Deacon Claire Billington

We are incredibly proud of our Conveyancing Assistant Claire Billington who was ordained as a Deacon at Worcester Cathedral last Saturday, 26th of September 2020.

We were keen for Claire to share her thoughts, and she writes:

I remember being in church with my father when I was very young, looking at the vicar and thinking “I want to do that”! All those years ago of course women couldn’t be ordained but I didn’t realise that. Years later, like many teenagers I stopped going to church although didn’t lose my faith – I prayed when it suited me.

Fast forward a long time to 2005 and we had a house fire. Little did we as a family know then that changes to our lives would not just be new furniture and a rewired house! As I watched a ball of flame shoot out of the roof, I remember looking at my husband Tim and son Alex and feeling a physical bubble of God keeping the three of us safe. My childhood faith had been woken up and I knew I was searching for something. The first book that I bought after the fire was a Bible.

A lot of talking, taking guidance, praying and discerning over the following couple of years resulted in me being accepted for training to be ordained. Looking back over my life I realise that God has been calling me for many years, but it’s taken me a long time to listen. Knowing that God wants me for who I am right now is a joy and I hope that joy spills out into my ministry.

I was ordained Deacon at Worcester Cathedral on Saturday 26 September and will be continuing to work part-time at Thomson & Bancks. I will be a non-stipendiary minister in my local benefice of Bowland. I am grateful to be able to start my ministry in this beautiful rural area and am looking forward to getting to know more people in the neighbouring villages. It is an exciting prospect and such a privilege to be joining a team that covers such a wide area and knowing that I will be walking alongside people throughout their lives.

None of us who had our ordinations postponed from the summer would have expected that our years of training would be so disrupted right at the end, and yes, it is disappointing that we couldn’t celebrate as we had anticipated. But I learned in 2005 that life doesn’t follow a set path, and that is especially so at the moment when there are serious challenges to be faced by all of us. My whole story is that everything happens in God’s time, not ours.”