Kingdom Faith Church, Horsham

The photo shows: Our congregational Pastor Colin Squires, myself, Joanna Thomas, and Anna the secretary for Horsham churches together with her friend Rachel who all came to Evergreen Café.

Joanna Thomas

Here we are five years on from the Covid pandemic, which initiated in May 2021 the conversation about bereavement at our church. It’s always helpful to reflect on our original aims.  These aims included the need to challenge the culture and language we use around loss, death and dying, understanding the need to normalise what in essence is common to all humanity, that seemingly taboo topic ‘death’.

After running several The Bereavement Journey® courses in the church, which attracted participation from other church members across Horsham, we started work on the Bereavement Friendly Church Charter. The Charter acts as an excellent guide, setting out in clear terms what can be expected in every endeavour to establish and maintain a community that embraces the grieving with compassion and understanding. We have made use of the training that AtaLoss offers, and this has certainly proved a fruitful investment for all who have taken part.

We have found one of the main challenges is to remain focused, keeping the agenda on the table in the life of a busy church schedule. Creating and maintaining a core team has proved vital to ensure our The Bereavement Journey® courses and Evergreen Café run regularly and smoothly. A big thank you to senior Pastor Clive Urquhart and Congregation lead pastor Colin Squire for their support and encouragement, along with Pastor Jonathan Dyke who always lends a practical hand when needed. Finally, Hannah Elmer our wonderful church secretary, who handles all the enquires and bookings for The Bereavement Journey® courses and Evergreen café.

With the launch of his latest book ‘Dancing When The Lights Go Out’ the intimate story of the loss of his wife Vicky, Dr Roger Greene, our bereavement lead at the time, was given a number of Sunday morning slots, in which he was able to address the topics of loss, bringing with it a mandate to train church members and commit to purposeful engagement as a church community, to the most meaningful and effective conversation possible, in regards the Charter and its aims. Although still very much involved in the life of our local church, Roger has been able to use his years of experience in senior management at corporate level to support the work of AtaLoss, having taken up the position of Deputy Chief Executive.

On behalf of Horsham Churches Together, Kingdom Faith hosted an inspirational evening with the author David Oliver and his wife Gill, who faced the death of their son Joel, at the age of thirty-eight, following a short and brutal fight with cancer. This loss became the catalyst for his book ‘All about Heaven’, in which he provides a thorough examination of the relevant Bible texts, giving a thrilling view of the reality of heaven, one we must take care to prepare for. The evening drew in the congregation and a large audience from the local community across Horsham.

We have now completed 6 courses using the rebranded The Bereavement Journey® material which have been very well received, with the conversation style presentation really enhancing the group dynamic and the feedback has been outstanding. The bonds between guests are a joy to watch grow over the weeks, particularly with the emotive nature of the topics.

With about 20 courses under our belts, we have become a wider resource for local churches across Horsham and indeed have supported several church communities to commence The Bereavement Journey® and to consider the use of Bereavement Friendly Church Charter. We see the Charter as a positive force for churches across the land to become catalysts for bereavement friendly towns and villages.

Lastly, our Evergreen café runs once a quarter and has proved a great success, particularly with special guest speakers, not least for the opportunity to build on relationships made on the course, but also the opportunity to focus on things like the value of creative workshops and personal stories of loss.

We have a way to go until the Charter reaches its full potential in our congregation. However, I can say with confidence we have engagement with it and benefit from the guidance it has to offer us. Going forward we need to look at training our small teams and securing a wider team.