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Tag: chaplaincy
You are warmly invited to join the Centre for Chaplaincy in Education for their Annual Online Commissioning Service for Chaplains in Schools and Colleges.
This event celebrates and recognises the enormous contribution made by chaplains within their school and college communities and seeks to affirm and encourage them as they begin a new academic year.
Join together with leading church dignitaries from all denominations including; the Bishop of Durham, Rev Paul Butler, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, Rev Mark Davies, the Vice President of Methodist Conference, Mrs Barbara Easton and the Free Churches Moderator, Rev Hugh Osgood – as well as headteachers, Diocesan Directors of Education, and school pupils from across the UK, to celebrate chaplaincy in education. Together we shall commit ourselves to serve God and the communities to which God has called us.
This is a family service and all are welcome.
Please reserve a seat.bit.ly/CCECom2021
Recently 175 people participated in the webinar Chaplaincy, Wellbeing and Faith, with speakers including Dr Justin Varney, Director of Public Health for Birmingham, and Carol Wilson, Head of Spiritual Care for Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust. You can watch the webinar here. Thanks to Paul Chesterman and David Butterworth of Birmingham Methodist District’s Mission in the Economy team, for sharing this. Their latest newsletter also includes a piece from WM FE Chaplaincy Ambassador Phil Metcalf. Sign up for this newsletter by emailing paul.chesterman[at]birminghammethodist.org.uk.
WMCFEC member Rob Chivers writes: ‘At SCM we are exploring what this time means through the lens of an exile narrative, and would like to invite youth workers who work with 16-19’s and 6th Form chaplains to the next of our Preparation in Exile Zoom meetings on Wednesday 18th November, 11am-12pm.
During this event we will be skill-sharing our ideas and thoughts for the upcoming year. For example, how can we support young people going to university in 2021/22, and what will it look like to welcome students back after the first term?
Email rob@movement.org.uk or PM us for the Zoom details! Details will be messaged out on the day of the event for any who marks themselves as “attending”.’
Wednesday 1 July 2020, 10.00-11.30 on Zoom.
Book now for this FREE virtual workshop for FE and 6th Form chaplains on supporting your college after lockdown.
Register here (advance booking helpful, so that we know how many to expect). This workshop has been planned by members of WMCFEC, Centre for Chaplaincy in Education, Festive and Chaplaincy Central.
We’re delighted to launch 5 short YouTube videos introducing Further Education and Chaplaincy. They’re ideal for showing to churches and groups of faith leaders interested in offering chaplaincy. Films 3 and 4 can also introduce to colleges what chaplains do.
The films have been produced by the talented people at Mazo Creative Agency, and have been made in partnership with 3 local colleges: North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College, Halesowen College and Burton and South Derbyshire College. We’re very grateful for all their help!
Watch all 5 films here:
Come along to North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College on 22 November for the launch of new standards for chaplaincy with children and young people, developed by the Institute of Children, Youth and Mission, Admission is by ticket – click on 
this eventbrite link to book.
Lana Silk is Chaplain at Hereford Sixth Form College. Here’s what she and the college have been up to this year:
This is my first year as a Chaplain. I came into it completely new to the whole world of chaplaincy but with lots of experience in Christian/Church ministry, youth work and a background in marketing which I have found an invaluable tool. I am an ecumenical Chaplain which means I’m not here just for the Christians. I’m here for people of ‘all faiths and none’. But that’s just how I like it! I want people to be able to come to me with any and all faith related issues/questions.
- The Christians. First up, I have spent time with the college Christian Union ‘dreaming’, praying, planning and asking: ‘If time/treasure/talents were no issue, what do we want to see God do in our midst?’ We have then written our reflections down so we can remember to pray for them, and actively prepared for them with lots of time given to learning about God together. Who am I in Christ? What is the role of the Holy Spirit in my life? What am I called to be? How do I effectively share my faith? etc.
I want the CU to be envisioned for their campus. I want them to be believing and praying for God to use them and to do amazing things around them. I want to equip and encourage them, then enable them to act… (see point 3 below).
- The Campus as a Whole. The biggest challenge has been communicating a clear message about my role here. I have coined a phrase which I use across everything that comes out of Chaplaincy: ‘explore and express faith – free from judgement and prejudice’. I want everyone of any faith to know they can come and talk to me about God. Is God real? How do I talk to God? How can I know that God is real? I have found my training in apologetics an invaluable tool in this area (Zacharias Trust – I highly recommend their training and resources!)
- Action. When I came in to College, the Christian Union was small and most people didn’t know that it even existed. It has been my objective this year to enable them to be a thriving part of the community here. This is because in order to share more of God, we need a voice and for that we need to be known.
In everything we have put on, we have made sure the college knew the CU was behind it. Here are the tips I have picked up:
- Don’t use ‘CU’. Lots of students don’t even know what that is! I have had to go back to using ‘Christian Union’ in full on everything
- Work together with others. We have found areas of common interest with other societies and put on joint events, pooling resources, and making more impact. With the SRC (Student Representative Committee) and the Environmental Group, we chose charities we all believed in, then adopted them for the duration of the term and did fundraising initiatives together (see below).
