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Graham Jones — Man with a Mission?
Christis gives the new Methodist chaplain a
good look over …
- Christis:
- Could you tell me the story so far; your background;
where you are from; what you did before coming to York?
- Graham Jones:
- I was brought up in Manchester. When I left school I
worked in a bank for a year at Manchester airport and then I
went to Sheffield University to study Biblical Studies. Then
I worked for five years as a residential social worker, after
which I offered myself as a candidate for the Methodist
ministry. My first appointment as a minister was in Hull
where I worked for five years with churches and the prison
chaplaincy. Then I came here last summer. I used to go to the
prison once a week and I enjoyed it although Hull prison was
a pretty grim place, so it wasn’t great in that sense.
The inmates though were pretty pleased to see you and it was
very good to talk to them.
- Christis:
- Was it scary in any way to work in a prison?
- GJ:
- No I don’t think it was really; it is a slightly
intimidating place to go into. I mean it smells awful and
there are lots of clanking gates and locking of keys and
things and locking of big doors. And there are some pretty
unsavoury characters, but I don’t think I ever felt
threatened, and never under any personal threat. There were
times when I was slightly apprehensive, like when you would
go into other people’s cells. I never really felt
scared though.
- Christis:
- When you were younger did you go to church? Were you
brought up to go to church as a child?
- GJ:
- Yes I was; my mother was a Sunday school teacher and
still is and she encouraged us to go. My father didn’t
have much to do with the church. We used to go until I was a
young teenager and then I used to play football on a Sunday,
which I found far more entertaining. So for a few years I
didn’t really go, but then I went back of my own accord
because there was a very lively youth group. I went because I
wanted to go, not because my mother wanted me to go or
anything. So yes I did grow up with the church, but not in
any sort of strict way.
- Christis:
- As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
- GJ:
- I think I wanted to fly planes when I was a child, but
that was never really a serious option; it was better than a
train driver I suppose! I didn’t really have any clear
idea as to what I wanted to do as a child, or even as a young
adult really; I didn’t have a yearning ambition or have
a career mapped out for myself. I preferred to go with the
flow for a bit really.
- Christis:
- You said you went to university, to Sheffield, to do
Biblical Studies; what led you to that?
- GJ:
- When I left school I had a place at Loughborough
University to do geography, but I decided I didn’t want
that; I didn’t want to go really and so I put that on
hold. As I said, I worked in the bank at Manchester Airport,
during that year I decided I did want to go to university,
but I didn’t particularly want to study geography. I
actually became a Christian when I was eighteen, in the
summer, just after I had done my A-levels. So I thought, what
do I want to study, and the Bible was something I was
intrigued by; so instead of doing geography at Loughborough,
I went off to Sheffield.
- Christis:
- Are there any embarrassing moments from your past which
you could tell us about?
- GJ:
- No! Not any embarrassing moments that are going to be
printed in Christis! I honestly can’t
think of any; I’m sure there are, I’m sure
I’ve had many embarrassing moments, but my mind goes
blank at that question.
- Christis:
- What did it feel like when you first arrived in York, at
the university? What did you expect, and did it turn out to
be similar to what you had expected?
- GJ:
- It felt strange to begin with. I arrived in August, so I
was here in September before term started. It takes some
adapting; I mean I was in east Hull which was a very
different culture to this one. So that takes some adjusting
to. The church situation I have come into is a very different
one to the one I was in. I had three Methodist chapels in
east Hull, whereas here I have one Anglican-Methodist church;
the ecumenical dimension makes it different. There are three
clergy here; the university makes it a completely different
dimension and culture to before. I has been very useful to
have John here, so I wasn’t coming into something on my
own. I could work; certainly in September I was working with
John and getting into the university, meeting the Provosts
and the staff. I had a month to get acclimatised before the
students descended upon us. I got a feel for the place, and
like I said it is always helpful for there to be another
Chaplain to work with. He showed me the ropes a bit and
helped me find my way, and also Tony the Catholic Chaplain.
That has been one of the plusses, what the three of us, the
Chaplains, can do together in terms of the good relations
that we have. It has been fairly as I would have expected it;
I don’t think I have been particularly surprised by
anything. It is a very stimulating environment to work in. It
has its frustrations like working out how you can get
involved in the institution. The student work is fairly
obvious in terms of there being various groups; getting
involved in the university is a much more difficult thing, I
think. It is very secular and the Chaplaincy are very much on
the fringe of things.
- Christis:
- Could you describe a ‘typical’ day in the
life of the Methodist Chaplain?
- GJ:
- I have never ever been able to answer this question! As a
Methodist Minister I was never able to answer the question,
and even now when people say to me, “what do you
do”, I find it almost impossible question to answer
which is part of the attraction of being a Minister or a
Chaplain, in that there is no such thing as a typical day
really. You are often responding to things that happen. Every
day is different. We would normally start with morning prayer
at 8.40am; John and I, and occasionally one or two others;
and occasionally not John, and occasionally not I! Then we
would spend time in the office in the mornings; I mean we do
say that a Chaplain would be available most mornings. Usually
one of us is around in the morning, working in the office. We
also do preparatory work for the courses that we are leading.
