Palm Sunday - praying with Prison Fellowship

On this Palm Sunday, we are invited to join Prison Fellowship in praying this prayer:

“Loving God, we are reminded on Jesus entering Jerusalem as the Prince of Peace.
Pray for God’s peace throughout our prisons this Holy Week.
Amen”

May I take this opportunity to invite you to pray for all prison chaplains who are busy preparing services for sharing with prisoners and prison staff over Eastertide.

We pray for Rev Bob Wilson, our very own Free Churches Faith Adviser, who will be particularly busy preparing and recording services for sharing across a variety of prison media over the coming week.

We pray for wisdom, courage and discernment in all they prepare and for the Word to reach the ears of those in prison in need and be a comfort and an inspiration to all who hear…

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. Amen

(Sara Iles, FCG Media Support Officer)

You can read more about the vital work of Prison Fellowship HERE.

(cover photo courtesy of Jacob Bentzinger @ Unsplash)

Prayers from Prison Fellowship for Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday from the March Prayer Diary with Prison Fellowship

We pray together…

We ask the Lord to bless mothers and carers who have a loved one in prison.

We pray for mums receiving an Angel Tree Mothers’ Day card and gift from their child today.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen

The words of a young person in prison, in a Mother’s Day card, with support of Angel Tree

You can find out more about the vital work of Angel Tree and read some poignant reflections on Mother’s Day from the Prison Fellowship HERE.

(cover photo courtesy of Kate Macate @ Unsplash)

Missing loved ones...

Over the last year, I expect we have all been missing our friends and families. It has been an unprecedented time of challenge and hardship. It has been an especially testing time for those with family members in prison as visiting has been restricted or not available and for those who are in prison and who have been unable to see their families for such a long time…

Please join us this coming Sunday to pray with Prison Fellowship

“Lord God, give courage and assurance to people in prison who have not seen their loved ones for many months, and who are worried for their families.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen ”

You can find out more about the vital work Prison Fellowship are doing in these challenging times and have been doing for over 40 years HERE.

The Prayer Diary for March is available for you to download, share and pray along with during the month of March.

(cover photo courtesy of Anh Nguyen at Unsplash)

A reflection on Psalm 139:7 from Prison Fellowship

Back in 2018, Rev Canon Sandra Miller wrote about Mothering Sunday: “It’s not easy being a childless, motherless vicar at this time of year. It can feel very lonely. There is a sense that everyone else is with someone they love or who loves them. But there are many others who feel mixed emotions on the day, or simply want to avoid it’”

As we begin a new month of praying with Prison Fellowship and supporting the vital work they do all year round, I am sharing a poignant and thought-provoking article from their latest newsletter with you all, written by Joanna Perkins, who is Prison Fellowship’s Programme Administrator.

“I am sure that Rev Sandra Miller never expected that, over the last year, we would all feel that loneliness and disconnection from our loved ones everyday due to a pandemic, not just on Mothering Sunday. I think we all now have a small understanding of what it must be like to be isolated, like those who find themselves in prison. Many young adults in our prisons have spent nearly all of the past year locked up in their cells. They have had little opportunity to exercise, do any work, receive education, or mix with others. Neither have they been able to see their loved ones. How lonely, frustrated and cut off they must feel in their cells.
The psalmist David writes:

This speaks of God as a person everywhere, present in creation yet different from creation. God is everywhere and stays connected to us, regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. He cares about the big and small things - and He is right in the midst of them.
In the letters I read every day from our Letter Link programme, I see the care and concern in the words written to and from those in prison; the checking in with one another through this Covid-19 season. Some recent letters have talked about missing their mums and the impact these special people had on their lives.
Angel Tree Mothers’ Day was piloted in 2011 to support the young people in offender units. For the last ten years, it has been helping the family relationships between a mother or significant female carer and a young person in prison. It’s such a lovely way to send a little something to say "I care, I value you and thank you."

We can do all this daily (not just on significant days), caring for one another, being God's hands and feet - demonstrating His love in action that surrounds us and never leaves us.”

Joanna Perkins is Prison Fellowship's Programmes Administrator.

(cover photo by Lo Sarno @ Unsplash)

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

In John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Rev Bob Wilson, Free Churches Faith Adviser, has spent some time lately reflecting on these verses and sharing some of the powerful ways in which the work he does as a prison chaplain himself and with other prison chaplains is inspired and informed by this affirmation from Jesus.

In a recent article in The Connexion Magazine he writes that in John 8:12 “Jesus promises life characterised by the very light that shines from his innermost being to all who follow him. What a promise! What a challenge.”

Bob goes on to consider the Biblical context of these words from Jesus: “This was such a radical statement that the pharisees were enraged, saying words to the effect: “Who says so? … Just you? … That’s not a valid testimony.” Two thousand years later we still bear testimony to the truth of Jesus’ words and the folly of the pharisees.

Bob tells us some of the ways these words have been powerfully evident in the work and ministry of prison chaplains with those they serve in prison. Bob, who has been serving in prisons since 1995, says he has repeatedly witnessed the light of life shining from those whom we often see as being consumed by darkness.

• I heard a violent offender in a Christian rehabilitative community say to a gentle Christian volunteer “You have helped me to learn how to talk again.”

• In an inner-city prison I have seen an habitual self-harmer in tears of joy as he laughed with his group leader who couldn’t play Monopoly without cheating.

• On a 12-step recovery course I heard a man in his fifties dogged by addiction all his life say finally “I can’t do this on my own, I really do need help.”

• In a prison chapel I have seen a man transformed by the simple act of saying the Lord’s Prayer and realising for the first time what he was saying.

• In churches around the country I have seen people who have left prison and found welcome, freedom and acceptance in a way that has led them to safely live life in the fullness for which Jesus died.

Bob concludes his poignant article: “The deepest truth of the Gospels is arguably the light of Jesus, the one whom the artist William Holman Hunt characterises as standing at the closed door, which has no handle and so from a prisoner’s perspective is a like a cell door. When given the chance, Jesus’ light does indeed invade our darkness. I have seen that light transform, bring peace, bring joy, bring hope, bring life. The light of life in the darkest places… what a promise! What a challenge.”

Reproduced with permission from the connexion, the free magazine of the Methodist Church
To receive a free copy, sign up HERE.

To find out more about the vital work of our Free Church prison chaplains HERE.

(cover photo courtesy of Yeshi Kangrang @ Unsplash)