FOR the first time in its 95-year history, St George’s Crypt, in Leeds, hosted a confirmation service, which its chaplain, the Revd Andy Muckle, described as a “joyous occasion”.
The Christian-based charity works with those living with homelessness and addiction. Twenty-two people, including six members of staff and 16 residents from the Crypt’s Growing Rooms projects were confirmed, surrounded by other participants of the project, friends and family, on 26 July.
Established in 1930 by the Revd Don Robins, the charity accommodates about 160 people each night in both emergency and long-term housing, and serves meals to between 80 and 100 people every day. Set up in 2016, the Growing Rooms project is the only residential narcotics and alcohol-recovery programme for men and women in Leeds.
Mr Muckle told the Church Times that “there’s a real spiritual thirst within the projects”, and that he “was seeing a deeper spiritual journey within staff as well.”
He said that, recently, each summer, project participants travel to Marrick Priory, in North Yorkshire, for activity days. They also visit Ellerton Lake, and “over the last couple of years, there’s been a real tradition that I baptise or renew the baptism vows of the client in the lake. That’s a really lovely moment.”
After receiving a positive response to the discipleship course that he had written, based on clips from the film Risen (Arts, 24 March 2016), Mr Muckle “thought, well, why not have a confirmation service?
“I threw it out there, and I thought we might get two people wanting to be confirmed. And yet, we had six staff and 16 people from the project.”
The confirmation day was “a mixture of joy, tears, and the Holy Spirit”, Mr Muckle continued. He said that he was “proud of each every person being confirmed”.
But it is particularly “powerful for people in recovery to get this sense of a new life, which is resurrection in effect. It’s what the St George’s crypt is built on”.
The Bishop of Kirkstall, the Rt Revd Arun Arora, who presided at the service, told the confirmed that they were “history-makers”, a remark which “struck” Mr Muckle.
“[Bishop Arora] anointed each person, laid his hands on their head, he confirmed them and paused, praying silently for each person. You could hear a pin drop; it was beautiful.”
Mr Muckle hopes to hold a confirmation service each year in the future.
