Hello I'm

Hello

I’m Andrew Georgiou, a chaplain at His Majesty’s Young Offenders Institution in Wetherby, West Yorkshire and appointed back in March 2007. I took up my role after much prayer and consternation about a change in direction after many years in local Church ministry. What I had failed to realise when I applied and got the job, was that my role would be working with 15–18-year-old males!

It wasn’t too long before the Lord brought back to my memory a tearful prayer that I had made back in 1992 when I asked the Lord to help me reach young people, this was an area of ministry that I had always struggled in. That evening as I walked through the chapel, the tears came again but this time with thankfulness that God had answered my prayer, albeit in a way I had not expected.

Ministry in a YOI brings many challenges, in the last year or two, these challenges have increased by the addition of young ladies to our establishment. Self-harm was always an issue but, in some ways, has risen to a new level with the complexity that most of our young people have experienced in their lives. Whilst we have struggled to recover numbers in attendance at our Sunday worship post-covid, we are slowly rebuilding, and I regularly enjoy the support of some wonderful church volunteers who love to come and support me in the services I conduct and in the mid-week groups I run. The groups include Youth Alpha, Four Points Course and more. One of the courses I am a facilitator of is Time Out for Dads. This is a parenting course for young dads and is a Care for the Family Course. It is hard to understand at times how some of our young men can learn how to parent when they have not really had any positive parenting themselves, but it is a joy at the end of the course, when possible, to see them holding their babies in the end of course celebration.

I think that one of the most satisfying achievements I have made over the years, is the establishment of a charity of which I am the co-founder and a trustee. This amazing charity is called In2Out, a registered charity that aims to reduce reoffending among young people aged 15-21 through our mentoring and resettlement process. Our foundations are firmly based on the Christian Faith, and this is the motivation of most of our staff. You can look at our website for more information about this, https://www.in2out.org.uk/about-us .

I never imagined that God would answer my prayers by putting me inside a custodial setting, over the years many young people have made a response to the Gospel in our services and groups. As a chaplain, to my fellow chaplains, we can never be sure about the progress of the seed sown in our ministries in prisons, but we must never give up believing that one day the seed sown will produce good fruit in the lives of those we have the privilege and joy to minister too.

I love the opportunities which being a chaplain bring to me, I am able to serve as a small part of the Prisons Week Working Group, a facilitator on the Welcome Directory courses for those considering becoming Welcome Directory members and also as the Assemblies of God Lead for Prisons.

In the juvenile estate, no day is ever the same, you feel that you are working with an age group that are still open to change. Their broken lives can make you cry but their openness to soak up a message of hope for their future is a massive encouragement to press on.

Climb when ready…

This is the call all rock climbers wait for, and recognise as the signal to say “everything is as safe as it’s going to be for you to start climbing”.

 The decision to set off climbing is now based on a mixture of faith in your ability to meet the challenges ahead, and confidence in your preparations. When I see someone leave prison, as a chaplain I face the same mixture of faith and fear. Instead of “climb when ready”, my parting shot is usually “I never want to see you again in my life!”

I can remember those feelings of faith when I was involved in pastoral ministry too. Having finished my sermon prep, made sure the worship team were briefed, that the welcome team were all sorted, the children’s workers had arrived, final prayers said (usually whilst in the loo!), and … ready. But always with a little fear, and always waiting for that little extra thing God might want to do on any given morning. For me, readiness needs to combine both preparation and faith. Only when I see these two combined can I bear the mixed feelings of the present.

As ministers in chaplaincy, church, pioneering or community settings our preparations are essential. But I have come to realise that we are only really ready when we combine this with faith in the one who will be with us on the next steps of the journey. We can look back and know that God has been at work in us to this point, but it is even more important that today we also realise that he will be with us as we journey forward. Today I need to know that God will help me face my anxieties with faith, trusting that he will speak clearly about the path which he will lead me on.

