NEWS
Healthcare Chaplain Annual Study Day: Chaplaincy on the Edge
Exploring being on the margins through art, research and story
With input from Kate Cornwell, Tim Dixon, and Suzanne Nockels
Date: 12 June 2024, 10:00-16:00
Venue: Central URC Church, 60 Norfolk St, Sheffield S1 2JB
Price: £35
A discount code is available for the Free Church Healthcare chaplain.
Chris Swift writes about how chaplains are not simply on the margins between church systems and the medical paradigm that dominates the hospital, but between life and death, a Christendom past, and a contemporary spirituality that has rejected the rights of external authority. Yet, being perceived as on the border or edge can be a place of creativity that bring various benefits. Through story, art and research this study day will explore aspects of liminality and marginality and the joys, frustrations, opportunities and challenges that being ‘on the edge’ can bring.
Indicative Timetable for the day
10:15 Welcome and Introduction
10:30 Deep Talk 1
11:25 Break
11:40 Interpretating Art
12:45 Lunch
13:45 Reflections from Research
15:10 Break
15:25 Deep Talk 2
15:55 Depart/Cake and conversation
Deep Talk – sessions led by Kate Cornwell
Deep Talk is a creative and imaginative method that nurtures personal and community wellbeing. It uses life-coaching principles and the art of ancient storytelling to help individuals and groups consider their vision, wellbeing, and life purpose. Deep Talk has found success in various settings including workplaces, educational institutions, community groups, mediation, and professional development. These sessions, will give participants the opportunity to experience a full Deep Talk session and collectively explore what it means to work ‘at the edge’ of our various chaplaincy settings.
Interpretating Art – session led by Suzanne Nockels
Art, by its nature has no fixed meaning, is open to interpretation and can take on a new life not originally envisaged by the artist. Art is fluid so it can help us explore our own times of change. This session will involve sitting with a number of paintings and sculptures which broadly have healthcare as theme. They’ll be an opportunity to respond through open-ended questions and hear a little about the life and context of the artist. Together, we will build a fruitful conversation between the artwork, ourselves and between each other. Viewing art and talking around it can be a helpful tool in our own Chaplaincy contexts. At the end there will be the invitation to write or draw a response to something you’ve seen on a postcard (becoming an artist yourself).
Reflections from Research – session led by Tim Dixon
“It’s like you work for the prison, but you don’t!”
Tim will be leading us through a reflection on his doctoral thesis which looked at the pastoral care of remand prisoners and the role of the prison chaplain. One of the main themes explored there was the marginal or ‘liminal’ nature of chaplaincy, how we stand on the boundaries of people’s competing expectations and on the thresholds of being ‘part’ of the organisations we work for. Tim will make links to healthcare chaplaincy and how we work within ‘edge’ environments, with people trapped in limbo-like situations of disorientation sometimes for months or years at a time – what does this do to people and their identity, and what does it do to us? There will be opportunity for group discussion around these themes and what it might look like to live faithfully on the edge of things, and how this might be a benefit to our ministry, rather than a drawback.
If you are a Free Church Healthcare Chaplain, please contact Thandar at thandar.tun@freechurches.org.uk for the discount code.
Photo by PNW Production at pexels.com
Nourishing Roots - with Rev. Miranda Threlfal-Holmes, 12/03/24, 10:00-16:00
Join us for a day of reflection and spiritual renewal with the Free Churches Group, led by Rev. Miranda Threlfal-Holmes
Date: 12th March 2024, 10:00-16:00
Venue: The Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane Liverpool L1 3BT
Price: £20.00
Join us in Liverpool for a day of reflection and spiritual renewal with the Free Churches Group, led by Rev Miranda Threlfal-Holmes, held at the Liverpool Quaker Meeting House.
Nourishing Roots days are organised for Chaplains in Healthcare, Prisons, Education, and beyond to allow us time to reflect, recharge, and reinspire for our work and ministry.
Miranda is the Archdeacon of Liverpool and Team Rector of the St Luke in the City. She has experience in Higher Education chaplaincy and has published a number of books on chaplaincy, prayer, Christian history, and reading the Bible.
The day will include a buffet lunch.
Please contact Thandar (thandar.tun@freechurches.org.uk) for the discount code if are a chaplain from the FCG denominations. Visit here for the denomination list.
Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash
Prisons Week 2023 – Look Up!
Prisons Week is a week in October where people all over England and Wales join together in prayer for everyone affected by imprisonment. That includes prison staff, probation staff, prisoners, prisoners’ families. It includes victims of crime and communities affected by crime. It includes magistrates and politicians. There are so many of us who know someone who either lives in, works in or has been damaged by someone in prison that it probably means that we are being prayed for too! We encourage prayer for all of these people, but we also want to encourage all affected by imprisonment to pray too.
Since the 1970s, for one very special week Christians have put aside theological differences to both raise awareness and generate prayer. Since 2011 the FCG have been supporting actively this work and so are delighted to have been involved in developing materials for this year on the theme “Look Up”. The following resources can be obtained from the Prisons Week web site
- The Prisons Week 2023 film; “Look up Child” featuring music by Lauren Daigle)
- The Prisons Week “explainer” animation; “Why?”. This will help those new to Prisons Week or wondering why it is important to think especially about those affected by imprisonment in our prayers
- The Prisons Week prayer poster can be used to pray during the Prisons Week and consistently use the prayers on the prayer poster throughout the year.
It can be so easy to be confused, distracted, conflicted, feel alone, angry or even abandoned when we face the unique stresses of working or living in a secure environment. Psalm 19v1 encourages us to see the glory of God in the heavens. But to do this we need to look up! Looking up is a choice, and often a hard one to make. But this is at the heart of our prayers. This year our prayers have all been written by the people we are praying for and with.
In Prisons Week we would love every Christian in the country to spend some time in prayer. Will you join us at some point in a busy week to pray for others like yourself … or maybe those not like you, but who are also affected by imprisonment. Will you pray in Prisons Week that we might all look up, and together see the glory of God revealed in the most unlikely of settings! Why not start by praying the Prison Week prayer quietly as you read this now!
“Lord, you offer freedom to all people.
We pray for those in prison.
Break the bonds of fear and isolation that exist.
Support with your love prisoners and their families and friends,
prison staff and all who care.
Heal those who have been wounded by the activities
of others, especially the victims of crime.
Help us to forgive one another.
To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly together with Christ
in His strength and in His Spirit, now and every day”
Amen.
Prisons Week is supported / sponsored by
Prisons Week 2023, Look Up! (8th - 14th October)
Look up!
This year we invite you to remember that the heavens declare the glory of God, and to look up.
Please share the film with your family, friends and church, and, with the leaflet available to download below, join us each day as we pray for all those affected by crime and imprisonment.
Visit HERE for more information and to download the prayer leaflets.
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.