Prison Support
Our church’s mission statement is “Go and make disciples of all nations” which comes from Matthew’s gospel chapter 28. Just 3 chapters earlier in Matthew, Jesus is talking about the deeds of people who will appear righteous in God’s eyes and includes the well-known words “I was in prison and you visited me”.
Living in this locality we have a wonderful opportunity to do just that – we have the Open Prison for Adult men at Hollesley Bay, and next door to it is the Warren Hill Closed Prison for Juveniles. Including inmates and staff there must be a community of well over 1000 people. The staff includes a Chaplaincy team and one of their duties and privileges is to visit each prisoner when they arrive at Hollesley.
Through the Chaplaincy team we have opportunities to help and witness to this community. However bad their crimes and however well-deserved their sentence, we can show God’s love for all mankind and perhaps thereby help men to change their lives. Here are 4 possible ways we can do this:
1. Regular prayer – for the Chaplaincy team, for prison staff, for the volunteers going into the prisons to help, for many other things.
2. Once a month a team from St John’s go in to help with the Sunday Morning worship for the juveniles.
3. Some of us are members of the local ‘Prison Fellowship’ Group – this is a multi-denominational group of Christians meeting in Ipswich once a month for prayer. We support the Chaplaincy inside the prison, helping families and ex-offenders outside of prison, and 3 times a year provide the Victim Awareness course called ‘Sycamore Tree’.
4. We need also to take a prayerful interest in the system of justice in this country. Crime is a major problem in our society, causing hardship, suffering and waste of money and lives. Locking people up is often a necessary measure but our prisons are fuller than they have ever been and our probation service and other social services are over-stretched.
Also every Christmas, thanks to the support of many churches and christians in this area, each and every Juvenile locked-up in Warren Hill receives, with our greetings, a paperback book that is an exciting read but also a Christian challenge. From previous years we know that these are very much appreciated.