Encouraging our future leaders into ordained ministry – Vocation Sunday 2025
Lynda Peilow and Judy Peters ask everyone to play their part in listening to and responding to the call of God to serve him with our lives, including the potential for going forward for training for ordination.
Every Christian has a calling from God to live out their faith in their particular setting. As part of this, a calling to ordained ministry should be considered prayerfully and seriously.
The Church of Ireland’s Commission on Ministry is asking parishes to set aside some time on the Sunday before Pentecost (which falls this year on 1st June), as a Vocation Sunday, to encourage members of their parishes to explore God’s call in their lives.
On the Church of Ireland website, you will find resources to help you organise your Vocation Sunday (or for making this a focus on another Sunday at your discretion). Prayers, suggested hymns and songs, posters, and images for social media posts are all available – alongside the six-minute It’s Your Call video which features interviews with Church of Ireland clergy about their experience of ministry. Please visit www.churchofireland.org/our-
If you know a person whom you believe may have a calling to ordained ministry, one conversation could be the first step that helps them begin seeking out what this may look like for them.
If you yourself have been encouraged and prompted to consider the ordained ministry, please speak with your rector who can then liaise with your Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) about the next stages in discerning your call. The DDO will be able to recommend if a person should attend the Commission’s annual Vocations Retreat – a confidential event where speakers and other contributors help those who are exploring calling to understand the journey. The Commission on Ministry is planning to hold a Vocations Retreat in early 2026.
Nurturing vocations is always important, not least with the pressing need for more ordained clergy to lead parishes. On every Sunday in the Church of Ireland, 80 to 90 parishes (out of 450) are vacant, and held back from reaching their full potential as worshipping communities. With around 150 clergy retirements anticipated in the next eight years, we urgently need more people to speak into the lives of our future leaders about their potential – and more leaders to step forward and ask how their abilities can best serve our Church.
As General Synod members heard when they met earlier in May, there is deep and abiding joy in ministry and each parish can create a culture in which each person is a vocation scout. “We spot in people their vocation, the talents and gifts of God they are given,” Bishop Andrew Forster suggested. “I think many people are involved in ministry today because someone said to them: ‘Have you ever thought of….?’ Don’t leave that to other people, spot the vocations in others. These are challenging but exciting times. God is at work. He will use you and me to identify vocations. Whatever discernment God has given us, let’s use it in identifying vocations in others.”
Lynda Peilow (as Central Director of Ordinands) and Judy Peters are members of the Commission on Ministry.