Journeyman

…a person who has completed an apprenticeship but is not their own master.  The word comes from the french journée meaning “day” because payment for a journeyman was on a day-to-day basis.

For myself, the term connotes that I have been led along a path of experience, that I am not my own master, yet belong to no man other than Christ.  It also reminds me to seize each day, and the experiences, blessings and grace of each new morning.

I am Will Briggs.

I aspire to be a student of Jesus, who is Saviour and coming King. All my hopes - for myself, for those I care about, for this world - are in Him.

My wife, Gill, and I currently minister in the English city of Sheffield in various capacities. We have lived here, in a city that we love, since 2018, following a brief time in other parts of England, and after spending many years in the Anglican Church in Tasmania, Australia.

After emigrating from England at the age of six, I grew up on a dairy farm in Northern Tasmania and then studied and worked in Computer Systems Engineering.  Before theological study at Ridley Melbourne I spent a short time with Youth With A Mission. We were formed in the fires of church planting in the North-West of Tasmania. We have been expanded by the grace of meeting and working with those with a wide, deep, and beautiful grasp of the Kingdom of God, especially those who have held to faith in the Middle East. I have been a domestic missionary, a village priest, a church planter, a cathedral cleric, an urban new monastic, and a wistful surveyor of what is happening in this world.

My aim is to explore the kingdom of Jesus in the real world, generously, prayerfully, joyfully, seriously.  This is best done in, with, and among God’s people, as we humbly explore the lived-out narrative of God in the Scriptures, with honest eyes to what is around us.

Like the journeyman, the content you see here is based on no claim of mastery.  It is, mostly, a vehicle for thinking out loud. The content is unashamedly guided by myself – those things I find interesting, empassioning, or cathartic.

These are public words, designed to be thoughtful and encouraging, and therefore also hopefully engaged, pushed-back at, and constructively challenged.  This forum blesses me, and if it blesses others also, I am glad.

Disclaimer:

All thoughts, words and opinions are my own, personal expression and do not pertain to my parish or church.

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Wild attempts at thinking things through.