Inclusive worship blesses Blakeney

All Saints’ Church in Blakeney has been building a creative partnership with Yew Tree House and The Shalom Network to find simple, meaningful ways to co-create worship that becomes more accessible for people with a range of additional needs.

Their recent carol service and the national recognition that followed shows how this growing community is creating a place where everyone can join in, contribute and worship together.

When Bishop Rachel led worship in Blakeney recently, she admired the prayer tree created by members of their additional needs community from Yew Tree House.

Yew Tree House is a residential facility for adults with a range of cognitive and/or physical additional needs situated next door to the church, and residents and carers form an important part of the regular congregation in All Saints’ Blakeney.

“Yew Tree House has been part of the regular worshipping community at the church for a number of years,” said the Revd Gilly Traverse, Pioneer Curate for the benefice of Newnham with Awre and Blakeney. “Closer links with The Shalom Network have developed over the past couple of years and we have hosted some of their gatherings, to which all are welcome.

“We know how important it is for people to have a safe and welcoming space in which to gather, to share food, friendship and times of worship, and together we are committed to finding ways to widen the scope of this opportunity to host these groups in our church.”

Soon after the event, the group received an award from their National Care Group leaders for their work in collaborating to help create this inclusive service.

Gilly said: “The team at Yew Tree House work consistently hard to provide a caring and inclusive environment for all their residents. This award serves as recognition both of the positive impact of this level of care and of the partnership with All Saints’ in giving a sense of belonging and increasing visibility of this people group within the community.”

The partnership with the wider members of the community and other inclusive faith networks can be an option for other churches to consider when seeking to make their services more accessible and participatory, Gilly explained:

“Our partnership with these groups is about facilitating worship alongside those who have a range of additional needs within our community – ‘being with’ and not doing ‘to’ or ‘for’.  Everyone has the opportunity to be involved – reading, suggesting songs for worship and creating appropriate and creative opportunities for prayer, and for our larger events, we link together in planning the shape of gatherings.  Food is always an important element.

“We are always working towards making those offerings and our Sunday services more accessible.  For example, we produce visual timetables for our gatherings, and add these images into our screen and order of service.

“We have found that good communication allows us to understand needs better and enables us to work together to find appropriate solutions to engage with, to share and – importantly – to receive from the faith spirituality that Yew Tree House and Shalom Network bring to our community.”