I was delighted to be invited to speak at the Spiritual Care Forum today. Here’s what I said….
Good morning. Thank you so much for the invitation to speak here today. I’m going to talk a bit about why spiritual care is important to me and what it looks like in my community.
My first job after graduating with a degree in Community Education way back in 1994 was as a detached youth worker in Carluke, trying to build relationships with young people who didn’t access other youth provision and who were at risk of offending.
From there I went to the Church of Scotland as their youth development officer, before leading their Adult Learning provision. My last job before this one was as a development officer working with people who worked with children and young people for the United Reformed Church. Both those jobs were about capacity building. I was all about enabling others.
Between those two jobs I spent a couple of years working for NHS Lanarkshire as Youth Health Development Officer for the Clydesdale and Motherwell LHCCs. It was a fascinating experience. Everyone I worked with was brilliant. I worked with all these fantastic people but I wasn’t a doctor or a nurse so nobody had any real idea what to do with me. At the same time I didn’t really have the experience or the language to help them understand the contribution I thought I could make.
That job was my first real exposure to the tension between a service that talked about health but was, in reality, almost completely oriented around the treatment of illness or the prevention of disease.
I’m very, very glad that the NHS treats people who are ill and that many of you here today are incredibly skilled are helping people to recover when something goes wrong. But as a youth worker I didn’t really fit into that service because I couldn’t provide treatment to anyone. But someone somewhere thought it was a good idea to have people like me working in a health service because I think we all would much prefer if people kept well in the first place.
But what does that have to do with a minister in a church in a small town nestled in almost rural Lanarkshire?
None of us has simply arrived here today as only the job we do now. We bring all of that and I hope that we draw on it all. I’ve been a youth worker, a trainer, an assessor, a college lecturer and a student all at the same time but I also love football and golf, music and films and travelling. I’ve brought all of that and so much more into my current job… along with my spirituality, my beliefs and my values. I believe Ewan Kelly would call that my vocational canon.
9 years ago, just as I started my training for ministry, there was a TEDx conference in Glasgow on the theme of ‘The Common Wealth’. One of the speakers was Scotland’s former Chief Medical Officer, Sir Harry Burns.
As he is prone to do, Sir Harry immediately usurped the theme. The Common Wealth is a term that sounds like it is about money. But if you go back to the Scots you get the idea of the common weal…. and that means ‘communal wellbeing’, the idea that our wellbeing is dependant on the whole community, not just on our Gross Domestic Product, although money and wellbeing are, sadly, not entirely separate.
Sir Harry had noticed that his patients in the East End of Glasgow took a day or so longer to heal from the surgeries he performed than those patients he had performed the same operation on who were from more affluent areas. He wondered why that should be the case?
Poor diet, smoking and increased alcohol intake didn’t explain it all. So what was it? This question sent him on a journey of discover that changed his understanding of wellbeing… and his 16 minute talk in turn heavily influenced my understanding of what the job of a minister should be.
Sir Harry spoke about turning our view of healthcare upside down. Instead of avoiding or treating illness he spoke about what actually causes wellness.
His discovery then was perhaps something I think most of us now take for granted, that living with chronic stress is bad for us.
The sociologist Aaron Antonovsky suggests if our lives are not comprehensible, manageable and meaningful then we will experience chronic stress. That can look like all kinds of things from chaotic relationships, lack of work, poverty, threat of violence, addictions… And chronic stress has a catastrophic effect on our wellbeing. We have come to understand this is especially true for children in what we know as ACES, Adverse Childhood Experiences.
I’m privileged to currently serve as the chaplain to the Boys Brigade in the UK & ROI. This is the BB’s 140th year, founded not far from here in Glasgow by a man who was concerned about the lives of young people. Last week the BB published a piece of research conducted for us by Youthscape, a Christian Youth Work agency. The research explores being young in 2023. To be honest, it makes pretty grim reading. In a post-covid world our young people are struggling more than ever.
Youthscape report ‘The last decade has seen rising rates of probable mental health disorders, but much smaller increases in rates of diagnosis – possibly the result of services being unable to cope with the number of referrals they receive.
Rates of self-harm have also increased (both self-reported and hospitalisation rates) as have the number of counselling sessions/ referrals by Childline related to suicidal feelings, thoughts, or concerns. Despite this, suicide rates remain stable, suggesting that community support and talking therapies may be helping young people with their mental health.’
Youthscape identified four key areas where faith-based organisations like the Boys’ Brigade could make a significant impact. These are expressed in the language of the Christian faith community but I think they apply equally to all faiths and in fact anyone who takes spiritual care seriously because they are, I think, really actually about good spiritual care.
The BB and others help by:
- Providing access to faith-based youth work in disadvantaged areas where young people currently have less opportunity than their more affluent peers to experience faith and spirituality in a youth setting.