Also trying to meet people in the university, and so having
lunch, trying to meet staff as well as students and various
committees that we have access to. And then of course meeting
individual students who want to see the Chaplain. I also have
responsibilities as the Methodist Minister in the community;
most of my time is spent in the university say seventy-five
per cent of it, but I have this other dimension to my job as
well. But there is no such thing as a typical day.
- Christis:
- What is your impression of the Christian community on
campus as a whole?
- GJ:
- I think I have a very favourable impression. I was very
impressed with the numbers that were recorded as being
members of the various groups. It seems a very healthy
Christian community because of its size, and the various
relationships between the groups. I attend the Christian
Leader’s meeting and that has been very good to see
this term, the good relations between the leaders of the
various Christian groups; they planned for the week of
Christian unity and there is a good feeling amongst the
leaders. I think that it’s good that there is
diversity; I wouldn’t want there to be just one
Christian group because I think we are diverse people and we
express our faith in different ways. So I think that’s
good and healthy, but that always relationships need to be
worked at between the various groups.
- Christis:
- What have been your best and worst experiences of the
place and the job so far?
- GJ:
- I think the best experience so far is the working
relationship between myself, and John, and Tony. In
particular that has expressed itself in the course we have
run, ‘New Testament, New Danger’ course, that we
have run together and so we have had to meet every week to
prepare it, over coffee and Mars bars and sausage rolls and
whatever; and that has been a good experience, to work
together. And then the actual course itself has been a quite
wonderful experience, simply to encourage people to look at
texts from the Bible and to try and look at them without
imposing their own theologies on the text, and to let the
text speak to them, and its really come out with some great
stuff, very exciting and stimulating theology really. It was
good to be a part of and was possibly the best experience.
Another good experience though, was when praying on the
picket line when the university was on strike. Instead of
having morning prayer in the university we actually prayed on
the picket line outside Heslington Hall. The SU President
joined us, and we just said some prayers and read from the
Bible and showed our solidarity with those who were striking.
That was a very good experience. The worst? I haven’t
really had any horrible experiences, so far! There are
frustrations about, as I said earlier, about finding a role
in the institution, trying to find your way in, to be
recognised as part of the university, in the structures of
the university. There are frustrations about that. But I
couldn’t say that I have had a worst experience so far;
but there will be some!
- Christis:
- How do you envisage things developing, possibly a couple
of years down the line; what would your hopes for the future
be?
- GJ:
- I really want to foster these good relations, between the
Chaplains, which can then I hope represent the good relations
between the different groups; and I would really want to
foster that and build that up. So that as a Christian
community we are known not for our divisions, but yes for our
diversity, but around campus as a group of people who are
pulling in the same direction, who have a care and a respect
and a love for one another. I would want to foster that. I
would love us to be offering more accessibility to groups
like the Friday Forum and the Graduate group; we are actually
dealing with quite small numbers which can be very good, and
it has been very good; but I would somehow want to make what
we offer more accessible to people. And I would want to work
on the issue I have raised about our role in the university.
I think that the respect for the Chaplaincy is growing in the
institution and I would obviously want to continue it.
Hopefully there will be a growing role for the Chaplaincy in
the institution of the university, which I think there is, I
just want that to continue to grow. I am encouraged by the
amount of work going on with regards the quiet place.
Establishing a quiet place on the campus, and I would hope to
see that realised in the next year or two. That represents an
increased awareness of the spiritual dimension of life.
- Christis:
- You said earlier that after you left university you
became a social worker; what sort of effect did that have on
your life?
- GJ:
- I was a social worker in Lytham St Annes near Blackpool,
and in Lim near Warrington. The job had a great effect on my
life; I was working with some very damaged children. What I
learnt about was not just about damaged and abused children,
but you learn a lot about human nature, and about how in a
sense we are all damaged to some extent and the way that we
all cope with that; and so I learnt an enormous amount about
the way people behave, not like I say just the way damaged
children behave, but the way we all behave, and the way I
behave. And so I learnt. I think my time on social work was
more helpful for my life as a minister, then ever my training
for the ministry was. While I was a social worker I
candidated for the Methodist Ministry. That had been around
for a few years really, the possibility, and I had resisted
it because I wanted to do a proper job! I thought I might
become a minister later on, I wanted to do a proper job, but
it just kept niggling away at me really, until in the end
like I say, I offered as a candidate. It is quite a process;
it takes about nine months to get through that process in the
Methodist Church, and I offered it as a test because if I
hadn’t then it would always have been niggling away.
But I offered and was accepted, and by the time I was
accepted I was convinced that this was what I should be
doing. Then I went to Wesley House at Cambridge for three
years, where I did an MPhil in theology. I did lots of
football and cricket and basically had a whale of a time!
This wasn’t brilliant preparation for East Hull!
- Christis:
- A favourite question here! What is your favourite
fish?
- GJ:
- Salmon is probably my favourite fish, but that’s a
bit dull isn’t it really. Salmon or a smoked kipper
from Whitby. In fact, I’ll have a smoked kipper from
Whitby instead of Salmon!
Andy
Langdon
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Last modified: 25th November 2005
