Our Christian chaplaincy team comes alongside residents, service-users, staff and volunteers in the YMCA community, offering a listening ear with pastoral and spiritual support wherever possible.

Chaplaincy recognises that our spiritual and emotional health matters as we navigate challenges through a lifetime. So, our chaplaincy programme is designed to provide opportunities for hope-filled conversations, encountering God’s love with opportunities for Bible exploration, as well as responding to all requests for prayer. This is how the YMCA started back in 1844, and we are still about the business of nurturing spiritual health today.

Our previous Chair of Trustees (Mike Horne) rephrased Luke 4:18–19, beautifully encapsulating our work of chaplaincy, and the transformative hope Jesus offers us all:

‘Tell the desperate people that there is good news
Bind up the brokenhearted and fragmented and crushed
Proclaim freedom to the addicted
And help those who cannot see hope, see again
To help the trapped and addicted find freedom
And tell people they are accepted and have value
And that their life is not a crime.’