Dementia awareness service at East Telford benefice – and for your church
Recently, East Telford shared a benefice-wide service with a dementia focus at Holy Trinity Wrockwardine Wood. Churches across the benefice have held Dementia-Friendly Church Certificates for some years – and this was their next step in becoming more dementia-friendly. Thank you to Revd Richard Walker-Hill and Kerry Debenham and the whole church family for such a warm welcome.
I was glad to shape the material for this service and to lead it with with Avril Innocent, Dementia Coordinator at St Mary’s Market Drayton, developing material devised originally for use at a dementia training session in her home church last year. This dementia awareness-raising service shares key information about dementia – including the framework of early, middle and late stages and the three rules of “Contented Dementia” by Oliver James. It shares understanding about dementia with the whole church family, helping us together to recognise the ways we can adapt our response, to stay in step with people through advancing dementia.
And the material we used there is now available as a resource for other churches. It’s designed to be straightforward to use and share – rippling out understanding to the whole church family. Have a look at the material here – and why not identify a Sunday when you can use it in your own church?
We’ve got:
- Flyer: A flyer for to advertise the service.
- Service Booklet: A “Welcoming, Connecting, Friendly” 8-page service booklet, to print out as an A5 booklet for people to take away; and
- Leader’s Notes: A full script for the service, designed for two people co-leading the service (although it could be led by just one person), including the suggested Bible reading and some prayers about dementia which you may chose to include in your intercessions.
Within the format of a Sunday service, this material gives:
- A section early on in the service, to share some information about dementia, including the stages of dementia;
- A sermon slot, exploring the three rules of “Contented Dementia” and the practical ways we change our response to become more welcoming, connecting, friendly churches; and
- A prayer for use at the end of the service.
Around this, it is helpful to keep the service as familiar as possible, to give a steady framework for journeying in to the deep waters of dementia – including hymms or worship songs that are well known in your congregation.
Avril Innocent has these words of encouragement, to others churches considering holding a 'Welcoming, Connecting, Friendly' dementia awareness service:
“Are you thinking that you wouldn’t be able to lead a service like this? If so, please be assured that the Leader’s Notes are easy to follow and take all the worry out of it. So many people in our churches have experience of dementia and they are genuinely interested and eager to learn more. So our role is invaluable in spreading the word – and, most importantly, getting people talking about dementia.”
How was the East Telford benefice service received? After the service, people said:
- “I could relate to every word you said. My mum lived with dementia and she died last year. It was exactly like you said.”
- “Thank you for such a beautiful service.”
- “I’m so glad we had this service: my husband lived with dementia.”
- “Thank you, that was so helpful.”
- “I looked at the booklet before the service and I thought, “Well how else would you welcome people or invite them to coffee?” It was really good to hear about other ways of saying things.”
If you use this service in your church, I’d love to hear how it goes. Email me at sarah.thorpe@lichfield.anglican.org.