SPEAKER_03: 0:03

You're listening to Reflections on Ordained Ministry, drawing on the wisdom of clergy from across the country. We explore together the changing landscape of ministry and the huge variety of contexts for it. Well, welcome. Today's episode we're looking at Chaplain C. Thanks for being with us today. It's uh great to have you here. Thanks for making the journey. Uh why don't you just begin by introducing yourselves?

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

I'm Helen Dunley, His Majesty. That's completely rubbing. I'm Helen Dunley, the Anglican faith and belief advisor for His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, and the Bishop of Peterborough's advisor on Chaplaincy.

SPEAKER_01: 0:49

Hello, I'm Petrus Nyatzanza. I'm the lead chaplain with Northwest Anglia NHS Trust.

SPEAKER_02: 0:58

Hi, my name is Christian Hewitt, and I am the chaplain with the Homeless Community here in Cambridge. And uh yeah, I work for Cambridge Church's Homeless Project.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07

All right, brilliant, thank you. I wonder if we could just begin today. Uh particularly because chaplaincy is such a diverse uh ministry and can can be so many different things, by just each of you sharing a little bit of what takes your time and attention. And what do you do specifically?

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

As uh lead chaplain, I'm responsible for the team uh of chaplains that are working within the trust. Uh, and we have a number of uh full-time substantive posts and also bank chaplains who um help support, and we work as well with um ward visitors who are volunteers um who helps us um sort of go on the wards, identify the the patients or people that we need, or we send them to do some of um the visits, and that's basically okay.

SPEAKER_02: 2:00

Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so um I'm uh chaplain with home screening, which basically means spending time with people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness or perhaps recovering from homelessness. Homeless is a very complex issue, and it's not just people sleeping rough on the streets. These are people in hostels, uh, people who've just been housed, people who are at risk of uh of uh losing their housing. So I spend time with people and I see that as uh you know as my chaplaincy role. I think I also said, as I introduced myself, I'm I work for Cambridge Church's Homes Project. So a bit like we've just heard from Petros. Um I also do some sort of managerial leadership type thing, and I help to run and lead uh our little charity, Cambridge Church's Homes Project, which is all about helping um, well, as I see it, uh, we want to enable and allow volunteers, people who want to be involved, to get to know people in the homeless community. Uh, hopefully that gives a flavour.

SPEAKER_03: 2:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:56

That works.

SPEAKER_00: 2:58

So my job is a national one. I am responsible for the Anglican Church. So that's the Church of England and the Church in Wales, in prisons across England and Wales. There are 123 of them from Northumberland down to Devon. I look after the multi-faith chaplaincy teams in 10 prisons in the Midlands, but have that pastoral care and oversight of the chaplains, the Anglican chaplains across the country. And that is a real joy. For me, though, the heart of the ministry of a prison chaplain is what I do sometimes nowadays. As Petros was saying, that ward visiting for him is statutory duties for me, the legal responsibilities of a chaplain, visiting those who are new to prison within 24 hours, visiting those about to be released from prison, visiting those in health care and segregation, enabling that listening ear, and in effect shining a light where people are having potentially some of the trickiest days of their lives. And for me, the heart of everything that I do is remembering that everybody I minister to and alongside, and everyone my chaplains serve is somebody's son or somebody's daughter, somebody's mother, somebody's friend. And whatever brings you to prison or to probation, however young or old you are, there is always an opportunity for a different way forward.

SPEAKER_03: 4:34

Yeah, Christian, what about you?

SPEAKER_02: 4:35

What brought you to I sort of stumbled into this role. There's there's certainly a uh a thread as to as to why I'm here. I've always um liked um and um been touched by and inspired by um being alongside um people who are um you might say in in situations of uh deprivation or disadvantage. I find um I've always found that very rewarding. Um but but then also when I left my acucy not too long ago, I didn't quite know what I was going to do next. And and and this was a role that seemed right. So I love what I do and it and it works with the the whole person that I am.

