The Masters plan

So.

Whisper it - there might be an actual plan in the offing...

You'll know from my last post that last Monday I was up in Liverpool for an MA (a MA? Who knows.) interview. I'd stumbled across the St Mellitus MA in Christian Leadership as I'd made a last-ditch attempt to rescue my study plans after the disappointment of discovering my first-choice programme wasn't running in September, and in the course of less than a fortnight I'd sent off a brief email to find out more about the course, decided to apply, was offered the opportunity to go up for a taster day and been for an interview!

There are times when things just fall into place...

St Mellitus has quickly become one of the key Anglican training colleges in the UK and last September an affiliated college opened in Liverpool, based at the Anglican cathedral. I'd had hoped that I'd be able to do the MA in London but the course was full, hence the application to Liverpool since Leicester is, as the proverbial crow flies, pretty much equidistant between there and London (although slightly more difficult to get to by public transport - more on that later!).

But as I've reflected on my taster and interview, I've begun to see the very real advantages of a northern adventure. The college is smaller - I don't think there were more than about twenty-five people in the room (and the college does seem to basically be a single room) at any one time - and in the process of getting established which offers genuine potential to be part of shaping something new and interesting. There also seemed to be a real sense of community (to the extent that it's possible to get a feel for that kind of thing in a single morning) which is something I particularly value.

Oddly, perhaps, one of the highlights of my morning was the interview itself. Well, I say 'interview' - it was actually a nice chat over coffee. We started off by chatting about all the normal stuff - what I'm doing at the moment, my faith journey, etc - and then we got onto the subject of leadership (appropriately).

I'm not sure what prompted it but I found myself talking about the Newsnight segment about leadership that I watched back in January and have blogged about a couple of times. I talked about the absence of women from the programme and the subconscious messages about leadership this had communicated, about the lack of reference to the wider context of female monarchs (the programme was about Shakespeare who, as you know, wrote during the reign of Elizabeth I and was broadcast as part of the Jubilee celebrations for Elizabeth II), and about the complete lack of furore about this that had greeted it when it was broadcast. As I was talking I was aware that this felt like a deal-breaker, that if Jill didn't 'get' what I was talking about I wasn't sure this was the place for me.

But she did get it. We talked about her own historical leadership heroes, Joan of Arc and Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and founder of Christ's College, Cambridge. She understood my sense of outrage at the Newsnight programme (and at the lack of outrage about it). She was unnecessarily encouraging about my potential to write interesting things about women's leadership.

I came away from that conversation feeling fairly positive...

And so there we have it. I hadn't set out to do an MA in leadership, Christian or otherwise, and yet I'm pretty convinced it's the right step. I don't know how it fits into the Baptist ordination exploration; there are some clear points of connection - part of the process of training for ordination is obviously about training for leadership, and some points of very clear disconnect - I'll be studying at an Anglican college. I'm not thinking too hard about those things just at the moment. One of the distinctives about this course is that it's about reflecting on what it means to lead as a Christian regardless of the specific context and that's one of the key appeals for me.

There are practical things that still need working out. I move out of my current accommodation on 12 July and I don't currently have anywhere to live after that - I'm planning to stay living in Leicester for work, which is another of the practical issues that needs thinking through. I also need somewhere in Liverpool to stay every Sunday night during term time. So if you're of a praying disposition...

And, yes, I know that adding a well-placed apostrophe to the title of this post would add a whole extra layer of significance to what I've written. After four and a half years of drifting about, heading somewhere but not knowing where, there seems to be a little light at the end of the tunnel. I still don't really know what the future holds, but I know is that this is the next step - the one after that will unfold itself in due course. Thanks for sticking with me!