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Welcome to the October edition of Churches Together in Cumbria's Newsletter.

Please let us know if you plan to attend this service by emailing admin@churchestogethercumbria.org.uk

The Anna Chaplaincy ministry in Cumbria continues to support older people on their spiritual journeys due to the hard work of our Chaplains, Dementia Enablers and volunteers who support them. 

The Anna Chaplaincy and Dementia conference Breathing in Hope Working with Stories of Change was held online on 18th September and was a great success.

With people attending from around the world (from Australia, USA, New Zealand and Canada), it was a fun-filled and educational day with some great speakers and a couple of more interactive sessions too.

Pictured below was Kathryn Lord from 'OutoftheBox Training' who's session looked at a multi-sensory approach to sharing stories.  Other speakers on the day were Terry Peate (Linking Lives), Jeanette Main (Lyrics and Lunch), Tina English (Care Home Friends)

Social Responsibility

Don’t forget that CTiC, along with our friends at Food Carlisle are hosting a lunchtime event on Friday 15^th October, to amplify a voice for the climate change emergency. Pilgrims from the Camino To COP group are walking through the county from 7-16^th October and at this event, we will hear from them a little about why they are concerned enough to make this journey up to the UN COP26 Summit in Glasgow.

In addition to this, because we don’t want this just to be a one-off event that passes through our region and disappears from our perspective, we’re also inviting short presentations from some local environmental experts and passionate people at work in our churches and communities in various creative ways. We hope that they might inspire and equip you to take the next step for change yourselves. That might be to better understand the reasons for climate change, it may be to hear how to make environmental changes in the way you use resources in your home, in your church, in your life.

• Terry Sloan is a former professor of physics at Lancaster University and also a passionate environmentalist.
• Rosemary Riley headed up a project with her church in Lorton to achieve the A Rocha Gold Standard Eco-Church Award.
• Local poets will read some work inspired by a heart for the environment.
• Food Carlisle will be demonstrating how to begin to think about feeding ourselves in a low-carbon manner.

You will also be able to write on ‘ribbons’ a hope for what might be achieved at the summit and our pilgrim friends will deliver these on our behalf.

We’d love to see you there. Due to the provision of a low-carbon lunch, it is really helpful to us if you can register your intention to come by booking at this link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/camino-to-cop-low-carbon-lunch-and-climate-talks-tickets-168600100439

You can find out more about the pilgrims on their webpage https://caminotocop.com/ and if you’re inspired by the idea you could even walk with them for a day as they pass through the county. You can find out more from their webpage, but here is a summary list of their Cumbrian journey.

6 - 7^th Oct - Kirkby Lonsdale

8^th Oct - Sedburgh (Cornerstone Methodist Church)

9^th Oct - Tebay (Methodist Church)

10^th Oct - Crosby Ravensworth (Village Hall)

11^th Oct - Hackthorpe (?)

12^th Oct - Penrith (Friends Meeting House)

13^th Oct - Low Hesket (Village Hall)

14^th Oct - Carlisle (Wigton Rd Methodist Church

15^th Oct - 12:00 – 2:00 pm Climate Change Event, St Cuthbert’s Church

7 pm In Carlisle Wigton Rd Methodist Church watch & discuss Julia Dahr & Kisilu Musya's film promoted by Christian Aid “Thank You for the Rain”

(If you have any questions you can contact Jo Phillips, the Ecumenical Social Responsibility Officer at Churches Together in Cumbria – jo@churchestogethercumbria.org.uk )

Climate Sunday is an initiative originating from Churches Together in Britain & Ireland. It is calling on all local churches across Great Britain & Ireland to hold a climate-focused service on any Sunday before COP26 (November 2021). At this service, congregations are encouraged to make a commitment to greater action to address climate change in their own place of worship and community and to use their voice to tell politicians we want a cleaner, greener, fairer future at the heart of plans agreed during COP26.

Their vision is to leave a lasting legacy of thousands of churches better equipped to address this critical issue as part of their discipleship and mission and to make a significant contribution to civil society efforts to secure adequate national and international action at COP26.

There are tons of really good and easy-to-use resources on their webpage: https://www.climatesunday.org/service-resources .