SPEAKER_03: 5:17

That's that's helpful that I do that actually vocations about the whole the whole of who we are, you know, and actually that's that's broader than just just say that the the parish or where we are, but actually that that sense of the whole of our of our flourishing for the flourishing of others and and bringing our whole selves before God. Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

Yeah. For for me, chaplains was always something that was in in the background of when you're in parish ministry, you you visited or you you supported the the local hospitals. Um but um after almost 20 years in parish ministry, uh taking a kind of a break or uh uh sabbatical, as it were. Um coming back, I was looking for uh for something else, um, I think that was different. Um I think I was determined or I was sort of encouraged uh not to be looking back into parish uh ministry. Uh and so it was a question of basically really the doors that that were opened. Uh I think we we prayed about that and we looked at with with by myself and with the family. Um and yeah, it was the calling, I think, that the Lord was leading into that. As I said, I explored um um army uh chaplaincy as well as uh navy chaplaincy um and then healthcare chaplaincy at the same time. And uh the leading or or or as it were for for from God was uh eventually the door that opened for me was um healthcare chaplain. So um I settled into the hospital.

SPEAKER_03: 6:55

What what would you guys say is the the the distinctive, kind of the the heart of what chaplaincy is all about? You know, I you know is there kind of a core to what what is a chaplaincy ministry in all sorts of different contexts, whether it's prison or hospital or or homelessness or school chaplaincy, or you know, is there something that you could you can kind of say, oh this this is the core, this is the heart of what a chaplaincy ministry is?

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

They they I don't know uh about the others, but they say the core of chaplaincy is going alongside uh and the people wherever they are. I think that's the basic we we we we are by your side, we go alongside you. We we are led by uh either the patient or the the person that we're supporting or we're working along with. And then from there we can provide the support uh uh and the help that that is needed. Uh so it's going alongside and helping along, holding the hand uh with uh for for me in healthcare chaplains, holding the hand of the patient uh and the families along at the times that they they are most um vulnerable uh and in need. Uh and also what has what has sort of come out of the whole COVID pandemic was the holding along the hand of the healthcare workers. Uh it was mainly chaplains was for the patients and the relatives, but what we have come up with now was that the the staff uh needed somebody to to work alongside, to hold their hand and to be by by with them where no one else could come in.

SPEAKER_00: 8:37

For me, the that you reflect on holding the hand, and very much our tagline is is holding the hope. And our job is to hold the hope for those for whom life feels hopeless. We too serve prisoners and staff, and our roles are absolutely intertwined in serving both communities, and it is being there and being alongside. I remember sitting next to a prisoner, we'll call him John, and I was sat with him in his cell, which I had permission to do, and he asked me to pray with him. He was missing his family, he was missing his church community, and he was serving a really short sentence and was feeling really vulnerable. And it was about 6:30 at night, and as I sat and prayed with him with my eyes open, as we have to do, I looked to the cell door and I realized that there's no keyhole on the inside of a cell door, only on the outside. And in that moment, I'd served in prison for six, seven years, but that was the moment I understood what the reality of prison was. I would leave his cell in a few minutes, and because of the rules of lock-up and bang up, he would then be on his own for the next 12, 14 hours. And my interaction with him mattered to give him peace, and my ability to leave that place, saying, I will pray for your family, I will walk alongside you, was what he needed to see beyond the situation he was in into what he could become again. And the more I think about my role as chaplain, the more I see it as diaconal. I'm hugely proud to be a priest and to serve as a priest in God's church. But the more I minister, the more I reflect on the ordinal of a deacon, the shepherding of the sheep, the getting alongside, the holding the hand, the shining the light, the simply being. And for me, the real privilege is that I am welcomed into lives and situations that I never thought I would be. Whereas in in parishes with 10, 20, 30,000 people, I guess vicars often have to wait for people to come to them in their hour of need. We are present in the building every day, 365 days a year available. And for even those who have no idea of church, no idea of why I wear a shirt with a funny white bit of plastic, they ask, what brings you here, miss? And I can say, because I believe in you, and that opens endless conversations and possibilities.