- Modelling the inclusive nature of the Kingdom of God, helping to equip young people to reach across the divisions in our society and to experience the hope, freedom, and community that life in Christ brings.
- Providing safe and inclusive spaces within local communities where young people can be encouraged and supported to build authentic relationships with trusted adults who provide a non-judgemental and compassionate ear.
- Empowering young people to believe in themselves and their God-given potential, providing opportunities for them to develop leadership skills and supporting them to encourage and build up each other.
This research is really nothing new. But then good research almost never is because good research usually confirms what we already think might be true.
When I was a youth worker my job was to try and make recommendations like these ones a reality for the young people I worked with. As a minister I think my job is to do the same, just to do that for people of all ages because the struggles of young people extend into adulthood. People are more lonely than ever before and living isolated lives impacts our wellbeing.
It seems like a small thing, but one of the first things I did when I arrived at St Ninian’s was to change the logo. I’m not sure anyone was all that bothered or understood why. I don’t even remember asking anyone if it was ok. Our logo is now our church name with leaves… visible signs of flourishing, growth appearing and visible… but the leaves are not all the same… because neither are we.
But what does that encouragement to flourish look like?
For me it means addressing the three areas Antonovsky identifies.
How can we help people to have lives are comprehensible, manageable and meaningful?
If you want some theological language for that then perhaps ‘love God, and love your neighbour as yourself’ might point us in the right direction?
Spirituality and religion are not the same thing, but religion and the practices associated with it can provide a platform for that spirituality.
Some of that happens in the religious activities of our church. I hope that people find our worship and teaching gives them a spiritual framework that is helpful with practices which address things like gratitude and forgiveness. Alongside this we provide a range of spaces where people can address their own spiritual needs, like our monthly Night Church where we open the church to anyone who wants or needs to spend some time in the quiet of our sanctuary…
For me it’s really important to tell you that it’s just as important that we have a food bank where we help meet the needs of those in the community who struggle to buy food and power each week. That’s an issue of physical wellbeing but also meets a spiritual need. Providing for the most basic of people’s needs is an issue of dignity and worth. Those are spiritual things.
I wonder if any of you are fans of New Amsterdam on TV? Or maybe you get enough hospital drama at work? Max Goodwin is the chief of the fictional New Amsterdam public hospital in New York. Max’s leadership mantra is pretty simple… ‘How can I help?’ I try to do the same.
‘How can I help?’ is not the same as ‘what can I do for you?’. ‘How can I help?’ is much more about ‘what can we do together?’
How can I contribute to what you are doing?
How can I support you and enable you?
So often our approach to problem solving is exactly that… we problematise things. Worse, we problematise people as though they are solely responsible for the circumstances they find themselves in. We seem to have a Home Secretary that thinks homelessness is a lifestyle choice. I did some policy analysis work around housing in my Masters degree. I’m pretty sure she’s wrong. So is everyone who actually knows anything. Spiritual Care is about policy change too.
At the moment I’m studying for another Masters, this time in Contemporary Christian Leadership. Society is going though some massive changes and so is the church. I want to try to understand that. It’s a fascinating romp through complexity theory and change management but last year I had to do a module called ‘Health and Healing’. I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect. The church has a long and checkered relationship with the idea of health and healing and I wasn’t sure what I was getting into.
It turned out to be a brilliant. Dr Gillian Straine of the Guild of Health and St Rafael explored the role the church can and should play in public health. Along the way she recommended a book by Sandro Galea. The book is called ‘Well’. I hope some of you have read it. He explores the multitude of factors that impact the health of the population.
The chapter headings give an insight into how Galea pulls together the whole of our lives into a manifesto for better public health. He writes about the impacts of the past, money, power, politics, place, people, love and hate, compassion, knowledge, humility, freedom, choice, luck, the public good, fairness and justice, pain and pleasure, death, and of our values…. All of them impacting our wellbeing.
This chimes with my community work training and I’m drawn to the work of Cormac Russell and those like him who have been working on what they term Asset-Based Community Development. Some of you might know this as Appreciative Enquiry. Rather than problematising, this approach starts from a position of asset. Instead of what is lacking or broken, it asks what do we have? Who do we have? What skills to they have? What’s good here?
OK, now we know that… let’s start there and build from what we are good at, learning and developing capacity as we go. It begins from a position that values people. It then seeks to help make their world comprehensible, manageable and meaningful.
So, when I ask, ‘How can I help?’ I know the answer to that question is both simple and incredibly complex at the same time. I’m really asking ‘What do we have? Who is here? What skills do we have? Where can we start together to build from here?
Let me give you a couple of examples:
There are two things we do at St Ninian’s that on first glance look quite similar. We have a coffee morning every Tuesday morning and The Hope Cafe meets in our church halls every second Thursday.
