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PACT with whom the Free Churches Group work alongside, as part of our work for Prisons Week, are hosting a carol service soon. PACT is the Prison and Advice Care Trust.
It is on 10th December at 7pm - held at Jesuit Church on Mount Street, London W1K 3AH
If you are in the London area and would like to go along, you can find out more information here.
(photo courtesy of Chad Madden at Unsplash)
New resources for worship are generally welcomed by worship leaders and the Joint Liturgical group has developed free to use material for three sequences ideally suited to a Sunday evening or weeknight celebration during Advent. Too often the distinction between the preparation for Christmas and the celebration of Christmas is lost. The material suggested by the group helps to preserve that distinction. The three sequences for Advent are:
Prepare the Way of the Lord
The Jesse Tree
Advent Refrains
Worship leaders are encouraged to consider this material and adapt the patterns offered to suit their local situations or simply incorporate some of the ideas or text offered into their own services.
The full text of these resources may be downloaded as a pdf file here.
In addition to the Advent resources, the Joint Liturgical group has produced a further four patterns for use during the Christmas & Epiphany Season. These four sequences are entitled:
The Promise Fulfilled
Christmas Eve (a traditional 9 Lessons and Carols)
Light to the Nations
The Glory of Christ Revealed
As with the Advent sequences, each pattern is offered with a number of options including ideas for readings, music, prayer and other elements drawing on texts and material from across the Churches.
The full text of these resources may also be downloaded as a pdf file here.
The Joint Liturgical Group (jlg.org.uk) exists as a creative working group. It offers rites and texts to the churches and ecumenical bodies, organises conferences, and advises and comments on worship matters. Work produced by the group is offered to churches to use as they see fit. The Free Churches Group (FCG) has been a member of the JLG since 1995. Whilst the larger Free Churches are members in their own right, the FCG representatives have sought to enhance the work of the group with some of the distinctive insights that can be drawn from the smaller, less traditionally liturgical, Free Churches.
For more information and resources please visit The Joint Liturgical Group website here.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland have produced a useful compendium of the resources which have been prepared by churches, Christian and other organisations for the 2019 General Election, including those prepared by the Free Churches Group.
You can read and share them here.
For the FCG information, please see this link
I used to work as a prison education contracts manager with a government funding agency. I witnessed, first hand, the power that education has to turn the lives around of those in prison. Education in prison has a profound impact on transforming the lives of those serving sentences, their relationships with their fellow prisoners and their families, as well as supporting the opportunities they can harness on their release. I had the privilege of visiting literacy and maths classes across prisons in the South East. The men and women in the classes were glad to be able to develop their skills and grow in confidence in their lives.
As an Open University graduate myself, I have also benefited greatly from distance learning opportunities which the OU provide and which many women and men in prisons have also studied and transformed their lives with… The OU had produced a short film about the work the OU has been doing in British prisons over the last half a century - watch the film here…
There are lots of ways you can get involved in prison work at your church or supporting ‘through the gate’ provision for prisoners on their release. Here are a couple of organisations you might be interested in:
Revd Sara Iles, FCG education assistant
Thank you God, that your church is rising up to obey your call to support men and women in prison. May we continue to proclaim the good news that your love and grace has no limits, and that no one is beyond hope! Amen
Photo by Chris Sowder on Unsplash
Very soon I will be opening that box marked Nativity and placing once again the figures of Mary and Joseph, assorted Shepherds in the customary place on the sideboard. The Three Wise Men will journey around the sitting room dependant on the whim of the grandchildren until it is time for them to take their place.
As you all journey once more to Bethlehem through the season of Advent may you find those moments of peace and reflection that remind you of the nearness of the Christ Child, the acceptance of Mary and Joseph, the joy of the Shepherds and the perseverance of the Wise Men.
Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash
This communication marks a watershed for me as it will be my last as Secretary for Free Church Chaplaincy. I am to retire at the end of the year. The decision was easily made after a period of ill health (from which I am fully recovered). The time away from the office gave me some thinking space and a re-evaluation of what I want to do. I will be continuing my work on Modern Slavery, Polio Eradication and with Mercy Ships through Rotary International – opportunities that I look forward to!
Chaplaincy has changed over the last 14 years or so. When I joined the Free Churches Group the list of Chaplains was held in a ‘cardex system’, now it’s all electronic. Free Church Chaplains were often part time, but now there have been leaders of UKBHC and CHCC that have been from Free Church Denominations.
The NHS has also changed – but in many ways stayed the same! There is still not enough money, at times not enough beds (in the right place) and shortages of staff at all levels. The needs of patients have changed – with those in hospital presenting with complex needs, while the majority living with chronic conditions receive all their care in a community setting.
These changes (and similarities) have challenged the way chaplains work. The move from a Christian dominated service to one that can meet the needs of the hospital and local population is to be applauded – while there is some way to go, we are as a profession much clearer on the difference between Pastoral, Spiritual and Religious care, with the recognition that all – patients and staff, have pastoral and spiritual care needs, and some will express that need or want that care from a religious perspective.
The development of the Multi Faith Group into the Network for Pastoral, Spiritual and Religious Care in Health, with the inclusion of the None Religious Pastoral Care Network is a major milestone. Sit this alongside the UKBHC Voluntary Register for Health Care Chaplains and you can begin to appreciate how as a profession we are able to be more representative of our hospital and health care communities and well as setting the same bench marks as other healthcare professionals.
The Directors of the Free Churches Group meet later this month and it is hope that there will be an advert for my replacement in the New Year. In the meantime Meg Burton (meg.burton@freechurches.org.uk) will continue to be the contact as she will remain in post (on part time hours) until the end of March 2020.
And now a time to say, ‘thank you’.
Thank you all for what you do on a day to day basis in bringing support to patients and staff.
Thank you for all who have engaged with me over the years – be that in regional meetings, through the committees (MFGHC/ Network/ Forum/UKBHC/AHPCC etc) or the College of Health Care Chaplaincy.
Thank you to those who have served on the Free Churches Healthcare Chaplaincy Steering Committee, and for your support and encouragement.
May you continue to be blessed in the work that you do, secure in the knowledge that you are held in the love of God.
With every blessing,
Debbie Hodge
November 19th, 2019
