Our Ministry
Coming alongside the people of our canals and rivers — practical help where we can, friendship that lasts, and prayer that listens as much as it asks.
We are not running a project on the waterways. We have chosen to live amongst and be part of the waterways community — sharing meals and cups of tea, lending a hand with a stubborn engine or a difficult form, sitting with people through hard weeks, and being there long enough to be trusted.
Much of it is unremarkable. A tow to a water point. Help finding a doctor or a warm place in January. Someone to talk to after a bereavement. Paul described this kind of ministry as sharing not only the gospel but our own selves — 1 Thessalonians 2:8 — and that is the shape we are aiming for. John says something similar in plainer terms: love in action rather than in words alone (1 John 3:18).
Boaters are often overlooked — moving on before anyone learns their name, outside the reach of services that assume a fixed address. Jesus does not simply speak about such people; He identifies Himself with them (Matthew 25:35). That is reason enough to be here.
It is a small change of preposition and it changes everything.
Working for God turns faith into a job with a growing list of tasks. Walking with God keeps it a relationship — and the work grows out of that instead of replacing it.
Scripture keeps returning to the language of company rather than employment. Enoch walked with God (Genesis 5:24). Micah reduces the whole requirement to acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). Jesus tells His disciples to remain in Him, because apart from Him nothing bears fruit (John 15:5).
So our first question on any given day is not what should we be doing? but where is the Father already at work, and are we keeping step with Him? Those led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Romans 8:14); if we live by the Spirit, we are to keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). In practice that means we hold our plans loosely, and we are willing to let a good idea go when it is clearly not the one being asked of us.
The same thread runs through our prophetic teaching — the move from a relationship of works to one of intimacy, and the warning that religion smothers with duty what God intended to smother with love (Session 3: The Heart of the Prophetic).
“The Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it.”— John 5:19
Jesus set the pattern Himself. Challenged over what He was doing and when He was doing it, He answered that the Son can do nothing on His own initiative — only what He sees the Father doing (John 5:19). Two verses earlier He gives the reason it matters: My Father is always at His work, to this very day, and I too am working (John 5:17).
And remarkably, God has chosen not to work alone. Paul calls himself and Apollos God’s fellow workers (1 Corinthians 3:9), and writes elsewhere of working together with Him (2 Corinthians 6:1). Mark closes his gospel with the disciples going out and the Lord working with them, confirming the word as they went (Mark 16:20). Co-labouring is not our idea; it is His invitation.
There is a real and right longing across the church at the moment for God to move. We share it. But we have come to believe the Father is already at work, and that the invitation is to look for what He is doing and join in. So we try to be obedient to His ways and His timing rather than to a plan of our own making, and to lean on the Spirit more than any programme.
That is not a criticism of structure. Programmes and courses are useful, and several of them serve this ministry well. They are simply not what we lead with, nor what we depend on.
We facilitate prayer meetings on the boat — for the waterways community, and for other communities and churches who ask. They are unhurried and deliberately informal, and they run on one conviction: prayer is an intimate conversation, not a transactional one.
Praying to God can quietly become a shopping list read out to a distant provider. Praying with God is closer to how friends talk — including the long pauses.
Jesus told His disciples He no longer called them servants but friends (John 15:15). The Lord spoke with Moses face to face, as one speaks with a friend (Exodus 33:11). And when we do not know what to ask for, the Spirit Himself intercedes for us (Romans 8:26) — which is a great relief, and a good argument for listening before speaking.
So we leave room for silence. We ask what is on the Father’s heart before we bring our own requests, and we usually find our requests have changed by the time we get to them. Petition is not the enemy here; Scripture is full of it. We are simply trying to make sure the asking sits inside a relationship rather than standing in for one.
Everyone is welcome, whatever your experience of prayer — including none at all.
In Practice
Nothing here is dramatic. It is the ordinary work of being present with people over time.
This ministry runs alongside two organisations doing excellent work, and we serve as volunteers with both.
If you live on the water and need assistance, please reach out through either of the charities — they are set up to help. If you would like prayer, if your church or group would like to join us on the boat, or if you would simply like to find out more, please feel free to get in touch directly. There is nothing to sign up to.
Need assistance now? Waterways Chaplaincy↗ · New Hope Chaplaincy↗
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”— Matthew 25:35