Mission Spotlight

Did you know each week a team from our church visits one of four care homes in our area and brings ‘church’ to their residents?

Meryl Gwilliam co-ordinates the ministry and currently the team includes Chris Tye, Ben Fox, Veronica Fincher, Brenda Morris-Casey, Liz Baker and Heather Stewart. Four or more of them will hold a mini service at either Norton Hall, Latimer Court, Perry Manor or Red Hill care homes and provide a simple, traditional short service comprising sung worship, bible reading and brief talk and prayers which benefits both residents and staff.

They stick with the more familiar bible passages and hymns and songs since many of the residents although they may not have active faith, come from a generation where church attendance was more normal and religious education was mainly Christian and so they can ‘join in’ as they feel able. Sometimes this is just a slight movement of the lips in song but a great encouragement to the team who rejoice in even small responses from their ministry. There is a little time after the service for connecting and conversation; the team might pray with some if they can, but just to hold their hand and let them know they are loved is a rich blessing and much appreciated.

Pray for this wonderful ministry to continue to flourish, that relationships will build week on week with the residents but also with the Activity Co-ordinators and other staff. Sometimes numbers are low which is not an issue in itself, but at times this is because there isn’t enough staff on duty to bring residents down from their rooms for the service. Pray for the Lord’s provision here.

Rejoice in such a fabulous faithful team who themselves are building their ministry and mission muscles and providing valuable mutual support to one another.

Within the Prison Fellowship network, each prison has a prayer group who meet once a month. Our Meryl Gwilliam serves in the Long Lartin group who meet at the House of the Open Door (an ecumenical retreat centre in the Cotswolds). The chaplain of the prison comes to this prayer meeting and conveys the needs of the prison in general and specific prayer requests from the prisoners and the group spend time praying together as well as praying in between times in their own spaces. Meryl says anyone can come and pray.

It is this prayer team who organise the Angel Tree project to arrange gifts to the children of prisoners and into which SPBC has contributed for the past two years.

It was a great joy for Meryl to sit amongst those prisoners she had been praying for, when she together with all the others members of the prayer team, were able attend the carol service at the prison last month for the first time in five or six years (security clearances and then Covid had prevented this previously).

As well as praying, prison fellowship volunteers can write to prisoners (Letter Link). This activity is co-ordinated nationally and so people are not always writing to people in their local prison. Prisoners get moved around a lot and letters and connections are not always maintained. A point for prayer please is for Letter Link to receive sufficient administrative support to ensure letters reach the intended recipient even when they are moved around.

Prison Fellowship also provide a prayer line for prisoners who can call a free phone number and make a prayer request which is collated and sent out to the prayer groups. Meryl says they receive a half dozen requests each month, some sounding quite desperate, wanting prayer for themselves or more often for their family members. The prison chaplain will provide support on the ground here too and in the main there are good facilities and opportunities in prison for the inmates. There are two beautiful chapels at Long Lartin (RC and Anglican) as well as a neutral/pagan space for quiet reflection.

 In theory there is also the opportunity for prison visiting although in practice, because Long Lartin is a high security prison, it is very difficult to get clearance plus there has been a slow re-entry to prisons following lock-down. Most of the Long Lartin prayer group members are quite elderly and not really able to make visits, even if they have clearance.

Prison Fellowship and especially the Long Lartin prayer group are in need of new members. Is the Lord calling you to this work? Please grab a chat with Meryl if you get a prompting to explore this.