Jenine

Jenine is part of the community at The Priory, Bridlington and joined Stepping Up in 2025, she shares her story below.

I recently completed Stepping Up, and wanted to share my experiences and hopefully inspire anyone who feels they’d like to step up in their own faith journey. The programme is designed for people who want to explore what it mans to be active as a Community Minister. It is not a heavy or overly academic course, but it is impactful. In fact, I found it deeply transformative. The course aims to support and grow disciples to deliver their ministry in their own parish.

It’s a year-long commitment, but the connections and networks we formed together will last much longer. All participants will be given a spiritual mentor. I really appreciated my monthly meeting with my mentor. She helped me talk through anything I felt was important. By the end of the meeting, I felt I could move forward confidently. We were also encouraged to reach out to each other for support, giving us a real sense of connection, shared purpose and resilience.

The Stepping Up programme really helped us to explore how we can become more Christ-like. We learned that as Community Minister, we don’t always have all the answers, but we can be alongside people in faith, to bring his kingdom among us, even when life is hard. We explored how to embrace our communities in all of their fullness and also how to embrace the wholeness of ourselves. One of the beautiful lessons I took from the course is that God doesn’t waste a thing!

I learned to encounter God in the ordinary, to grow in prayer and discipleship. My biggest takeaway from the course is the call to live life abundantly, a life filled with purpose, God’s presence, compassion and hope.

Stepping Up empowered me to grow by learning to listen; to God, to ourselves and to others. I found the practice of listening and reflecting to be such a useful life skill. Especially in a world so full of distraction and noise, where so much is designed to hold our attention in unhealthy ways. I learned to hear God’s voice asking me to become more present to the people and life going on around me.