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Angels of Mersey (sic)

Just a quickie today to point you in the direction of a short documentary I ended up watching last night instead of my usual game of 5-a-side football... My eye was drawn to it, partly off the back of my post last week on chaplaincy, because it was a look at various forms of chaplaincy in the city of Liverpool, under the appalling title of "Angels of Mersey" (whichever production assistant dreamt that one up should be soundly beaten and given a job with Hallmark...)
Anyway, it's on BBC2 on a Monday at 8pm (and will be on BBC iPlayer for about a week per episode) and doesn't just cover hospital chaplaincy, but last night also covered University chaplaincy and will be looking at sports chaplaincy with the chaplain to Liverpool's third best team, Everton (third after Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves according to Bill Shankly), street pastors, and chaplaincy with Jewish and Muslim student chaplains. Given some of the coverage recently about the anti-Christian bias of the BBC, this is a programme that those complaining should look at, as it was largely a simple fly-on-the-wall documentary, that was neither sneering nor particularly critical... Indeed, I would probably have been more critical myself in some parts of it (except I am in my warm and fuzzy "thing on what is good" mode at present... except for yesterday's post of course)... I would be interested to look at some of the motivations for chaplaincy and deconstruct some of the pat answers about chaplaincy being about being where Jesus would be, not in the churches etc. I'd also be interested in hearing how the chaplains in Alder Hey hospital feel when their prayers for the healing of children go seemingly unanswered, unlike last night's situation. But it is only the first week, and perhaps those questions will come later.
So take a look... but if anyone knows the University chaplain in it, tell him to get a haircut and ditch the red belt before he starts fretting about whether he should wear a dog-collar or not...
Cheers
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