Plan "B" for Believers...

Conversations continue here with, and focused on, a number of 'plan "B" believers', those who feel strongly called to a ministry of some kind and who, for some reason cannot do it, were not selected, or whatever, regardless of reason.

I'm not interested in the cheesy stuff of people saying 'Yes, but when you look back you will see God's hand at work' etc, or 'You were simply called to something different'. Neither am I interested in the rights and wrongs of selection conferences and whatever - they do their job (and I sometimes feel have saved the church from not nearly enough poor leaders). Rather, my concern here in the trenches of both giving and receiving faith accompaniment, is to understand better how plan B believers can function best in the absense of a sense of calling, or with even more difficulty, in a place where they positively feel they are not doing that which they were called to.

I'm blessed in that my vocation as a sister makes sense to me, adds up in my spiritual life, and is integrated with everything I do, even if it is hard sometimes and sometimes lacks interaction with my denomination. But others don't necessarily have even that, and struggle in a fog of uncertainty. How can God guide them in working in an organisation that for example has nothing at all to do with what they feel positively called to? Is God journeying with them in that for real? Are they getting it wrong? Will God have a plan for their/our lives in that situation? How can God go to plan B or was it plan B all along, in which case he was playing tricks on people giving them a sense of specific calling? In which case how does one ever trust a sense of guidance from God again? It is these dilemmas that people struggle with in spiritual accompaniment with friends or spiritual director.


Cornwall Church Health is an ecumenical ministry which I set up and run day to day, networked into a wider circle of
people who help with workshops, advise and so on.

Warmest blessings
Eleanor Burne-Jones
Sister under private vows
On the rolls of the local SA corps.









Eleanor Burne-Jones trained in church conflict mediation, congregational conflict consulting and training trainers at Bridgebuilders, the London Mennonite Centre, and in neighbour mediation at the Mediation Service, Manchester. Eleanor spent many years living in the orthodox Jewish communities of London and Manchester, where she learned Torah through the kiruv programmes, gave practical instruction in observance, and organised classes for women in Talmud and Shulchan Aruch.

After returning to the church, she trained in Prayer Companionship, sometimes termed spiritual direction, in the Ignatian tradition through Salford Prayer Guides and is part of several Spiritual Director networks. At the same time she went through the novitiate with the Anglican Third Order Society of St Francis before becoming a Sister under private vows.