10 November 2024

‘We’re here!’ What Rob wants you to know about prison chaplains

Picture: supplied

Elspeth Kernebone 

19 October 2024

The Reverend Rob Ferguson is Senior Chaplain of Anglican Criminal Justice Ministry. Here, he shares about his work.  

Tell us about your role?  

I’m currently the Senior Chaplain for Anglican Criminal Justice Ministry, where I began in January 2013. Kate Schnerring (our Prison Chaplaincy Coordinator) and I lead a team of chaplains in 18 secure locations across Victoria, which include adult prisons, youth justice detention centres and the deportation centre in West Melbourne.  

At the moment we have about 15 chaplains, and we’re currently recruiting more volunteers, because our aim is to have at least two Anglican chaplains in each of the prisons.  

I’m responsible for the training and supervision of our Anglican chaplains, but I also spend two and a half days a week in prisons myself. I’m at Hopkins Correctional Centre, near Ararat, and HM Prison Langi Kal Kal, near Beaufort.   

In the prisons, we provide opportunities for people to grow in and practice their faith, so we run worship services and discipleship groups as well as providing pastoral care to anyone and everyone in the prisons. While we are Anglican chaplains, we minister to people of all faiths and none.   

How did you end up in the position you’re in?   

I prayed “God, take me somewhere I need to rely on You.” And He took me into prisons.   

After 12 years of chaplaincy in schools, I felt God was calling me into something different, and I welcomed that call. I wanted to be stretched; I didn’t realise how big the challenge was going to be.  

In prisons there’s lots of rules. It’s a very steep learning curve working in secure locations. You can’t take in your phone, you can’t take in your laptop, you can’t take in all the resources you would like. A lot of times, it’s just you and God.   

Often the people who want to talk to me and engage with me as a prison chaplain, they want to be honest with themselves. That’s pretty confronting too, and very humbling – to be in the place where people are wanting to strip off the mask that we all wear and have some of the most honest conversations they ever have. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the sidelines listening, rather than participating and offering things. It’s all between them and God really.  

How do you see your work fitting in the big picture of God’s work in the world?  

God’s all about new creation. It’s 2 Corinthians 5, it’s Revelation 21, it’s Romans 12. It’s realising that we are invited to be a part of God’s new creation, accepting what God has done for us in Jesus, and welcoming what He begins to do in us through His Holy Spirit. In prison, I often say, I did my bachelor’s degree in theology at Ridley, but I did my master’s degree at Hopkins. Because that’s where I learnt what grace and hope and new creation really are.   

In a prison context, pastoral care is meeting people where they are, often in the midst of their crises, and walking with them, hopefully to a place under God where there is healing for themselves and others. Listening is crucial. And listening with a focus on hearing what people are really going through underneath all of the protective layers we put up when we’re in crisis. And it’s coming with that person, at that place, to God in prayer and really seeking to be present with them and with God in that moment.  

Some of the common questions can be, “Is God real?”, “What can God do for me?” Some of the questions from people who already believe are around, “Can God ever forgive me?” and “How can I forgive myself?”  

Read more: Ten years bringing hope to dark places

For many people, their questions centre around how they’re able to heal the relationships that have become damaged through the last few months and years. That’s really important, because I see God primarily as calling us to four relationships: a relationship with Himself, a relationship with other people, a relationship with Creation, and a relationship with ourselves. Those sorts of questions really make sense to me. Pastoral care in any context, but particularly in prisons, is centred around those four relationships.   

For a lot of people, coming to prison, especially for the first time, can be the point where reality bites. People are confronted with the choices they’ve made, or the things that have happened to them, that have led to the reasons why they’re in prison. The question then becomes, “If these choices haven’t been working, what are the alternatives?”  

How do you see God at work through your work?   

My prayer as I go into prison each time, is “Lord, grant me the privilege of witnessing your Holy Spirit at work in people’s lives today”. And I see this nearly every day I’m in prison. I see it in people’s lives as one or more of those four relationships are changed, and healed, and renewed.   

In my 12 years in prisons, I’ve personally come closer to God through the things that I’ve seen and the things that I’ve learnt. Like many people in ministry, I get the feeling that I’ve been blessed a lot more than the people I’ve ministered to.  

Grace, it’s all grace. There’s a line in a song we sing in the chapel services, “Keep your eyes on this one truth: God is madly in love with you”. I’ve learnt that for myself, I’ve learnt that for others, and I’ve watched others learn that in the most difficult circumstances.   

What fruit do you hope to see in your context? What is your dream for this ministry?  

Sometimes we don’t get to see the fruit, sometimes we do. I want to see people living more wholly in those four relationships, I want to see people growing and blossoming in those four relationships. I’m also a relationship counsellor, my whole life is about people and their relationships. Everything I do is about those four relationships now.   

For Anglican prison chaplaincy, my dream is to increase our footprint in the prisons, to be able to reach more people. For myself, it’s to be able to be more true and more vulnerable in each of those four relationships; to live out the new creation that God is forming within me.  

What encourages you in your work?  

Our ACJM chaplaincy team encourage me – our ACJM team get together once a month online, and we care for each other, and we tell each other stories, and we listen to each other, and we support each other. I’m really privileged, because I supervise the other chaplains I get to spend 1-1 time with them regularly as well. And I am encouraged by their ministry, and their growth, and their faithfulness to God. And of course, I’m always encouraged by the men I serve as I see God working His grace in them.  

What’s one thing you’d like Christians in Melbourne to know about your work?  

We’re here! So often it feels like prison chaplains work in a place that people generally don’t want to think about. And they definitely don’t want to ever believe that they or anyone they love are going to be there. Sometimes it can feel like we’re “behind the wall” in more than one way. So I’d just like them to know we’re here, and to pray for us.  

ACJM is a partnership between the Anglican dioceses in the Province of Victoria and Anglicare Victoria.

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