Deep connections from a small church at the edge
Known locally as 'the little gem on the hill', St Luke’s Church, Endon sits in the Staffordshire Moorlands with wide, panoramic views. It is a place of beauty and tranquillity.
“We’re a small church, at the edge — and the average age of our pastoral team is 77,” Shirley Brindley said with disarming honesty as we met to review the Dementia-Friendly Church Certificate at St Luke’s for a second year. By the end of our conversation, we both felt energised."
Our dementia-friendly churches network seeks to journey with people as patterns of life change through advancing dementia. We aim to do what we can to stay in step with them — and to trust God to do the rest. The Dementia-Friendly Church Certificate offers a practical framework to support that commitment. It helps churches name the steps they are taking and share a positive narrative about how they are connecting and growing together as a church family.
Again and again, we notice God’s presence in life-giving connections. Even at the edge, even through deep waters, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things,” as Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in God’s Grandeur.
How did St Luke’s become a Dementia-Friendly Church?
The journey began in May 2024 at a Leek Deanery Synod meeting focused on community connections. The Strengthening Communities Team introduced conversations around Places of Welcome, Enabling All, and Dementia-Friendly Churches. And Revd Patricia Robinson, a retired priest now worshipping at St Luke’s, attended that meeting. Years earlier, she had written a Master’s dissertation on dementia, shaped by regular visits to a local care home. In that work, she described care home Holy Communion as “a rock, a familiarity that is still there, something to cling to.”
At the time, St Luke’s was in the fifth year of a vacancy, so this was not a season for major new projects or initiatives. Several members of the church family were living with dementia — some at home, others in residential care. Patricia sensed that becoming a recognised dementia-friendly church would be a faithful and realistic step, taking church volunteer capacity into consideration.
It was important that any commitment be genuine and manageable. The Dementia-Friendly Church Certificate allows churches to take appropriate, achievable steps each year — moving forward steadily.
Patricia invited Shirley Brindley, a member of the pastoral team, to join her in taking this forward. “I knew nothing about dementia or dementia-friendly churches,” Shirley says with a smile. “Patricia pushed me forwards — and now I say to her, ‘You made me do this — and I’m glad you did!’”
Dementia-Friendly Church Certificate actions
In November 2024, St Luke’s committed to three actions:
- Hold a church service with a dementia focus.
- Pray regularly for people affected by dementia during intercessions.
- Include an article about dementia in the church magazine.
A year later, Shirley reflects:
“We held a dementia awareness service using ideas from ‘Boats and Staying Afloat’. It was well attended, with people coming from St Chad’s, Bagnall, and our own Connections group. There was good participation, and it gave us an opportunity to tell everyone about the Dementia Book Box. We’ve recently added some children’s books and encouraged people to borrow them.
“Several people thanked us afterwards. They said it had reminded them of difficult and emotional times, but they were glad we had done it.
“Revd Patricia has had signs printed and put up around church to help people find their way more easily. We now include dementia prayers weekly. We also visit three care homes regularly, holding a service in each. These visits are greatly valued.”
Since then, Revd Debbie Lovatt has been welcomed as vicar of St Luke’s Endon, St Chad’s Bagnall and St Michael’s Horton. The PCC at St Luke’s Endon now includes “Dementia-Friendly Church” as a standing agenda item.
For the coming year, the PCC agreed three further actions:
- A monthly magazine series titled 'What Not to Say to Someone with Dementia', drawing on material from an Alzheimer’s Society blog.
- A pastoral team session exploring the 'bookcase analogy' (a helpful way of understanding how memories are stored and affected by dementia), open to others who would like to attend.
- Writing this blog, with support from Sarah Thorpe, Dementia-Friendly Church Enabler, to share the church’s experience of keeping connections through advancing dementia.
“We know there has been a deep spiritual connection”
The Certificate provides a framework. But the real story lies in the relationships formed and sustained.
Shirley and Patricia share moving examples.
“Once a month, we visit a former church warden who was once fully involved in church life and now lives in residential care. Some people questioned why we go — ‘because she doesn’t know who you are.’
“But it is clear she responds. Our visits are mutually rewarding. We sing hymns, read Bible passages, pray, and share church news. She has been non-verbal for two years or more, but when we sing and say the Lord’s Prayer, we see her lips move.
“We know that, in some way, there has been a deep spiritual connection. We always leave uplifted.”
They have also seen the impact of Sunday worship:
“We’ve seen someone arrive agitated and struggling with mobility, and by the end of the service sit quietly, enjoying the peace of the building. Afterwards, they join others for coffee, smiling and joking. Something has shifted. They go home with a completely different demeanour.”
Music has proved especially powerful.
“Music can be so helpful in stimulating memory and bringing a sense of joy and peace. We held a concert recently. One regular member came along and joined in fully — waving hands, smiling, singing. Afterwards she said how much she’d enjoyed it. We saw a completely different side of her that many of us hadn’t seen before.”
And in a care home:
“One resident was often in tears during our visits so one of our team now supports her throughout our visits. We attended a Christmas karaoke event and when ‘Delilah’ came on, we discovered a shared love of Stoke City Football Club – so we encouraged her to sing and wave like supporters at a match. Immediately, the crying stopped. She came alive.
“Now our team member and this lady sit together at our monthly services. The connection is mutual. The Spirit deeply touches both lives.”
Loving and being loved
Listening to Shirley and Patricia, it is clear that this is not a one-way ministry. There is deep mutual gift in the connections they notice.
Professor David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus in the University of Cambridge, at the funeral of his friend Brid O’Siadhail, who had lived with Parkinson’s disease and later dementia, spoke of the profound mutuality that can emerge in such communities:
It’s not about the strong condescending to do good to the weak… a richer, deeper love has come into being, centred on fragility, vulnerability and what St Thérèse would have called littleness. Whether you are categorised as weaker or stronger is no longer what matters most:
what really matters is loving and being loved.
As St Luke’s continues its journey to become more dementia-friendly, the authenticity of loving and being loved shines out in the connections that are being made — in hymns sung, prayers whispered, music shared, and quiet moments of peace.
Surely this is the church’s mission in action:
- Encounter. Encourage. Enable.
- Committed to sharing God’s love.