Dementia Dimension
Dementia is the new dimension to the Enabling Church day conference coming up in the Birmingham area on 3 June 2014. Book now – there’s not long left for the Early Bird discounted price of £13.50.
In 20 years’ time, there’ll be more than half a million people in the UK aged 100 or over. A new report by the Alzheimer’s Society points to the ‘loneliness, alienation and segregation’ of many of our elderly people. But Professor John Swinton, minister of the Church of Scotland and chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at Aberdeen University, argues for a response to be found in the ‘key motifs’ of acceptance and belonging to be found in community.
‘A person’s spirituality has nothing to do with what they may or may not know. It has everything to do with who they know and how they relate to them,’ Professor Swinton writes in Friendship and Community in the textbook he has edited, Spiritual Dimensions of Pastoral Care.
The inclusive community of love
Professor Swinton will be a keynote speaker at a national conference in June which will address the Christian approach to a wide range of disabilities and disabling conditions. He describes the
need for ‘the open, inclusive community of love and acceptance which we find revealed and lived out in the ministry of Jesus.’ Click here to read an article on the subject by Prof Swinton.
The impressive line-up of Christian experts in different fields of disability also includes leading Christian psychotherapist Louise Morse, who believes that the secret of more contented ageing is found in the Bible.
‘Living by scriptural wisdom prepares us cognitively, emotionally and spiritually for contented old age,’ says Louise Morse. Ms Morse is media and communications manager for the Christian charity Pilgrims’ Friend Society and the author of books on dementia (published by Lion Monarch).
The Enabling Church: Everybody In!conference will look at the challenges faced by the UK Church in welcoming and including people with dementia, sight loss, hearing loss, intellectual disabilities, autism, loss of mobility; and it will also discuss how the Church supports carers.
The bigger picture
‘One in three of us will live with dementia in our later years,’ says conference organiser Dr Gordon Temple. ‘And when we look at the bigger picture we see that already 11 million people in the UK have a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability – that’s one in six of us, and a number which will continue to rise.’ Dr Temple is the executive officer of Churches for All, a network of 14 Christian organisations working alongside disabled people, as well as being CEO of Torch Trust, serving people with sight loss.
‘So it’s a very live issue for the Church to consider and to prepare for,’ adds Dr Temple. ‘How effectively does the local church reach out, connect with, welcome and include Deaf people or people with autism, for example? The latest Alzheimer’s Society report talks about people with dementia needing acceptance and understanding in the community to achieve a good life. That’s true for many people with different disabilities. There are people living nearby most of us who feel desperately lonely because they are losing their sight and there’s no one to take them to the local shops. There are mothers who feel isolated because they feel there’s little tolerance of their autistic children. We need to become a more caring society – and the Church can lead the way.’
‘The conference seeks to be unashamedly transformational as we bring these issues into the light. We hope that many churches will send representatives to listen and learn,’ said Dr Temple.
Enabling Church: Everybody in!takes place onJune 3rd at Bethel Convention Centre in West Bromwich, just off the M5 and near central Birmingham. For more information about the programme and the line-up of speakers and to book go to the Enabling Church page. ‘Early bird’ tickets (£13.50) can be booked now.