SPEAKER_01: 11:48

It's that ministry of the present as well, isn't it which is quite important that you're present uh at the time and when when the need is arises, because we we often I um yeah, I think the same as in prison, we we work on on a referral basis. Um we we don't do code calling uh as uh to the patient. So when you're referred, uh then you often find that if you're in a ward or in a place uh there are the people uh who just raise their hand or smile at you and then you would you would attend to to them. So that presence uh when you come in the ward um just makes everybody uh in there, the staff as well as as the patients uh or relatives who were who were uh in hospital at the time sort of turn and and seek um help and support.

SPEAKER_03: 12:45

There's that beautiful line uh uh Diakon reaching into the forgotten corners of the world that the love of God might be made visible. And there's something about what you're saying there, yeah, probably true in hospital as well, but also definitely in prisons, you know, the of doing that. And you mentioned that that that was what prisons used to be called, or or or something that they were the forgotten places, and that idea of reaching into those places, the forgotten places.

SPEAKER_02: 13:10

I was in I was in a um homeless uh sort of day center. Uh this happened a few weeks ago. Um, and and I it was a it was a women's only group. I needed to talk to someone so I couldn't go into into the space properly, sort of letting at the door and waved over to um try and sort of beckon the person who who wanted to talk to me and and I was coming in to see. And then there's another lady who recognized me for a different context and just said, It's good, you're getting out there, you've got to go to the people. And um she's absolutely right, you know, and that sense of the church reaching out. And I think that that uh well, to be honest, I think that all good ministry involves that. Um, but chaplaincy is perhaps a crystallization um and an example of that where you're literally based beyond uh not just in in the church.

SPEAKER_03: 13:58

Um quite literally beyond the walls of the church.

SPEAKER_02: 14:02

Yeah, and yeah, and that yeah, and that's metaphorically true as well. Yeah, and that was something that really drew me to the role I'm doing. I've I've always really liked the missional aspect of ministry and that reaching out and that going beyond um and welcoming welcoming new people in, but also being seeing how God's at work already in the community beyond the church. I feel as I see that a lot, uh, and that's very special. Um, and I think as a as a as a chaplain, well at least in my case, as a chaplain with people uh who are experiencing homelessness, I I can get to do that, be beyond the walls of the church, be at the sword of the frontier. Um, it sometimes means it can be a bit lonely. I think we talked about this as we were preparing for this podcast. You're not sort of rooted in a church with a church community with a with a group of other people who are already you know committed to the cause, as it were, and and signed up believers. Um, so you have to get that balance right about where you where are you going to be fed and um uh you know which table are you gonna gather around if you're gonna think about Eucharistically? Um but it's very exciting to get to go and be um being going to find uh find where God's at work on the edges um of society um and beyond where the established church is.

SPEAKER_03: 15:19

And that is that diaconal role again, isn't it? Coming through, you know, that actually that's you know, there's the the that's almost beyond beyond the church, kind of looking in, uh, you know, based based out there. You know, brilliant, yeah. Thank you. Um I wonder what what say some of the the challenges that you're facing at the moment, I mean, either for for chaplaincy more generally, um, or specifically in in your context uh at the moment uh for me coming from a hospital perspective, one of the challenges was uh or the challenges that that sort of been sort of dealing with or trying to sort of theologize about is is the whole question of uh healing and wholeness.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

Um how do you talk about healing uh when the doctors have said this is end of life? And um yeah, where where does the the church or yeah the the when when you look in in the in the prayer books and everything else you you're praying for healing and wholeness uh how do you define healing uh in that sense or how do you bring healing as a chaplain? Because we we we we go with prayers for healing, isn't it? And then when we pray for healing, what is healing uh in that sense? And so it's one of the things that I've been sort of looking at and thinking about even with with some of the the doctors or the medical people, because we we deal with the spiritual and the pastoral and religious needs of of the patients. When it comes to medical, we refer to the to the clinical staff. We we can't we can't yeah, we patients often do that sometimes say, look, my medication is like this, or or I'm I'm I'm in pain, can I get something? Uh and we we we as as healthcare chaplains, when it comes to to the medical, we stop there and we either refer to the to the with their permission to to the clinicians or not. So the whole question of of healing is is uh uh is a is a challenge that you want to sort of put your your diagonal role, your ministry role, and and and uh and the view of the church as well as that. Um questions which have been raised was yeah, do you still have miracles and miraculous healing? Um an example which I had uh sometime uh last year was uh a patient, the doctors have said this is end of life, and uh you came into the room and you look at the person, and you you also even make a determination saying, Yeah, this this is yeah, this is it. Um so you say the so-called um prayers for end of life, and I think I was um and and you left. Uh and I came back in the following week, and and the person is seated up. Wow. And they hope, yeah. When you went into the room, it was all the tubes and all the machines and the beeping and everything else. And and and in my mind, I said, yeah, also, uh, yeah, this is end of library. So when we say that and we left and come back the following week, she was sitting in a chair sitting out throughout the week. Throughout the week it came on and and and or she was being discharged, she was going home.

