Correspondence

JUNCTION 42

Stories of Hope Programme

Aim

To provide 20,000 kinaesthetic in-cell 'Stories of Hope' packs every 3 months and the production of 'Stories of Hope' video services, which can be streamed in prisons, to accompany these packs.

Context

As a Christian charity with a mission statement to see the lives of offenders and their communities visibly transformed by the power of the gospel, we knew that our work during the time of coronavirus would be more crucial than ever, given the vulnerability of many of these individuals. We quickly pivoted all of our provisions to 1:1, socially distanced, in-cell, online, or at-home provisions. One of the new opportunities, outside of our local prison remit, was to spread the hope of the gospel in every prison in England, Wales, Scotland and Guernsey through the provision of our in-cell faith packs. We currently work in 7 prisons in the north east of England and Scotland and, to respond to the current crisis, we began creating in-cell faith resources for men and women in prison who engage with our chapel and Alpha groups. When we saw how good these resources were and the impact they were having on both residents and local chaplains, we decided to present the prototype to Prison Chaplaincy HQ to look at offering a national approach. Prison Chaplaincy HQ were extremely encouraged and excited by the idea and said that they would take as many packs as we could provide.

Many of our clients are kinaesthetic learners and learn through doing, hence the physical and interactive nature of our packs to engage with faith.

Lockdown completely changed our way of doing ministry for the better. It forced us to move from our old methodology of only in-person ministry towards a more holistic and further reaching three-pronged approach of: Media, Pack, Personal.

'Stories of Hope' kinaesthetic in-cell worship packs

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The core contents of all packs:

Worship CD - Each pack contains a worship CD which has exuberant, raw and passionate worship, reflecting the culture of worship we see in our faith groups in the communities. In Pack 1 we used our own Junction 42 CD album which included songs sung (and some written) by the men and women we work with in the community, many of whom became Christians in prison.

UCB Word For Today - a 90-day daily Bible verse and devotional. This encourages and teaches men and women to read, grapple with and understand the bible; in Pack 2 we also included a 'Good News for Everyone' (formerly known as the GideonsUK) bible.

Prayer Journal - a 90-day prayer journal which provides a structure on how to pray and how to journal prayers Scripture - printed scripture not only encourages men and women to memorise scripture (many of whom in prison have an incredible gift in this) but enables men and women to fill and decorate their cells with scripture, impacting the environment that they're locked in for 23.5 hours a day. Pack 1 featured a printed postcard of Psalm 91, Pack 2 provided a Psalm, a New Testament bible and 'The Father's Love Letter', and Pack 3 included a printed postcard bible verse, which was then placed inside a hand-made paper frame - the fruit of their creative activity.

Testimony - written stories of how God powerfully transformed the lives of individuals involved in the criminal justice system. The power of testimony to inspire hope and encouraging others into faith is an incredible tool.

A creative activity - given the kinaesthetic nature of men and women in prisons, each of our creative activities is a tactile way of engaging with a biblical theme or scripture whilst exercising creativity and learning new skills. In Pack 1 we included an intricate colouring activity of illustrated 'tattoo like' prints with bible verses intertwined throughout. Pack 2 included a make your own cross-in-my-pocket cross stitch activity and Pack 3 featured a paper rolling prayer frame activity which encouraged the men and women to write a prayer for themselves, their families, their prison or the wider world on each slip of paper that was rolled up.

'Stories of Hope' kinaesthetic in-cell video services

Each Story of Hope service explores the theme of that particular pack, e.g. prayer, and each element of the service ties in with the other components of the pack, e.g. the worship in the service will also be from the artist on the CD and often they are interviewed to share their testimony and why they wrote the songs on the CD.

These video services will be provided to chaplains on CDs and they will be responsible for sharing it with inmates based upon the technical capabilities they have within the prison, e.g. some chaplains may stream it via the prison local tv channel, others may hand out DVDs to those that have capabilities to play it.