Joint civil society statement on the passage of the Illegal Migration Act, July 2023

The Government’s Illegal Migration Act doesn’t represent us or the society we all want to live in.

We’ve joined hundreds of organisations with a clear message:

We will always fight for People's right to seek safety and a better life. 

The statement is available to read here. 

For more information, please visit here.

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

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Photo courtesy by Royal Foundation of St Katherine.

Jetzt ist die Zeit! (Now is the Time!)

The 38th German Protestant Kirchentag, 2023

Just over a month ago, I was setting off for Nürnberg (Nuremberg), in Bavaria to join over 100,000 other people from Germany and beyond in 5 days of exploring what it might mean when we read “Now is the time!” in the Gospel of Mark (or, in some translations “the time is fulfilled” – Mark 1.15).

I continue to reflect on the – at times, overwhelming – experiences of those days.

With over 2000 events and many more informal “happenings”, it was incredibly hard to decide where to be at any one time. The first evening presented the most straightforward set of choices, with 2 opening services – one in simple German- in large public squares in the city centre, and each of those was attended by thousands of people.

However, before the Kirchentag officially began there was, as every time, an opening act of remembrance, recognising the origins of the Kirchentag as a place of reconciliation for divided churches in a country that was only just beginning to come to terms with its past.

The past is never far away in Germany and each day as I walked to the station in Erlangen where I was staying, just outside Nürnberg, I walked past – or over – these Stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks: small memorials to people who had lived in that place.

The Abend der Begegnung (Evening of Encounters) was a chance for the churches in the region to welcome guests from near and far, with food, culinary delights and entertainment. The Bavarian bagpipe band, complete with kilts and sporrans, drew a lot of interest!

As I look through the programme again now, I’m conscious of how much I didn’t see or experience, but I’ll mention some of my highlights.

Firstly, the brilliant Bible study led by Revd Dr Susan Durber, a URC minister, and Europe President of the World Council of Churches. Exploring Luke 17.20-25, Susan helped a church full of people to think in new ways about the Kingdom of God.

By way of contrast, I joined a tour, with the theme of “Difficult Memorials”, visiting the former Nazi party rally grounds and congress hall. The Mayor of Nürnberg greeted us and talked about the problems of dealing with memorials that have such negative histories, and the dilemmas about preserving them or demolishing them. Linking with the Kirchentag theme, the question remains about when is the right time to decide.

Finally, I’d like to mention the superb concert by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra in the wonderful surroundings of the Meistersingerhalle (I do love long German words!). Musically it was wonderful, and the prolonged standing ovation was an expression of solidarity with this displaced orchestra, acting as ambassadors for a war-torn country.

As well as all these events, formal and informal, there was a huge Markt der Möglichkeiten (Marketplace of Possibilities), taking over some of the huge halls in the exhibition centre with stalls representing a huge range of organisations and companies, offering things including pilgrimages to the Holy Land, ethical banking, chaplaincy with the German police force, and opportunities to give to charities. Alongside this was the enormous Kirchentag booksho.

As the Kirchentag closed on Sunday morning, the many experiences and emotions of 5 days in Nürnberg were brought together within the theme of a sermon entitled “There is a time for everything”.

The next Kirchentag will take place in Hannover, from 30 April to 4 May, 2025. Now is the time to start thinking about whether you might like to be there!

You can watch a video that gives a good overall impression of the Kirchentag here

You can read a reflection from another British participant here

Sarah Lane Cawte is the Education Officer for the Free Churches Group and a member of the Kirchentag British Committee.

Photos by British Kirchentag committee website and Sarah Lane Cawte

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.

First Flight Feathers: The best of worship live

Our writers are drawn from a variety of Christian traditions, and include a number who will be known to us through the Free Churches. Methodist hymnwriters, Andrew Pratt, and Marjorie Dobson were core members of the Worship Live editorial team and their vigorous, down to earth texts have become well-known and loved. Salvation Army officer, John Coutts' writing is full of gentle humour and compassion, while Sara Iles from the Congregational Federation leads us to the shelter of the Tree of Wisdom. There are some challenges too, with Graham Adams' take on 'Away in a manger': 'So dare we, then, follow? Dare we?', and Ruthie Thomas, the gospel singer/songwriter, wakes on Christmas morning, 'Crying for the children, crying for the world'.

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