SPEAKER_00: 18:57

I think for me in prison, a huge amount of what we do is about helping people live life in its fullness, yeah, even though their life is constricted to a building in which there are bars and walls and rules and regime, yeah, and helping people explore what it means to be themselves in that environment. Yeah. And when a prisoner moves on to another prison or is released to probation in the community in years ahead, we rarely hear back what happens. That is the nature of the ministry. We sort of sow seeds, I hope, of hope. And then others see that come to fruition. But last week I had an email when I started in prison ministry. I was a uh a managing chaplain in in a local prison. And average stay was about six weeks. People would be sent by the courts to us, and then we'd send them off to other prisons to serve their sentence. But for one reason or another, this young man was with us for quite a while, and I got to know him. He misbehaved a little bit, so he was in segregation quite a bit, and I would visit him each day there. And over time, he asked to be baptized, and I prepared him uh for baptism and at his request for confirmation, and the bishop came in and took that service. And the email I had was from the prison chaplain of where he is serving now, just dropping me a line saying he asked her if she knew me, and she did, and she dropped me the email and it said, just to let you know, the chap you baptized 16 years ago is preparing for release, and he wanted to say he's trying hard. It's so rare we get those nuggets of feedback, those things that have gone really well. And he served 16 years, and there is some spark of faith in him that has sustained him in such a way that he wanted me and my colleagues to know that he was doing okay, and and those moments of walking alongside, holding the hand, holding the hope are those moments that when I'm feeling on my own, away from the church, not in the sense of away from the church because I'm rooted in my parish church, and that's a huge gift, but just daily on my own, away from colleagues, as as Christian was saying, then you have those moments and you remember why you do this, and that joy is is fresh and lived.

SPEAKER_02: 21:47

I often find as well, it's it's sort of in moments when you're uh uh might feel a bit uh disillusioned or uh um unsure. That's when it comes along, and you am I allowed to swear on this? You go bugger god. You I get you know, you sort of what you're doing there, yeah. Because you know, you that's 16 years later, isn't it? And that's that's that's a beautiful story, Helen. And you know, the fact that he's reached out 16 years later to share that is uh is wonderful, and um, you know, that's the the way God works, much much much much beyond our our immediate perception, isn't it? And it's uh it's fantastic. I love I love God's timing. It's you know, it's the little things.

SPEAKER_03: 22:28

It's the long term as a is I wonder, Christian, is there is there a parallel in in your ministry, you know, sense that actually in in for for Petros the sense of what does healing mean in the context of perhaps someone who's palliative care? What does hope mean for someone who's behind bars? You know, is there also something similar in your kind of context that it's not necessarily about getting someone you know off the street to a particular place?

