April 2010 - FX ARCHIVE...

Monks Road Threshold

When Carl and Sarah Belcher arrived in Lincoln after working for Eden in Salford, they spent six months praying and slowly realised God was calling them to work with vulnerable people in a needy area of the cathedral city. Soon a fresh expression of church was emerging.

The Monks Road district of Lincoln is very diverse with a mix of young professionals, older people who have lived in the area for years, newcomers from Eastern Europe and those who live there because the housing is affordable. Crime levels are high and indices of deprivation place it in the lowest 5%, making it one of the most challenging areas in the county.

Sarah and Carl realised there were established churches in the area and had no plans to start another, but by what Carl calls a 'happy accident' they began to meet with needy people who were struggling to engage with church as it is and had no background in the Christian faith at all.

According to Carl it is not easy to start a church, but neither is it complicated.

For us it has always been about making friends really, and asking what can we do to help on a very real and practical and relational level

he explained.

And from there, as people got on well with us, it was a matter of introducing them step by step to how God can impact their lives and make a difference as they became part of the Christian community here.

This fresh expression of church places a high level of importance on helping people in practical ways with housing, employment and life-style difficulties, without being judgemental. Carl and Sarah are 'tent-makers', leading the congregation but doing some paid work too.

The Threshold Monks Road congregation meets in small 'life groups' during the week and at a local YMCA centre on Sundays. Sarah says worship can sometimes be a bit chaotic, food is an important part of any gathering, and birthdays are always celebrated. And there is a refreshing degree of honesty and openness in all that happens. The small team that works with them is invaluable too.

Richard, who is in his twenties, says he is a different person, after having stumbled across Threshold in a local park. He has found faith and God has made a real difference to his life.

I have become happier, more cheerful, grown more in confidence and learnt to express myself a lot more,

he said.

Christine was homeless and widowed and life was very difficult. Then she heard about the new church and went along. She was baptised and said her life has been transformed. Life still isn't straightforward but her addiction problems are much less severe and she no longer goes out 'looking for fights'.

The congregation is steadily growing, as are individual members, but as Sarah explained, it is not easy being a church leader, however much they love and enjoy it, and living in an area like Monks Road. Carl and Sarah are also kept busy caring for their young twins.

A personal cost is part of starting a fresh expression. With anything God asks you to do, there is often a flip side to it. For family, for marriage, for things you often hope for or dream of, yes, there is a cost. But it's so worth it to see other people coming to know God,

she said.

And Sarah is very honest about the importance of setting a good example:

All the time we are conscious that we need to model the fact that God comes first, family second and church third. But trying to get that balance is very interesting!,

she added.

Nightchurch wedding

When Erika Davies and David Morgan met at NightChurch in Exeter Cathedral, little did they think that it would lead to marriage!

David had been a member of Exeter Network Church (ENC) when he was invited to join a new community meeting in the city's traditional centre of worship. Nightchurch, set up by the cathedral's then Canon Missioner Mark Rylands in 2007, was to offer a different way of 'doing' church on Friday nights within the medieval building. David explains:

I had worked with young people at ENC and was a volunteer with some homeless initiatives when I came to NightChurch, but it wasn't too long before my focus shifted away from youth projects to working with the homeless on a more regular basis. In the early days of NightChurch, we would get a brazier and have a fire at the front door of the cathedral to attract people in. After a few months it developed into a barbecue. I used to be a chef so it was natural for me to get involved in that!

It also led to a permanent job when a friend told me of a vacancy as manager of Big Issue Exeter office, and I got the job. I now oversee up to 75 vendors who sell Big Issue in and around the city.

The first time I met Erika was on one of our pioneer training meetings. We became friends very quickly, but it was no more than that. Then after about a year, we were at NightChurch when one of the Big Issue sellers I knew came up to me and said 'Is this your girlfriend?' We were very coy about it for quite a long time but it was when we were planning for a Good Friday event, and suddenly our planning session also felt like a date.

And so it went on until we proposed to each other on holiday. We decided our engagement should be private between us and God because we wanted our wedding to be at NightChurch, and so knew that would be a very public declaration. In saying that, we weren't sure whether it would be possible to get married there at all but as we met at Nightchurch, and were both very passionate about it, it made sense.

