On Saturday September 30 a celebration of Lay Ministry, ending with the Licensing Service for new LLMs, was held in Peterborough Cathedral. Seven workshops were on offer during the morning and Liz Kelly, who is a Lay Pastoral Minister and Anna Chaplain from the church of St Peter & St Paul, Abington, Northampton, led one on Anna Chaplaincy.
She highlighted why ministry to older people is so important and then spoke about the valuable role that Anna Chaplains play in their local churches and communities.
She also outlined the support that the growing network of Anna Chaplains is able to give to its members and detailed some of the online training that is available. A variety of resources was on display, including several examples of Messy Vintage services that Liz has taken in her local care home.
She said, “I was delighted to be asked to spread the word about Anna Chaplaincy as I’m passionate about ministry to older people and, at present, there are only three of us in the Diocese.”
It was very well received, and a number of the participants said how much they had enjoyed finding out about Anna Chaplaincy and how thought-provoking it had been. Liz hopes that several of these LLMs will decide to put themselves forward for training and will go on to boost the number of Anna Chaplains in the Peterborough Diocese in the near future.
Meanwhile, our Church Lead Debbie Ducille also attended a similar day in her home Diocese of Birmingham last month.
She is going to be at another on Saturday October 14. If you are interested in going, email debbie.ducille@brf.org.uk for more details.