SPEAKER_02: 22:51

But you know, yeah, that that's a big, big thing. So I think as I mentioned at the start of the podcast, homelessness is about much more than uh uh not having a home. It's homelessness isn't the same thing as houselessness, and very rarely, in fact, never so far, have I been able to immediately have someone. And so, and actually going go and entering my interactions with people without that power dynamic, without me having it within my power to get someone home is really important. It means you can have a much more real conversation. Um, you can listen as a as an equal um rather than as someone who might have something to give, and particularly when there are issues of addiction associated with homelessness, which isn't always the case, but but does happen. Not having anything to give is really helpful and knowing that you can't give anything. Um that's what yeah, we're getting at here about rescuing people. Um, and I can't rescue people, and that's one of the big things I try to uh share with with volunteers in churches um and in the wider public who want to volunteer and um get alongside people who are homeless, it's not about rescuing the person because um you well, you won't be able to do that, you've got to listen to the person, um, and their their homelessness in 95% or more of the uh of the uh cases um will is about relationships and identity and not just uh resources. So homelessness is very different to houselessness, and uh you know there there is only one saviour, isn't there? And that that's God, and that's um it's quite humbling as well. I've I found that really um helpful in in my role so far. Any sense that I had that I had before that I was a saviour and could fix people, I've just completely had to um sort of abandon because I can't uh put someone in a house and I can't go back and resolve the chaos and the trauma of someone's youth or uh make them make good decisions when they will continually make bad decisions. It's a bit, you know, uh Petros and um Helen have already talked about um being alongside people that that's the gift that that I can offer. And it requires some humility, and I think in a really helpful and grounding way, you know. I think for all ministry, knowing that we're not the saviour is really important. It's really important because it stops us getting too big in ego. Um, and it helps us to realise I think this is really uh something that's close to my heart as well. You know, we will learn from the people we minister to and we will be transformed. Um, not in a sort of naive, oh, go in teach me something way, but I suppose, yeah, the way I think about homelessness is it can um lay bare what it means to be human, which is to be vulnerable and uh and and fragile and and um and in need, and that's actually common to all of us. So when I preach about homeless, and I often talk about that, how we can learn from the people who we're thinking we want to go and help them.

SPEAKER_03: 25:49

So there's a lot a lot of rambling thoughts there of some of the things what's really interesting, what all of you are uh sharing is there's something about a different power dynamic in chaplain where you're kind of you're like you know, you can't get people released from prison. You know, you you can't make people kind of well, but as as a medic can, you know, you don't have the the skills of the physician, you can't instantly home someone, and so there's something actually in the role of a chaplain that is alongside that doesn't have the power, uh, that that brings something really distinctive and and beautiful, and maybe there's something there of a part of what the heart of chaplain sees.

SPEAKER_01: 26:21

There is yeah, there is also something that I'd say which the the clinicians or the medical people cannot do, which the sort of the spiritual uh people, the the chaplains do, because there's often times when when they say, Well, yeah, we've done everything else that we can. Uh, can you call the chaplain?

SPEAKER_03: 26:42

There's nothing we can do, and therefore, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and come back to that sense of.

SPEAKER_01: 26:47

And you come back, or yeah, chaplain has been and come back and and somehow, somewhere, you know, the person is is in a I would say different place or better place than than uh before um or when the when when the the clinicians or the doctor said um call the chaplain. So there's something that is as you said, I certainly cannot do. I I get there, and oh, this is what the the doctors are saying, I can't do that. But by my coming or my my colleagues as chaplains coming, uh people come and they'll say, Well, they they want a Roman Catholic priest, or they want a Jewish chaplain, or they they they want something else different. And after they've been, um definitely their their position or their situation um is sort of changed. Um so there is that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 27:46

I I want us to just um bring things to a close probably by asking a final question, which is around uh how chaplaincy is changing, you know, and particularly perhaps as our our culture becomes increasingly should we say secular, you know, we're not in Christendom anymore, like what impact that is having on the kind of the world of Anglican chaplaincy?

SPEAKER_00: 28:15

I think the more I think about that question, the more I think that I am very much sent out from the parish to minister in prison, and it is the parish that sustains me. And increasingly, the ministry that we offer in prison, we need to make the prison walls as porous as we can to enable churches and chaplains to work closely together because almost everyone in prison will be released back into the community, and if churches don't continue the work that we do, then people find themselves lost, and the hope that was sown within them is easily extinguished. And I think a huge part of what we do now working with organizations like the Welcome Directory is equipping churches to be places of welcome for those who leave our prisons. So I think for me that's how chaplaincy's sort of changing, it's recognizing that the mutuality of the ministries, the working alongside, the working with. But there was another part of the question that I've No, that's great.

