Event

FCG Chaplaincy Hub Offer for all Chaplains - Nourishing Roots with Paul Rochester

Join us for a day of reflection and spiritual renewal with the Free Churches Group, led by Bp. Paul Rochester, held in the beautiful and peaceful surrounds of the Royal Foundation of St Katherine, London on Tuesday 10th October 2023 from 10 am to 4 pm.

Paul is the General Secretary of the Free Churches Group and an ordained minister in the Church of God of Prophecy where his is a Senior Pastor for a Church in South London and has regional oversight for eight churches. Paul wrote his MA Dissertation on silence and Pentecostalism.

The day will include refreshments on arrival, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon as well as a hot buffet lunch.

Registration will be from 9.30am onward for a 10.00am start.

The cost for the day will be £20 for FCG chaplains, with a small number of places available for non-FCG chaplains from September.

Register your place here.

For more information, please contact Mark Newitt at mark.newitt@freechurches.org.uk

Visit here for more events.

Photo courtesy by Royal Foundation of St Katherine.

Free Churches Group, Health and Social Care Chaplains Study Day

Moral Injury, Staff Support and Looking After Ourselves

Free Churches Group, Health and Social Care Chaplains Study Day

27 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HH

Tuesday June 20th 10:30 to 15:30

Cost: £15 for chaplains whose denomination is a member of the Free Churches Group

 £25 for all other chaplains

Please register your place HERE.

09:45 doors open

10:30 to 11:15 Session one – Introduction to Moral Injury [Katie]

11:25 to 1210 Session two – Supporting Health and Social care staff to Navigate their way Through MI. [Diana]

12:10 to 13:05 Lunch (provided)

13:10 to 13:50 Session three – How we set up staff support work at G&ST [Tracy]

13:55 to 14:40 Session four – Sharing Good Practice [input from the panel and attendees]

15:00 to 15:30 Session five –Self-care and Creative Reflection [Bob]

15:30 cake and conversation for those who want to stay for a little bit extra

The focus of the day will very much be about lived experience rather than academic discussion. A well as the examples that the presenters will share we want to draw on the knowledge of those attending so please do think about examples of good practice from your context that you’d be happy to share in session four. If you have questions you’d like to ask both the presenter and those attending you can email them in advance to Mark at mark.newitt@freechurches.org.uk

A CPD certificate for 4 hours will be available at the end of the day.

Presenter Biographies

Tracy Morgan is originally from New Zealand. She trained as a health care chaplain in 2018 and works at Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. First working in Paediatrics and acute adults, Tracy joined the dedicated staff support chaplaincy team that was formed in response to the Covid 19 pandemic in November 2021.

Diana Steadman worked in education and guidance before training in pastoral ministry at Spurgeon’s College. She is currently serving as Staff Wellbeing Chaplain at Kingston Hospital NHS Trust where from 2017 she has been establishing the role working alongside a Physiotherapist, Clinical Psychologist and Mind-Body Practitioner as part of an in-house Staff Wellbeing Team. Diana is now responsible for creatively supporting and advocating for the pastoral needs of staff within Unplanned Care, harnessing the tools of reflective practice, pastoral supervision, coaching and other development activities, and by reporting into divisional progress and Trust-wide steering group meetings.

Katie Watson is Head of Chaplaincy at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She has served there for 15 years. Prior to this she was a Military Police Officer in the British Army with operational experience in Bosnia and Croatia during the early 90s and Northern Ireland during the conflict. She runs ultra distance trails and does so that cake can be a major factor in her diet.

Bob Whorton is retired from Healthcare Chaplaincy but continues to work as a reflective supervisor. His interests are in creativity, writing, embodiment and the use of the imagination.

Note: If you are a Free Church Healthcare Chaplain, please contact Thandar at thandar.tun@freechurches.org.uk for a discounted price. The member denominations list is available to view here.

Photo by Dim Hou on Unsplash

A Celebration of Chaplaincy, online event, 8th November, 7:30 - 8:30 pm

A Celebration of Chaplaincy with the President and Vice-President of the Methodist Conference

Affirming the great small things of chaplaincy through prayer, music and conversation

Register HERE before 31st October to receive your prayer pack for the event.

If you love chaplaincy then come and join us as we celebrate together. We’ll be hearing the stories of chaplains from many different sectors. There will be a chance to catch up with chaplains far and wide before being reaffirmed in this vital ministry and prayed for by the President and Vice President of the Methodist Conference.

The event will be taking place online. If you know of other chaplains local to you why not make this a shared experience by meeting together and joining the session as a group?

We would also like to send you a small gift as part of this event if you sign up before the 31st October and are happy to provide a postal address. You are still welcome to sign up after this date, although there will not be time to post anything to you.

The Methodist Church

A bit of Chaplaincy on the Side, a webinar exploring part-time chaplaincy

Monday 5th December from 18:30 to 20:00

Tickets are free and available from Eventbrite here.

Part-time chaplaincy roles come in many shapes and sizes. They may be:

  • inherited as part of a church posting

  • be carried out as a distinct role separate from church ministry

  • a role held alongside secular employment

Whether you are working part-time as a chaplain, would be interested in doing so, or know someone who should consider doing so(!) this webinar will explore how a part-time chaplaincy role can complement, inspire and inform other roles and areas of work and look at some of the pathways to becoming a chaplain.

With input from

  • The Revd Canon Helen Cameron: Chair of the Methodist Northampton District and Moderator of the Free Church Group

  • Gary Hopkins: Methodist Ministry Development Officer for Chaplaincy

  • Suzanne Nockels: Congregational Church Minister and Chaplain at Sheffield Children’s Hospital

  • Tas Cooper, Quaker Chaplain at Oxford University and a freelance Spanish to English translator

  • Bob Wilson: Secretary for Prison Chaplaincy and Free Churches Faith Advisor and chaplain at HMP Wayland

  • Mark Newitt: Secretary for Healthcare Chaplaincy and part of the chaplaincy teams at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and St Luke’s Hospice

The event flyer is available to download here.

Image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay

Annual National Free Church Prison Chaplains Training, Fire Service Training College, Moreton in Marsh in the Cotswolds from 23rd - 25th Nov 22

The National Free Churches Chaplains training will be held at the wonderful Fire Service Training College, Moreton in Marsh in the Cotswolds from 23rd through to 25th November. Registration on Day 1 will start at 11 am, with departure after lunch on Friday.


Our theme this year will be “For when I am weak …” from 2 Corinthians 12:10. We all know how this scripture ends, and how the apostle Paul says that he delights in his trials. However, there are times for many of us where we are so very weak that we are unable to experience that which we know to be true.

Image from Youversion

This year, the National Free Churches Chaplains’ Training will be focusing, with the expert help of Dr. John Andrews, international speaker, author, and motivator, the practical support of the HMPPS wellbeing team, and the grace of God we experience in our fellowship with one another, on getting back some of that spiritual resilience in our lives. We will have a fairly full programme for the prison chaplains to engage with over the three days (48 hours) we have together, but for me, it is crucially important that you find the time in the training to recharge spiritually in a way that is appropriate to each individual. This event is for all who are endorsed and serving as prison chaplains from Free Churches traditions, whether paid or unpaid, sessional or contracted.

This event will count as 17 hours of Spiritual Development CPD. Spiritual Development CPD is an endorsement requirement for all Free Churches Chaplains.


It is now 5 years since our last National Free Churches Chaplains event. This one is shaping up to be the best yet!

To register, please visit the Eventbrite site here.

Please cascade this information to your regional prison chaplaincy contact as you feel is most appropriate.


Revd Bob Wilson

Secretary for Prisons Chaplaincy