This Sunday's joint parish Holy Communion service is at St Peter's Church, Hascombe. We'd love you to be with us but if you're elsewhere or housebound, you can join via the Zoom link below.https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84372786503?pwd=ZXlEaVFiMEIxaTBvNXlMdTNvKzByUT09
FOUR HUNDRED pink and blue umbrellas have been suspended from the ceiling of St Margaret’s, Rainham, in Kent, to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week.A “wave of light” service for bereaved parents is planned for 6.30 p.m. on Friday, and a concert on Wednesday raised money for the charity Making Miracles.The Vicar, the Revd Nathan Ward (see photo), said: “It’s estimated that one in four pregnancies will end in miscarriage, with some experiencing consecutive miscarriages; the trauma and grief is more than often invisible and it can be incredibly difficult to come to terms with it.“What’s worse is that for the most part this is something that families go through on their own. Lost babies are never forgotten, even decades later families still feel the pain. Some of the dates on the hearts in church go back to the 1950s.”
The group reviewed a set of resources for leading groups with young people which have now been published on the LLF Learning Hub. The importance of encouraging all participants to share their experience and learning through the LLF online questionnaire and by means of creative responses was stressed. LLF Advocates were encouraged to continue to share good practice across dioceses.The group noted the need to get three key messages across: the LLF resources are for and about everyone; it is a genuinely open-ended opportunity for the whole church to contribute to the Church’s discernment about questions relating to identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage; the resources are flexible and should be adapted to different contexts at a time and in a way that is appropriate for them. The gathering of feedback will close on 30th April 2022.It was agreed to reschedule publication of the resource, ‘The Gift of the Church’ to September 2022, when it will sit alongside the findings of the listening process as the process of discernment begins. The Next Steps Group will work together with the Faith and Order Commission on this task, and involve others as discussed at previous meetings.The Group agreed that it would be important to introduce new members of General Synod to the LLF journey as part of their induction in November 2021.The meeting ended in prayer.
