Gathering round three tables at Lichfield Cathedral
For our Autumn Dementia-Friendly Churches Network Meeting, how strong to gather in Lichfield Cathedral around three tables. Thank you to The Rt Revd Jan McFarlane and the Dementia Champions Team and to Lichfield Cathedral for hosting our Network meeting and for making us so welcome.
The table of the altar
We gathered first around the lunchtime Cathedral Eucharist.
“For Christians, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, means to live as people who know that they are always guests – that they have been welcomed and that they are wanted. It is, perhaps, the most simple thing that we can say about Holy Communion, yet it is still supremely worth saying. In Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company.”
Archbishop Rowan Williams (“Being Christian, p. 41)
The celebrant ended our service by saying, “Well, what a party we’ve shared!” – which neatly sums up the whole network meeting in Lichfield.
The Fenland Black Oak Table
I wonder whether you’ve seen the Fenland Black Oak Table in the Cathedral, 13 metres long and made from wood that is 5,000 years old? It’s got an amazing story, made from an oak tree that grew two and a half times as tall as our current day oak trees. It’s in Lichfield Cathedral until May 2026 – and it’s well worth a visit, if you haven’t already seen it.
We brought our packed lunches to the table and – and enjoyed some questions as points of conversation and connection. As the table hosted us, it gave space for our own stories to be shared and honoured.
At the Fenland Black Oak Table picnic lunch we found a welcome, we knew that we belonged.
“The Fenland Black Oak Table will stand in our Cathedral… as a meeting place for feasting, conversation and gentle challenge. We hope that you will find your place at the table, for Lichfield Cathedral is your cathedral, my cathedral, our cathedral – and you are always welcome here.”
The Right Reverend Jan McFarlane, Dean of Lichfield
Meeting tables in the Old Stables
Then we moved on to meeting tables in the Old Stables, taking our conversations forwards to share experiences and ideas, resources and encouragement across our dementia-friendly churches network.
Sam Rushton, our CEO at the Diocese of Lichfield, affirmed that, “The dementia-friendly church network is invaluable and at the heart of who we are as Christians”. Sam shared personal experience of how easy it is to withdraw and become isolated through advancing dementia: it is so important to reach out as churches with reassurance through dementia, staying in step together so that nobody travels alone.
“Feeding our faith” is one of our three key areas of activity in our Diocesan Strategy 2025-30, “Seeking the Kingdom”. And we heard three different reflections on faith through dementia.
Ahead of the network meeting, we had shared Alison Colin-Stokes and her mum Norma’s experience of going to church in Tettenhall, where Norma found deep inner peace. You can read this in a Church of England news item and in our Diocese of Lichfield blog:
We also heard from Dean Jan, recongising that we are fed, reminded, included, strengthened as we gather round tables: “Nothing can separate from the love of God” (Romans 8). And we’ll be sharing Dean Jan’s inspirational words more extensively in a separate blog.
Then Revd Sue Cooke, associate priest at St John’s Church, Littleworth, Stafford, shared insight into the unexpected gifts and blessing on the unchosen path through her husband’s advancing dementia. She recognised that if she has faith which is only the size of a tiny mustard seed, God can do wonders with that. Again, there’s more to share from Sue’s profound experience, in a separate blog.
And we shared our own experiences with one another, reflecting on things that continue to speak “soul to soul”, feeding faith through advancing dementia, in our churches or worship or beyond. We were moved by the sense of God journeying with us and others, through the challenge and mystery of advancing dementia.
For the second half of our network meeting, we shared experiences and ideas from across our churches and communities. In Seeking the Kingdom, our Diocese of Lichfield Strategy 2025-30, Bishop Michael’s introduction says: “I want our strategy to be about feeding and supporting one another as followers of Jesus, and about building one another up, as we journey together.” We did just that, with the opportunity to listen to and learn from one another. We shared a whole range of experiences - from churches running memory cafes to small rural churches where there’s still space for naming and facing dementia together by sharing a bookmark with a prayer through dementia, from the Cathedral dementia-friendly services to individual pastoral visiting,
The welcome continues
Thank you to everyone who came to 'Welcome to the Table'. We all came away from Lichfield energised and encouraged. People valued the following strengths: 'Wonderful to be together, to hear of different experiences and God’s work in what we each do'; 'hearing the stories, powerful testimonies, worshipping together and the Black Oak Table'; 'hearing everyone’s stories and ideas'; 'the sharing of stories'; 'to listen to the experiences of others'; 'so very powerful, moving, supportive'. We can support one another, as we travel through the deep waters of dementia.
And, beyond our Welcome to the table network event, the welcome continues. If you’d like to know more about our dementia-friendly churches network, have a look at our website and/or contact our Dementia-Friendly Church Enabler, Sarah Thorpe by email or 07982 248949.
Above all, our commitment across the dementia-friendly churches network is to keep connections with one another and with God. Thank you for keeping connections with people across our churches and communities through advancing dementia, learning from and with people living with dementia more about what it is to be human, more about what it is to journey together, more about what is it to be loved by God, who journeys every step of the way with us.