How to become ordained/study

[Azalea96]

Hello I wonder if anyone has information on how to become ordained a minister or priest. We were discussing this in my family recently and we don't even know what steps a person needs to take. Do you need to be a certain age or what qualifications would a person need? Is a degree in theology the first step? Thanks

In the C of E the route to become a priest is that you talk to the priest in your own church first and they usually pass you onto a vocations advisor or diocesan director of ordinands. You spend some time talking through with that person the call to ministry and you might be asked to do some reading, or study or visit some churches that are not in your tradition. The next stage is a national selection conference and then training at a theological college, ordination and a curacy where the newly minted revd works with a very experienced priest to learn how it all works in the real,world outside academia.

From first speaking to my vicar to ordination was 6 years. That was 2 1/2 years with the advisor and DDO, 1/2 year waiting for the beginning of term and 3 years training part time on a local course. Most of us on my course had degrees in something but not in theology. I topped up my ministry degree with an MTh but in theory you could start with no formal qualifications and come out of training with all or part of a BA.

Does that help?

Age - it varies.

I think the lower age limit is something like 24 and the upper depends on your sponsoring diocese. There was someone on my course who was 60 and I've heard of older.

Thanks so much for your help. It helps to have some idea what the route is as I had no information to give or where he should look for guidance. He is still at uni and young so we previously didn't take him seriously for which we feel a bit guilty now. I didn't think he would still feel the same way after he told us 3 years ago.

There is someone I am training with who is too young to be ordained (he came straight from uni). He had to apply to the Archbishop of Canterbury to get special dispensation for his ordination.

If you are C of E they have a webpage for young vocations

There's a thread about ordination somewhere here, I began it a few days ago.

It will be different in different denominations. I felt God calling me when I was ahout 17 but often people will talk about younger.

Thanks Tiggles and CaulkheadNorth we will look up the thread and helpful links. I can see why it might be advisable to be 24 before making such a serious step, and gain some more life experience . Hopefully God's plan for him will let him make the right choices until then..prayers would be really appreciated to help him.Thank you for kind helpful replies

this blog post by the youngest C of E rev may be of interest...