SPEAKER_02: 29:42

I think um I find great hope in what I do as chaplain um with the homes community in Cambridge. Um, and what I love about it is its locality. Um and I, whenever I've seen churches, not just churches grow, because it's not just about church growth, but wherever I've seen the spirit. spirit at work and really healthy flourishing church cultures where which are transforming the lives where God is transforming the lives of people in those community. It's just there's always been something very local about it. And I really love how in my role um never mind what's happening in and on the national or international stage about secularization and about uh technological shifts and um the loss of faith across the globe and things like that. Getting to know real local people um and doing uh things uh creative collaborative uh community based things in a local place I think just often really works um and is really can be really touching and inspiring and I find those things very hopeful. I'm still attached to a to a uh to a church as an associate priest um and that's very much a community church and I try to in what I try to do I try to keep it as sort of local and personal and real um as as I can and I think that is a real antidote to secularisation. You know God came to earth as a person uh and it was about that personal connection uh which you know we see we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and I think I think people being together um is is is really um missional and and uh yeah so so yeah I I love the the the the local um sort of thrust of of what I of what I get to do as a chaplain.

SPEAKER_01: 31:34

Healthcare chaplains for me is changing I think in um and in the way I see it that for instance um it it has become a healthcare chaplain is become the sort of responsibility of the NHS uh is in the past I think until some years ago it would have been it was mainly the Church of England who was looking after um but now it's become fully responsibility of the the NHS and then so what is that enabling us to do is that it's enabling chaplaincy to be looked at um from the perspective that everybody is spiritual. So we have to start looking at the spirituality and then from there on provide something that that covers that looks after the spirituality of the whole of the person and the whole of the NHS workforce. And then from there on then you you look at how you can either denominationalize it or looking at the particular individual's preferences. So it's it's it's changing that it's it's um once it's become the sole responsibility of of the NHS like for myself I'm employed by the NHS not not by the church.

SPEAKER_03: 32:53

But it's so interesting all of you in quite different ways have spoken about changing relationship between the church locale and and chaplaincy wherever you you are and and that that seems to be like a really interesting thread. And brings us back I said to that that diaconal role like you stand you know chaplaincy roles kind of stand at that threshold and that like you know in in the context of this changing relationship between the the local parish church and where wherever you're ministering that's beyond the the church's walls but still obviously has some connection to it.

SPEAKER_01: 33:27

There is still some links though because like our volunteers and all our other workers they've been sourced through the local churches or our contacts with the local churches or the local uh faith uh or belief groups um so that contact is is which is sort of um a collaboration which is being built um uh through through the chaplaincies I think wherever they are it's you you tend to sort of want to work towards a community uh chaplaincy of some sort um with with uh the the chaplaincy that's based within the hospital.

SPEAKER_02: 34:04

Because lay chaplaincy of course allows people to live out their faith doesn't it so when when you Petros have have uh people from the local church come in to visit people in the hospital sure yeah it's that's uh that's how they existence you know it's not it's not just it's not just we three who are sitting here who are chaplains it's wonderful that you get prison visitors it's wonderful that we have people who involunteer um at um in day centres or hostels wherever it is as you know that it allows it allows the the body of Christ uh the people of the church to um to engage with their faith and live out their faith by serving and being alongside people in the world.

SPEAKER_00: 34:39

And it's that hope and light you know each of us is in a an institution which may be perceived be it hospital be it prison be it working with different charity elements in in hopeless homelessness of you know they are they are institutions that are perhaps sometimes sort of secular first but we are welcomed in as people of faith to hold a hope to hold a hand to hold a light and people connect with us and lives are transformed and Christ is shared bodies are broken and yet healed in hope and I think that that welcome that we receive as chaplains is sometimes earned by reputation is sometimes earned by simply being there day after day after day when the going is tough and you're still there and you're still walking alongside and you're still listening that we begin to look beyond ourselves and we ensure our lives continue to be fixed on Christ.

SPEAKER_03: 35:47

I think that's a great place to end so thank you so much for coming and sharing something about chaplaincy uh in our episode today thank you thank you pleasure you've been listening to Reflections on ordained ministry a collaboration between Ridley Hall and Ely Damasis hosted by David Newton produced by Matt Cooper and funded by the National Church of England