Katy Partridge will be ordained as deacon on Saturday 25th September in Wells Cathedral. Katy is an ex-professional dancer, and teacher. Here, she shares her journey to ordination.
“Dance for me has always been my first language. It was the first language I used to express how I was feeling or express something spiritual. Even at a young age it was my way of communicating and, as I grew in expertise, it also became a way of giving something back to God.
"Even now, my creative way of thinking really informs my faith. I don’t really see things in black and white, I don’t always see things as opposing one other, but rather more through interconnectivity. Because of this, the way I think about mission and pioneer ministry is probably sometimes a bit more outside the box.
"Jesus has always been a big part of my life. I made a conscious decision when I was about 8 to give my life to Jesus. Even at that young age I had a sense that I wanted to give my life completely to the work of the kingdom in some capacity. Obviously I had no idea at that point what that might look like. The passage in John 20:21 was always an important one to me as I was growing up: ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ I knew at a young age that a life of discipleship would always include sacrifice and ‘taking up my cross.’
"The sense that God was calling me to ordained ministry came as a whisper really. It wasn’t like a big flash of lightening but was a gradual and gentle sense over a long period of time. I was loving my career in dance teaching and loving teaching and mentoring young people. However, I was missing the opportunity to be able to tell them about Jesus, and that’s all I really wanted to do, but in that environment it wasn’t possible.
I then spent a lot of time in prayer. Every Saturday, for probably about a year, I set aside a time to go into a room, a prayer room, in the town where I was living and pray, ‘here I am, send me.’
"In honesty, I had hoped I might be called to an exciting mission abroad! Unexpectedly however, out of that time was a gentle, small sense of maybe working in a church, maybe the church of England and priesthood. So, it was a tentative start to a calling towards ordained ministry, which grew in strength throughout the discernment process.”
Katy will be a curate with the Benefice of Combe Down with Monkton Combe and South Stoke which she is looking forward to. “I’m really excited! It’s got so much going on in so many different contexts. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’re doing, getting to know them all, and joining in with what God is doing there.”