This week, I announced on Facebook that I’ve accepted a call to Godalming United Church in Godalming, Surrey. Now that I’m at the end of this process, I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about what all it entailed in moving my credentials from the U.S. to the U.K.

Whenever we arrived in England back at the end of 2018, we planned to do some “church shopping” to decide which denomination and congregation in Basingstoke fit us best. However, as detailed in a post at the time, we hit the jackpot on our first Sunday and London Street URC quickly became our church home. I admit that I chose them for our first Sunday as the United Reformed Church was a “cousin” to our United Church of Christ back home, but it was completely to the credit of London Street’s minister and members that we decided to stay.

I’m very glad we did, for more than the obvious reason. At the time we were leaving the States and coming over here, I was very much lost and adrift in my spiritual life. Primarily I was still hurting over the suicide of one of my closest friends a few months before. I was using the move as an excuse to look elsewhere for how I would spend the rest of my working life. Thankfully, becoming involved with such a wonderful church quickly helped me to realize that the church was still where I belonged.

Back around the end of February 2019, I reached out to the Synod Moderator for our area and asked to meet. She gave the great news that ministers were needed and that transferring my credentials from the UCC (a fellow Congregationalist denomination) was a relatively straight forward process. Unfortunately, it’s a process that only takes place once a year…in November. So, I had about a 9 month wait before I could apply. So, wait I did. Nine more months at Hemmersbach, where I liked the people, but wasn’t particularly suited for the work. I’m just grateful they put up with me.

Finally, November arrived and I submitted my application to the Ministries Committee so that I could be issued a Certificate of Eligibility (I’ll explain all that in a minute). The process itself wasn’t terribly onerous. I had to fill out a 4-5 page application and then be interviewed by the Ministries Committee at Church House in London. I did that on a cold day in mid-December and got the results later that day. This meant that I would, subject to a criminal background and reference checks, be issued the aforementioned Certificate of Eligibility. This certificate essentially serves as my initial credentials in the United Reformed Church, allowing me to “apply” for churches. There are only a couple of stipulations.

First, the Certificate is only good for three years, but it’s only needed for your first church. After you’ve been inducted into your first position, your name is added to the Role of Ministers and the certificate is no longer needed. So, basically you have 3 years to find your first church or it expires.

Secondly, for your first church, you can only be offered churches that have been without a minister for one year. Basically, this is a UK immigration rule, not a URC rule. To protect jobs for natives, any position advertised internationally has to have been open for one year first, to show that no one currently in the UK is qualified and/or interested in the position. (There are exceptions to this where there is a critical shortage of needed workers, such as nurses. That’s how we got into the country so quickly.) This only applies to your first position in an organization, though, so it won’t affect future churches for me as I’ll still be working for the URC, just “transferred” to a different location.

My Certificate of Eligibility was finalized in early January, and then the real search and call process began. I’ll be back, hopefully tomorrow, to share the call process that led me to Godalming.