New Mental Health Resource for Churches

Going live today is the new Mental Health Access Pack, a resource website for churches on mental health and illness, which looks very good and I hope gets widely used. 

Main sections are:
 - common conditions
 - caring for people
 - practical tips
 - what the Bible says

with a range of pages under each one - e.g. mental health and learning difficulties, types of counselling, pastoral policy. There are sections that are worth printing out in full and discussing with church leadership, small groups etc. to a) develop best practice and b) get the church talking about mental health, so that people know it's ok to do so

"Churches have a responsibility to welcome everyone who comes to them in Christ’s name, but the reality is that they don’t always know how best to support people who are struggling with mental health issues. The Mental Health Access Pack will help equip churches to make God’s love more visible in the welcome they offer to every person." (Justin Welby)

As well as addressing our day to day practices, I hope the church makes a concerted effort to get mental health onto the election agenda, as the Libdems are trying to do. 

PS bear with me, I've tried to add a new 'Mental Health Links' to the sidebar and things have all gone a bit pear-shaped. 

How is an Anglican Welcome different from a Methodist Welcome? Not a Lot.

It's both encouraging, and slightly discouraging, to find that both the CofE and the Methodist church now have a good set of resources to help church focus on becoming more welcoming: both having a welcoming building, and being a welcoming people.

The Anglican resource is the superb Everybody Welcome course, which has been around for a couple of years. We're using bits of it at our local Deanery Synod (gathering of local CofE church reps, once a term): using a DVD clip to highlight an issue, and sending everyone back to their churches with a couple of the checklists to fill in to help them review an aspect of the life of the church. Then at the next meeting, we'll hear back how they got on, what they're going to do about it, and highlight another issue.

The Methodists now have their own resource, First Impressions Count, which covers a lot of the same ground, using a lot of the same tools - video clips, checklists etc. It's a bit briefer and less in-depth, but looks good and covers a lot of helpful material. It may be easier to use 'off the peg', whereas Everybody Welcome needs more preparation, but also goes into more detail.

Whilst it's good to see both of these national churches recognising a need and filling it with a good resource, I wonder why 2 sets of people needed to do 2 separate projects producing 2 separate resources. There is so much common ground that it would surely have been easier to have adaptable versions of the same thing? We've managed it with Mission Shaped Ministry/Mission Shaped Intro...

Christmas & Advent - ideas, resources and donkey rides.

One of todays tasks is putting together a Christmas leaflet for the neighbourhood. Even though Advent isn't upon us yet, there are over 20 Christmas 'specials' to start getting ready for. Here are a few places I go for help, and a few ideas to keep things fresh:

1. Cartoon Church has a Christmas section, pay Dave Walker the very reasonable license fee and use can use his cartoons in publicity, on service sheets etc. Far Side inspired Inherit theMirth is more pricey, but some of them are superb

2. Beatbox Bible's reading of Luke 2 did a lot of service last year as a Christmas reading in services

3. For a fresh stock of visuals, it's worth repeat visits to the Nativity Factor site. The competition is running again this year, for 2 minute interpretations of the Christmas story. All of last years shortlist are on the site, and the Christmas Channel on Youtube has all the entries. 

4. Christine Sine's website at Mustard Seed Associates is packed with advent reflections, art and poems, you may need a bit of time to browse it, but there's lots of good stuff there. 

5. If you need an Advent Calendar, try this one from Beyond Church, featuring the Beach Huts used in their 'live' Advent calendar. If you're anywhere in the Hove area, they're repeating it this year. There might just be time to organise something like this, and there are plenty of ways to do it - using shop fronts, garages, garden sheds etc. 

6. Or try a Posada, where Nativity figures are taken from one house to another throughout Advent, and each host household can mark the evening by doing something special (party, carols, decorating). There are some resources for this at Church Army, including a family board game, cut out and make Nativity set, scripts and resources for all-age Christmas services etc.  

Some local ideas, and things that have worked:
 - our 9 Lessons and Carols was uncomfortably full last year, so we've got an 'alternative' on this year, on a Friday night featuring our new Community Choir. The set list will mix traditional carols with choir pieces (Lean on Me, Fix You, Price Tag) to tell the Christmas story. There's more wiggle room over poems and readings too.

 - donkey rides. A variant on 'Get in the Picture', which gives people the chance to dress up and have their photo taken. If you've some nativity dressing up clothes and a local Christmas fair going on, do donkey rides for the children, a chance for folk to take pictures of the Mary/Joseph/Donkey combo, and have something to give away that explains what Christmas is all about.

 - Christmas services in 'secular' venues. Local garden centres have been a regular feature for several years, and they've often rung us to get the date in the calendar. Christingles seem to work well, and we get people to make their own, which is great fun for the kids, and saves a lot of prep work!!

 - Leaflet drop. Boring, boring, but if you're not going to let local folk know what you're up to now, then when are you? Nothing quite so good for the soul as pushing leaflets through snappy letterboxes in the cold. We use 160gsm card - easy to fold but robust enough to survive most letterboxes. Or you can use CPO's nice publicity materials and overprint your details.

 - Chocolate Christmas - a very popular idea for a talk I used a couple of years ago, here's the original, some other ideas (see the comments), and an absolute monster. It works best if you've got the actual chocolates, and there's usually a queue (mostly boys) at the end who want to help you eat them.

 - giveaways: Why Christmas? is a good one, and the Philo trust have several from J John, including What's the Point of Christmas? If you like Adrian Plass's writing style, try this. Some childrens ideas here, or several booklets/ideas on the CPO site plus childrens themed comics, and more comics,

Finally, if you're after a few good Christmas jokes and stories, J Johns Christmas Unwrapped message is a great place to go, very funny.

Update: got to add this superb DIY Advent Calendar from the Mothers Union.