being a mum is my job and that the voluntary work and studying I do are also jobs and therefore should be included as my present employment:

"Full time mum for her three year old daughter, Emma is also a Part time student counsellor. She has completed 2 years of psychology courses with the Open University and an introduction to counselling; in July 2009 she will complete Certificate in Counselling Skills. Emma has been a volunteer telephone counsellor for the Miscarriage Association since 2006 and following the completion of training commenced as a Home Start volunteer providing support to young families in June 2008."

So to page 4 (a few days later)
Your church involvement - again a challenge. I decided to follow inverse chronology and started to write down the various things I do in and around church. There was my work with PCC and task groups, parish profile development and talks at 1130 family communion services. Then I remembered the project management role I had done for the couple of recent parish weekends we'd held and I realised, my involvement was not as small as I imagined and would fill the space provided.

Then shock, horror, surprise and glee; I had made it to the last substantial box for completion:
What abilities, experience & previous training do you have which might be relevant to the work of ministry? - the biggy!!!
Of course my gut feeling was NOTHING.
I have no abilities other than confidence to talk to people, good organisational skills and a high level of empathy for other peoples' emotional issues.
I have no experience apart from about 300 workshops as a facilitator and my voluntary work listening to those in need.
And I have no training apart from in management, facilitation and counselling.
I was stuck.

So I did what I know is best, I left it alone, I gave it time and I prayed for the answer. And sure enough a few days later I could see that the abilities, experience and training I had was transferable, that God knew that and now all I had to do was write to down and let those responsible for selection decide if it was enough.

Page 5 - there I was at the end of the form!!
What books have you read in the last six months? Bold those that have had the most influence on you.
And here they are as listed in November 2008.

Theologial:
Called or Collared?: An Alternative Approach to Vocation (Francis Dewar)
The Life and Work of a Priest (John Pritchard)
Hearing Gods Call: Ways of Discernment for Laity and Clerg (Ben C. Johnson)
How to Find Your Vocation: A Guide to Discovering the Work You Love (John Adair)
How to Explain Your Faith (John Pritchard)
Praying Through Life: How to Pray in the Home, at Work and in the Family (Stephen Cottrell)
The Book of a Thousand Prayers (Angela Ashwin)
What Could I Say?: A Handbook for Helpers (Peter Hicks)
Christian Counselling: A Comprehensive Guide (Gary R. Collins)
The Way of a Pilgrim: And the Pilgrim Continues His Way (R.M. French)
Rumi: Whispers of the Beloved (Jelaluddin Rumi)
Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)

General:
Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart (Tim Butcher)
The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
Random Acts of Heroic Love (Danny Scheinmann)
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
The Bookseller of Kabul (Åsne Seierstad)
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
We Need to Talk about Kevin (Lionel Shriver)
A Quiet Belief in Angels (R.J. Ellory)
Swift to Hear: Facilitating Skills in Listening and Responding (Michael Jacobs)
Raising Your Spirited Child(Mary Sheedy Kurcinka)
Secrets of the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers (Tracy Hogg)
Between Parent and Child (Haim G. Ginott)

And lastly, your hobbies and interests.
What a joke, where would I find time for that. But then reading is a definite interest, I love to travel, I adore music and no one can say I forget to take photos; so those did for the form.

It was finished, my application form to become an LLM, completed.