Anna Chaplaincy: walking side by side

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Anna Chaplaincy joining the BRF Ministries family, the team are putting on their walking boots.

8 September 2024

From Alton to Abingdon

Beginning with a special church service on Sunday 15 September, Anna Chaplaincy lead Debbie Ducille is walking from Alton in Hampshire, birthplace of Anna Chaplaincy, to Abingdon in Oxfordshire, the home of BRF Ministries. Her aim is to mark the anniversary, to spread the word about Anna Chaplaincy, meet up with network members along the way and raise vital funds for this growing and much-needed ministry.

Anna Chaplaincy was founded by Debbie Thrower in 2010 and there are now over 370 Anna Chaplains across the country, plus hundreds more Anna Friends supporting them. Anna Chaplaincy is best described as a ‘ministry of presence’, offering spiritual support and companionship to older people. The theme of this anniversary celebration is, appropriately, ‘walking side by side’.

Celebrating ministry with older people in Kent

Even before Debbie ties her boot laces, training and development lead Julia Burton-Jones has already embarked on her own anniversary tour of Anna Chaplains in Kent, where she is also Anna Chaplaincy lead and dementia specialist for Rochester and Canterbury dioceses.

A pioneering ministry, Anna Chaplaincy aims to equip churches to better support older members of their congregations and communities, and to ensure their spiritual and pastoral needs are met. It also supports those with dementia and their carers to ensure they are made welcome in our churches.

Rochester and Canterbury dioceses were the first to embrace Anna Chaplaincy as a diocesan ministry, and they have been building teams across Kent since the first group was commissioned in 2017.

To celebrate this milestone, and to raise further awareness of the range of Anna Chaplaincy activities taking place across the dioceses, Julia will be meeting ten Kent-based Anna Chaplains and walking with them in the places they serve. There are currently 60 Anna Chaplains in Kent, plus many Anna Friends and other volunteers working with them.

Julia wants to honour the wonderful work of Anna Chaplains and reflect her own role in walking ‘side by side’ with them in their ministry. On her travels, she will find out about ageing in different parts of Kent, and how spiritual care is being offered through the Anna Chaplains churches commission to reach out to local older people whether or not they have a faith.

‘I hope to celebrate the commitment of the team,’ says Julia, ‘and encourage others to join us, perhaps through signing up for my next online training course, which begins in October. I also aim to raise much-needed funds for BRF Ministries, which has been so generous over 10 years in helping churches develop their seniors ministry.’

Reducing fears over long-term care

Julia has already made her first two stops. First, she met up with Anne Bourne, from St Luke’s Sevenoaks, who was among the first Anna Chaplains commissioned in Rochester diocese in 2017.

Anne’s interest in this ministry was sparked by caring for her dad through his vascular dementia, and she was a member of the diocesan steering group formed in 2015 to launch Anna Chaplaincy. She is now Tonbridge archdeaconry lead for Anna Chaplaincy.

Anne’s congregation is ageing and while many remain fit and active in their 80s and 90s, others live with the challenges of long-term conditions. She supports parishioners who need full-time care and are placed many miles from home and the relatives who care for them.

The regular services Anne leads in local care homes (including Emily Jackson House, which is just behind St Luke’s) are a highlight of her ministry. She would love for others to join her, sensing it would help reduce the common fears over long-term care.

Anne says, ‘We don’t realise how much older people we support will be an encouragement and a blessing to us.  Like the couple I visit in a care home whose welcome feels like being greeted as a family member. And a 100-year-old resident who provides piano accompaniment in one of the homes where I lead services.’

‘I don’t come to church, but I do believe’

Julia’s second stop was with Margaret Hollands, in Hoo St Werburgh.

Like Anne, Margaret was among the first Anna Chaplains commissioned in Rochester diocese in 2017. Also like Anne, caring for her dad who had dementia made her aware of how little support was available to families.

Margaret was also a member of the diocesan steering group formed in 2015 to launch Anna Chaplaincy and is now Rochester archdeaconry lead for Anna Chaplaincy. In 2015 she and Julia travelled together to Alton to meet with pioneer Anna Chaplain Debbie Thrower and co-ordinator Alex Burn as the diocese began a fruitful partnership with BRF Ministries. Margaret reflects:

‘Having been “in at the beginning” of Rochester’s journey, it is so positive to see where we are now and how far we have come from those tentative early days.’

Margaret leads a monthly Companion Café, takes home communion to housebound older people and has a ministry at the local care home, Yew Tree Lodge. Funeral ministry has also become a vital part of Margaret’s role in Hoo.  She conducts between 25 and 30 funerals each year and notices that older people often say, ‘I don’t come to church, but I do believe’; she senses that something about approaching the end of your life draws you to the Christian way of seeing death. Being in a village means informal support for older people from the community is strong, but many feel cut off as a result of limited public transport on the Hoo Peninsula.

For Margaret, ‘Walking alongside people when they are at their very lowest, is the most important part of my ministry.’

Parts of this article were first published on 2 September 2024 on the Rochester diocesan website.