Having every little thing tied down is really not readiness. I am quite convinced that only when we combine our preparedness with faith are we truly ready. Only when we are in an attitude of listening to Jesus say “try fishing on the other side of the boat” (para John 21) are we really ready.

My prayer today is that daily we will face the opportunities and challenges that will surely come along. Prepared, perhaps a little fearful, but ready.

 We have made things as safe as they can be, to get off the ground we need to be “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6)

Climb when ready! The journey for today awaits 😊

Revd Bob Wilson

Secretary for the Free Church Prison Chaplaincy

This article was originally written for Eastern Baptist Association.

Nourishing Roots - with Ruth Perrin, 31st Jan 2023, 10:00-16:00

Location: St Antony's Priory 74 Claypath Durham, DH1 1QT

Date: 31st Jan 2023, 10:00 - 16:00

Register your place HERE.

A day of reflection and spiritual refreshment for Free Church chaplains within the quiet and peaceful surrounds of St Antony's Priory, Durham. This day is part of our tri-annual 'Nourishing Roots' sessions where we seek to help refresh our spirits and have a time of retreat away from our busy ministries.

Our reflections will be led by Dr Ruth Perrin, an experienced minister, trainer, researcher and mentor; she has been exploring and encouraging faith development for two decades and is passionate about helping people to draw close to Jesus and explore their part in his kingdom plans.

A buffet lunch will be provided - please advise us of any dietary requirements in advance.

The day is free of charge, but there are only 15 spaces available due to the size of the meeting room. We will initially have tickets available for six prison chaplains, six hospital chaplains, and three education chaplains. Tickets may be made more widely available in weeks to come.

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

Prisons Week 2022: What are you thankful for?

Thank you. Diolch. Tapadh leat. Ta. Cheers.

We say thank you in so many ways in this country. Usually we are responding to a kindness, to an offer of help, to a generosity, to a service given. A big purple bear (going by the name of “Barnie”!) once sang “please and thank you, they are the magic words” to remind children of the importance of gratitude and courtesy. This year Prisons Week is focussing on a Samaritan man, an outsider, who was healed by Jesus and “threw himself on the ground … and thanked Jesus”. We know nothing of the man’s journey until that time, nor do we know much about it afterwards, but we do know that his encounter with Jesus as healer led him to a state of gratitude, of worship. Interestingly, he was not healed on his encounter with Jesus, but on his reaction to him in obedience (“as they went they were healed”, v14), and we also know that he alone, “a foreigner”, returned with this attitude of praise (v17)

Over the last few years in Prisons Week we have journeyed together in prayer through difficult days. We have lamented together, but with the encouragement “you are not alone”, we have struggled together with little but looked to the ravens as a sign of God’s provision, and this year while still journeying we return to say thank you. Not because we are thankful that all is again well, but because it is life-affirming for us to be thankful in all things. The prisons week film crew went out on to the streets of Brighton and experienced thankfulness IN all things by a wide range of people in a wide range of circumstances … thankfulness for family, for pets, for last chances to talk, for sustenance, for nature, for the wind in my hair, for breath.

In the midst of daily life, to pause … maybe in our pain, maybe in our joy, maybe in our healing, maybe in our ongoing dis-ease, to cry out along with all affected by imprisonment … Thank you … changes us at a soul level. It is never an easy response, but in it we are led to worship, we are led to praise, we are led onwards in the life we are saved to live in all its fullness. Jesus says to the Samaritan … “Get up and go; your faith has made you well.” Not so much “magic words” as wonderful words, words of healing and words of life. Words that I will be praying during prisons week that victims, prisoners, officers, chaplains, children, magistrates, those like me, and those who are not will all find the strength to say. AND BE MADE WELL!

Thank you.

Revd Bob Wilson

Secretary for the Prisons Chaplaincy

Prison Fellowship Devotional October 2022

Note: You can download this year’s prayer leaflet and poster on www.prisonsweek.org . This year there is also the possibility to make your own “Thank You” Prisons Week poster that you can add to all year long!