Essays

One of the inevitabilities f being a Student Minister is the essay.  Thankfully examinations for Student Ministers are a thing of the past but we do have to write essays; long ones and quite a lot of them.

I remember many years ago when I was a politics student at Leeds University reading some grafitti on the wall in the Politics Department.  It said that 'essays are merely a way of treating the value of our studies as a commodity.'

I used to feel this way about essays, but I've had a bit of a revelation over the past few days.  I suddenly realised that in order to try and write a good essay I'm reading books that I probably wouln't otherwise read and thinking about subjects in ways that perhaps I wouldn't normally.  The essay is not merely an end in itself, a means of proving to my tutors that I have, hopefully, learned something; it is a means of expanding my appreciation and understanding of a particular topic or subject.

Part of the training of a Student Minister is formation, it is about forming us into the Presbyters and Deacons God has called  us to be.  I expected to be changed in all sorts of ways at Wesley Study Centre, but I never expected to have my attitude towards essays completely transformed.  Our God is indeed a God of surprises.  I wonder what he has in store for me next.