Lichfield Cathedral Becomes a Healthy Healing Hub
In partnership with The Guild of Health and St. Raphael, Lichfield Cathedral has become a Healthy Healing Hub, offering support for health and wellbeing to the local community and empowering other organisations within the Diocese to do the same.
Central to the cathedral’s focus for 2022 and beyond, this partnership will put the needs of the community and diocese in prime position, seeking to ‘recover together’ following the traumatic circumstances of the last few years.
As a Gold-Tier Healthy Healing Hub, Lichfield Cathedral seeks to serve as a centre of excellence and training.
The Rev’d Canon Dr David Primrose says: “The ministry of healing and wholeness is at the centre of our life as a Cathedral. We have recently embarked on a journey to become a Healthy Healing Hub, with training and resources from the Guild of Health and St Raphael. We are sharing this with colleagues from other local churches, looking forward to taking part in the Sanctuary Mental Health course in the autumn.”
As part of this initiative Lichfield Cathedral is working towards being a dementia friendly cathedral, including the first dementia-friendly service taking place on 20 May. They will also be partnering with other organisations to help young people cope with periods of mental distress, building on the success of the Kickstart scheme that saw Lichfield Cathedral facilitating in 30 young unemployed people finding valuable work placements.
The scheme goes further than providing practical support and training, it will also mean that all aspects of Cathedral life, events and worship will have an important role to offer hope and healing – two of Lichfield Cathedral’s core values.
“We are committed to the Cathedral itself being a place of healing, offering visitors opportunities to pray and to experience hope and peace during difficult times. Silence and beauty combine to nurture the soul. Services of worship include prayers for the wellbeing of all.
We are in active conversation with several local partners so that we can work collaboratively together to ensure that the services we provide are part of a wider network of support for people at all stages and in all conditions of life,” Canon David continues.
Lichfield Cathedral has also been working with A Rocha on all aspects of how the cathedral cares for the environment, having received an Eco Church Bronze Award in 2021 and currently working towards to the Silver Award.
Canon David says: “In the grounds outside the Cathedral, we are caring for creation in ways which enable people to encounter the presence of God, offering spaces for enhancing wellbeing outside as well an inside the Cathedral.”
The Rev’d Dr Gillian Straine, CEO of The Guilde of Health and St. Raphael, the organisation behind Healthy Healing Hubs, remarked: “At this time, with rising levels of trauma and grief in the wake of the pandemic, churches have a unique opportunity to reach out to those in need. Churches can offer a place where our mental, physical and spiritual health can be cared for. Science has shown that our spiritual health is part of our overall health, and indeed that our physical and mental health can be improved when we engage in community activities, spend time in prayer and contemplation and seek meaning.
I am delighted to announce Lichfield Cathedral as the first Gold-Tier Healthy Healing Hub and I am confident that the training, resources and support that we offer can help offer hope and wellbeing to a whole community and the wider Diocese of Lichfield.”
For more information on what Lichfield Cathedral is doing as part of the Healthy Healing Hub initiative, visit www.lichfield-cathedral.org/hhh
About The Guild of Health and St. Raphael
Since 1905, The Guild of Health and St Raphael has been working at the interface of science, theology and human experience to explore the potential of Christian spiritual healing. We are the oldest organisation in the UK working in the field of Christian healing.
We continue today through events, networks and resources to enable individuals and churches to find wholeness and healing for self and community, and to work together for the flourishing of all of creation.
https://gohealth.org.uk