- Celebrate key events with the college. We want to share our joy when we celebrate highs like the birth and resurrection of Christ. We had a big Christmas Celebration where we put on dance and drama acts (again, pooling in other students from the dance/drama departments and working together with them), handed out lots of chocolates, and I shared about Jesus, the ultimate present. At the start of Lent, we put on a ‘free pancakes’ event with lots of posters saying we were celebrating the ‘free gift of life and love in Jesus with a free gift of pancakes with our fellow students’. Over 200 free pancakes were handed out as we shared the love of Jesus to the college.
- Serve the college! The CU wants to be a valuable part of campus community. For example, we ran a ‘de-stress’ event where we handed out free stress balls and talked about healthy ways to manage stress before/during exams. Of course, prayer was part of that. Or we put on a VeggieTales screening with free popcorn just for fun! Over 30 came to that. We will do more on this next year to build on what we have started. The question is, how can we ensure the college is better off because we are here?
- Enable response to tragedy. When the Muslim community in New Zealand were singled out and attacked, we put on a big memorial display and invited students to write messages of love and support on little red hearts which we then sent to the New Zealand embassy with our prayerful support. They posted them all (166 in total) on to the victims’ families. The local BBC loved this and did a whole piece on it.
Social Action
In the Spring our adopted charity, together with the Student Representation Committee, was the Red Box Project in Hereford, which tackles Period Poverty amongst young people in education. To raise the profile, I set up a term-long display and donation point right by the student common room, a large cake sale, a selfie-video of me explaining the initiative to the student body and inviting them to be part of what became a college-wide initiative (the video was 3 minutes and was played in all Education for Life lessons with overwhelmingly positive feedback – an added bonus was that it also introduced me again to the students!), posters, digital board displays, Facebook posts and emails, all reaffirming the same message: we as a college are getting behind Hereford Red Box Project and we want you to help us make a huge contribution to our community; we want to be a valuable member of our community here. The result was a massive measurable impact on our community (8 boxes across different schools and youth clubs all sponsored by us), and a piece in the local press (I wrote the article and provided a picture which we sent to the Hereford Times to use)
Our summer term charity was a shorter initiative due to exams but it was still a huge success. The Christian Union worked with the Environmental Group on this one, and we adopted the Size of Herefordshire Project which protects areas of rainforest from destruction. We had an ‘environmentally friendly’ sale and raised enough money so that, together with fund matching, we ensured 1285 acres of Amazonian rainforest were safe from destruction.
In short, I don’t think we can preach the love of Jesus without BEING the love of Jesus. My objective this year has been to serve the college where I work, enable them to contribute to their community, and giving them a voice when they want to respond to those they sympathise with. I have also wanted to give the CU a voice. How can we share what is on our heart, if people don’t even know we are there? We will make a big event of induction and fresher’s fayre this year, and next year, though we will continue to do all that we have been doing this year, we will be in a position to host more events that invite people to talk about the reality, the love and the role of God in our lives. We have some fun things planned.
Going Further: Report on WM Conference for FE Chaplains
Eighteen current and aspiring chaplains and colleagues from the region gathered in Birmingham on 15 May for a day of stimulating input, networking and sharing good practice – the largest gathering of FE chaplains in the region for some years!
The Church of England’s national FE and HE Advisor Revd Garry Neave surveyed the contemporary landscape of FE chaplaincy: colleges were facing tough challenges but being adaptable and resilient in the midst of them.
He sketched out a vision for contemporary chaplaincy as invitational and ambassadorial, with chaplains as representatives ‘of the best of those who sent you’ and interpreters of the language of faith in a college context, and of the further education sector to the churches.
Professor Trevor Cooling (Chair of the RE Council) helped us explore how spiritual development may appropriately take place within often-secular settings, outlining an approach centred on people rather than issues, character as well as skills, and on allowing respectful exploration of difference rather than seeking to deny diversity or relegate it to the private sphere.
In the afternoon chaplains got together into local clusters to network and share the highs and lows of chaplaincy. We’re hoping that these local clusters might continue and grow so that they provide a support network for FE chaplains on a more sustainable basis. If you’d like to be part of a local cluster, contact Phil Metcalf for more details.
Delegates gathered again at the end of the day to hear stories of chaplaincy and good practice. Revd Mike Mills (coordinator of the new chaplaincy team at South Staffordshire College) shared a good news story about some recent chaplaincy work; Revd Canon Hazel Charlton (part-time chaplain at Halesowen College) told the story of setting up an Animal Cafe at the college; Revd Steve Blyth (North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College) related the chaplaincy’s involvement in assembling food hampers for students in need, and the annual Christmas Day brunch.
It was a great day, generously supported by the Westhill Endowment and St Peter’s Saltley Trust. But we hope it won’t be the last. Keep an eye on this bulletin and WMCFEC’s events page for details of future training opportunities.
Want to read more about the experiences of real-life FE chaplains in Birmingham? The Churches and Industry Group Birmingham (CIGB)’s latest annual report features a review of FE Chaplaincy at Bournville and South & City College Birmingham. Scroll down to pp. 12-13 of the report to read about chaplaincy at the college’s campuses at Longbridge and Digbeth.