The Grave Talk Project

Grave Talk – What Is It All About?

Over the past year, groups of All Saints Church members have begun gathering together to talk about death. No, we haven’t lost our minds, become depressed or run out of things to say. We are trying out a recent Church of England project, designed as a form of ministry for those of all faiths and none, to encourage people to break down the taboo around death. This project is called Grave Talk.

The idea is to get us talking about our feelings around loss, our own death, grief, what a ‘good’ funeral means to us etc. The hope is that taking part in the discussion will get us thinking and talking to our loved ones about our feelings and our ideas about funerals.

Some people took a bit of cajoling to join the first group and most of us felt some level of trepidation and scepticism. What were we doing there, and why would talking about death be a good idea?

Despite all our doubts within a matter of minutes there was a buzz of conversation and laughter running through the room. In fact, people were so keen, it was difficult to bring the session to a close. Now we get people asking when the next session will be.

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Resources

FREE YOUTH GROUP RESOURCE
The Children’s Society have produced a new church youth group resource. The sessions are built upon their first-hand knowledge of supporting young people, no matter what issues they may face. It contains six youth group sessions from a faith perspective to help youth workers unpack key topics such as identity, sexting, mental health, healthy relationships and life online, empowering your young people to support themselves and their peers.
Each session is aimed at 11-16 year olds and is around an hour and a half long but can be adapted. See www.childrenssociety.org.uk/youth

Making Ministry easier

brflogo_0_0_0[1] Making Ministry Easier :
Three new resources available from BRF to help resource Sunday services and church life.  

Help! It’s the All-Age Slot: 52 instant talk outlines for church services (details).

The No-Rehearsal Nativity : a church nativity resource with a difference (details).

Walking in Their Shadow : supporting children and young people through bereavement (details).

Soulscape

Soulscape empower young people to explore their own stories of faith, relationships and education, encouraging them to tell it their own way. To enable this they provide…

  • Personal stories, opinions research, and a variety of Christian perspectives on a whole range of issues for them to question challenge and formulate.

  • Creative safe spaces and activities outside the pressures of life that connect with their soul and develop their spiritual literacy.

  • Positive contexts for reviewing the story of education and tools to help make positive choices.

soulscapeRecently over 1000 children from across the Wokingham area have been part of the Mind the Gap project, helping children transition from primary to secondary school.

Soulscape’s purpose is to create space to explore life.

That means physical and mental  space, purposely  created in our schools, to go deeper than the superficial ‘stuff ‘ that bombards young people. Soulscape engages them in a much deeper conversation, that helps them search their soul in meaningful engaging ways. Helping them navigate the world in which they live and ask the big questions…

For more info visit their website http://soulscape.org.uk