The coffee morning is run by volunteers from the church and it does exactly what you imagine. There is coffee and tea and cake and people come and see their pals. The same people come most weeks and they sit in the same places. And then they go home. And that is hugely valuable.
The Hope Cafe is a wellbeing cafe and it is not a church organisation. It’s also run by volunteers, most of whom have either experienced mental ill health or are or have been caring for someone who has been unwell. The Hope Cafe provides low cost food and conversation alongside complimentary therapies like neck and shoulder massage.
I want to say at this point that if that was all the Hope Cafe did then that would be worth it. We should never underestimate how vital safe spaces like the coffee morning and the Hope Cafe are. Anywhere people can come together, are warm, comfortable and anywhere you can eat good cake should be encouraged.
These are places that help make our lives comprehensible and manageable. They are regular and predictable. They provide structure to our week and consistent social interaction.
During the Covid lockdowns when I was out walking our two dogs… not a single person asked me when our church services would restart. They all asked when the Tuesday coffee morning and Hope Cafe were opening.
I could have been offended that people weren’t desperate to come and listen to my sermons… but instead I want to suggest that their desire for meeting with friends means we should take the contribution to our spiritual and physical wellbeing of these types of activities much more seriously than we perhaps do.
But I also want to say that the coffee morning and the Hope Cafe are not equal in their contribution to spiritual wellbeing. So, what makes the Hope Cafe different from the coffee morning? I think it’s that third element Antonovsky identifies… meaning.
In some ways simply by calling it a ‘mental health and wellbeing cafe’, The Hope Cafe becomes a place of meaning to people.
For the volunteers, it is a place where they can help others. They know that they have permission, actually not just permission, they are actively encouraged to share their experiences of both being well and being unwell. The Hope Cafe has created an environment where it is ok not to be ok… and its also ok to be ok. It’s a place where the stigma around mental illness is challenged and a place that sees well-being as the spectrum of experience it is for all of us.
They did that by working with partners like St Ninian’s, Lanarkshire Links and the See Me anti-stigma campaign and Hope Cafe makes a hugely important contribution to our community.
But Hope Cafe goes beyond even that.
Alongside the rolls and sausage, the best home-made crumpets in the world, and challenging stigma and social perceptions, there are activities like a reading group and flower arranging.
It makes me smile that I’m not even sure the Hope Cafe volunteers always know how important these kinds of activities are.
How many places are there where most people can you share their thoughts about a poem or a book in a place where those thoughts will be valued?
How many places are there where you can learn a new skill and be creative, even when you don’t feel great about yourself, but you can take the risk because you know that everyone else in that room gets it?
The people around the table have been where you are.
There a story that pops up in many guises in many places but my favourite version of it is in the TV show The West Wing. So, with my apologies to any doctors and priests in the room…
“This guy is walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.
A doctor passes by. The guy shouts up ‘Hey you! Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down into the hole, and moves on.
Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, “Father, I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.
Then a friend walks by. “Hey Joe! It’s me! Can you help me out?” And the friend jumps down in the hole!
Our guy says “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here!”
The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out!” “
The West Wing
The final part of the Hope Cafe jigsaw of support is a fortnightly peer support group, another great example of partnership working.
My job in this is was to ask ‘how can I help?’
This time I could help by providing access to a warm space, some gentle encouragement, and an introduction of Bob, the chair of Hope Cafe and Jenna from Lene on Me. Both Jenna and Bob are here today and I’d like to take this opportunity to tell them how much I value what they do. They both regularly jump down into the hole with people.
Interestingly the peer support group used to meet in the church hall. As I said, Hope Cafe is not a religious organisation but one Thursday evening something else was on in the hall so we asked if for one week the peer support group might be ok to meet in the church. They did, and a fortnight later they asked if they could meet in the church every week. They like the space… And for my part, I think there is absolutely something sacred happening when strangers meet around a table to share their concerns with each other and when we allow others to support us.
Being heard, being listened to, and being able to offer support which is valued brings the meaning Antonovsky speaks about.
I started by telling you about Harry Burns’ TED talk. You should watch it… but just in case you don’t get round to it I’ll tell you his discovery at the end.
Guess what causes wellness? Guess what the antidote to chronically stressful lives is…
The one thing that makes the biggest difference… is love.
It turns out spiritual care is at the very heart of wellness.
That’s what we try to do at St Ninian’s. I’m delighted to say that we have a growing relationship with the Spiritual Care team and that our local GPs now signpost people to both the Hope Cafe and to St Ninian’s church, depending on what their spiritual needs are.
We want that to continue and we’re excited about what part we can play in improving the spiritual care of our community so that everyone can live lives that are comprehensible, manageable and meaningful… lives filled with love.