Rosanna Blewett will be ordained Deacon in the Diocese of Bath and Wells this June. Her path to ministry saw her undertake lay work, and cross-cultural mission, but Rosanna says, this next step has come in God’s timing. “I felt God say, ‘It might feel like it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It might feel like lots of life has gone by, but actually now is the moment.”
Speaking about her journey to this point Rosanna says, “I was about 20 when I had a really big encounter with God at Spring Harvest. It changed all of my thinking. I’d grown up in a Christian family and been to church, but I didn’t feel I knew God personally. Suddenly, I did. And I thought—I want to share this with other people.”
From there, the question became how. After university, Rosanna took a job as a press officer but quickly knew it wasn’t right. Rosanna’s church, (St Pancras, Chichester) offered her a year of training and then invited her to continue with them planting a church on an estate. So, she carried on doing that for about six years.
Rosanna explored formal training and was accepted by the Church Army but realised it didn’t quite fit and instead worked on an ecumenical pioneer project in the Midlands.
Rosanna’s work took her overseas to share the word of God. “I went to Nigeria twice, working with the local church and at revival meetings. Thousands of people gathered. The hunger for God was real.” She also travelled with teams to Moldova and Kazakhstan. “We were working with Turkish-speaking people, sharing a film about Jesus, meeting people in their homes. At the end of two weeks, there was a church planted.”
Her role in those missions was often prayer. “I didn’t speak the language, but I prayed—from morning till night. We saw huge answers to prayer. It was hard, but powerful.”
Throughout all that time, and when she became a mother, Rosanna says, the call never left her. “There was always a stirring. Then I was talking with a friend about that passage in John, where the disciples are called, and it says, ‘It was about four in the afternoon.’ That line really struck me. It felt like God was saying: ‘It might be late in the day, but now is the time.’”
That moment led to prayer, discernment, and finally the decision to offer herself for ordination. “People had suggested it to me years earlier, but I resisted it. I didn’t want to be told how to do things. When I was younger I struggled with the idea of structure and authority. And it was a different time for women in ministry. Some of the things people said put me off.”
But through time, experience, and growth, the Rosanna’s call became clearer. “It was a long journey. But the right one.”
Rosanna will undertake her curacy in with Farrington Gurney and High Littleton. She says, “I am exciting to be joining others in God’s work," She is particularly hopeful about encouraging others. “Helping people discover their gifts, walking alongside themsharing God’s life in the community that’s what I look forward to.”