22nd June 2026
Stories
On Endings and Beginnings: A Reflection on Leadership
Revd Dr Mark Vasey-Saunders, St Hild Sheffield Centre Head, writes a personal reflection on the idea that change in a community isn't linear, but cyclical and overlapping, with new growth already underway even as something else closes.
Shifts and Changes
Leading a community well always involves working to understand it. And that means coming to terms with the fact that it doesn’t stay the same. Communities change. Some voices become dominant while others fall silent. New voices emerge. Members leave, new members join. People’s callings shift and change. Some of this may be problematic. Much is just natural. As a leader of a church, I suspect I always assumed I had a lot of control over much of this – I could give space for particular voices to be heard and limit the dominance of others. I could encourage people to reflect on their callings and use gifts they hadn’t offered to the community before. In all likelihood, I overestimated how much control I really had over any of it. One thing that has become very clear to me in leading in the College community, however, is that the community itself is so broad, so gifted, and so ever-changing that leadership can never be about any attempt to control it.
A Season, Not A Single Moment
We’re at the point in the year when St Hild goes through a process of change – the ending of one academic year and the slow re-orientation towards the year to come. We say goodbye to students whom we have walked alongside in some cases for five or more years, and as we look towards September, when we will be joined by new students, all those who are continuing with us start to take stock of the way the community is changing. College is now sufficiently complex and diverse a place that there isn’t a single endpoint for the year, but multiple endings happening at different points for different people. At Sheffield, we have a Valediction service to say goodbye to our final year students, followed a few weeks later by a final end-of-year service for those who are continuing. In Mirfield, we have a Commendation weekend for Anglican ordinands, sending them off to their ordinations in different dioceses. Baptist Ministers in training have a final retreat weekend of the year together. Other celebrations and final services happen in Lincoln and Online. Ending the academic year feels less like a single moment and more like a season in the life of our community, with many people attending several of these services, some only one, and hardly anyone being at all of them.
The Hidden Complexity of Community
The complexity of the College community becomes really apparent at these points. The student body is interconnected in complex ways, with different people being part of sometimes multiple different centres, on pathways of varying lengths, with a variety of different destinations. Even some of our more homogenous groups start to reveal their complexity at these points – ordinands are training for different forms of ministry in different church settings in different dioceses, differences that we underplay for most of the year, but which are explicitly named at this point. When at Sheffield, we pray for our leavers, the differences are even more distinct. Some are stepping into recognised ministries in the church, some are continuing in ministries they have inhabited throughout their time at College, some are following a calling they have discerned while studying with us, some are stepping into a future that is still very uncertain, but with a fresh sense of God’s gifting and calling on them. These are always opportunities to celebrate what God has done, and often we can see tremendous personal growth in confidence, in depth of faith, and in desire to serve God. But I am also often struck by how little of it has anything to do with anything I have consciously done as a leader. Although I will often have taught students, for many of them this amounts to little more than one or two modules – maybe 20 hours over the course of 2 or 3 years. Beyond that, all I have done is hold a space, focused our attention on key values at certain points, and done my best to respond pastorally to any crises that occur.
Leaders Holding Space
This is also always at the forefront of my mind at this point in the year because, as well as being a time of endings, it is a time of beginnings. As one generation of students leaves, the next start to consciously step into the next step of their formation. Some are coming to the end of a year when they had re-entered education after a long time away and have often had to overcome the ghosts of their past in doing so. Some will have found it harder and more demanding than they anticipated. Others will have found it fulfilling in a way they hadn’t imagined they would. Still others have had various formal processes and conversations about their future ministry, whether that’s confirming their calling or determining where they will be serving. For some, being at St Hild has been the place of stability and support whilst challenges emerged in other parts of their lives. And there are some who are choosing to take up new roles and responsibilities in College or outside it as they enter the next year. Although there are often things I can do to help and support and be a sympathetic ear, in most cases, there are real limits to how much I can control the next step in any of their journeys. As a community, we are built around a vision for Christ-like formation. And the key people in that process are Christ and the person being formed. Being a leader in such a community is ultimately more about allowing space for formation to occur, offering challenge or encouragement from the sidelines, than it is about controlling the outcome. And I wonder if really our churches are or should be that different.
Endings are also always beginnings. And beginnings are always also endings. As we bring one year to an end, we are already busy nurturing the seeds of the next. In the words of Dag Hammarskjold – “For all that has been, thanks. For all that is to come, yes!”