After checking it out, we found that we could not have a wedding after 6pm (only in exceptional circumstances can marriages take place outside the hours of 8am to 6pm). The plan is to have a wedding ceremony during the day at the Cathedral and then celebrate the marriage during NightChurch on 21st May at 8pm when we will be surrounded by family, friends, NightChurch regulars – and anyone else who happens to be visiting the Cathedral at the time. It will certainly be more open than most weddings, as we’ll have a lot of homeless guys and members of the public who will still be wandering in.

The bride-to-be spent three years on Mercy Ships before moving to Exeter in 2006. Her parents were part of the cathedral congregation and it wasn't long before Erika found herself preparing for the launch of NightChurch.

At first we'd all pitch in and do anything that needed doing but gradually I got more involved in the prayer side of things, and I became known as the 'candle lady' because I like to set up a prayer space with candles and so on. From that, it really crystallised into meditation.

As far as the wedding is concerned, it's wonderful because there are so many people who are really excited about it. It’s not about imposing what we want on NightChurch, instead it's nice to have the opportunity to share the preparations with many others. The problem with a lot of weddings is that you end up having to exclude people because you can’t afford to cater for them.

We'll have a wedding breakfast for close family and friends but there won’t be an official reception as such. Our celebration will allow us to share the experience in a different way. NightChurch is a special place and we want to reflect that on our special day.

Zac’s Place – update Apr10

Sanctus1

Ben Edson shares the story of always-incomplete community building with Sanctus 1 in Manchester.

I recently gave a presentation to some Australian visitors about Sanctus1. When it came to the time for questions one of them asked: 'How do you manage so much change?' I hadn’t realised that we had been through so much change, but now as I look back on seven years of Sanctus1 I realise that change is part of our narrative.

We have moved from a Cathedral to a parish church and now moved again to an arts café. We have seen the community grow from four to fifty; then from fifty to twenty and currently from twenty back to fifty. We have experimented with mid-week groups, small groups, groups on Sundays and no groups. We have been involved in running club nights, in mind body spirit fayres, in art exhibitions and a night café. Change is part of our story.

And perhaps, it is this sense of change that sustains us. Sanctus1 has been established for longer than many fresh expressions of church and it seems that as soon as the change stops we being to go stale. Fluidity is kinetic and change involves movement. If a fresh expression is to remain fresh it must keep moving, keep changing, keep evolving.

Each new person that comes to Sanctus1 changes the community; their unique presence brings a new dynamic, a new set of experiences and new areas of wisdom. This 'openness to the wisdom of the new' means that the old is permanently being refreshed.

As I have continued to reflect on the question posed by our Antipodean visitors I have realised that Sanctus1 is always provisional and will always be journeying towards being church. This is particularly emphasised by our geographic location in the City centre of Manchester, and the demographic of this people group, but it is also an ecclesiological stance that says we will never fully arrive. It seems when we think that we have arrived we discover that we are further away than we thought and that we have simply taken one step on our journey.

This context of provisionality raises many questions regarding future vision and planning. How can you have a plan for the future if the present is always provisional? Provisionality can be an empowering place to be, it means that present certainty does not define future dreams, but that future dreams define an uncertain present. An uncertain present creates space for creative thinking and action as we realise that the dreams for the future are, in fact, the dreams of today.

However, within this positive stance to provisionality how do we ensure that the story of Sanctus1 is carried into the future? One way that we think this has been achieved has been through the defining of our values.

The values need to remain provisional so that each person who comes to Sanctus1 feels that they can influence them so that they reflect the current community. Further evidence of our desire to carry the story of Sanctus1 forward is our desire to be structurally recognised through a Bishop's Mission Order, (BMO). A BMO has provisionality built into it – initially a BMO is for five years with the maximum time being ten years – structured provisionality. A certain short-term future and a positive stance to provisionality means that the present becomes an opportunity for missional engagement and connectivity with Christ.

Within this culture of provisionality the story-tellers and the story-carriers become very important as people who carry the narrative of Sanctus1 with them so that when the future is planned it remains consistent with the story of the past. It is often the case that the leader of a community becomes the central story-teller, however a less dependent and mores sustainable way is for the community to become a story-telling community.

When a community shares and lives the story they then they will go on to write the story, to start a new sentence and dream the next chapter. This has happened within Sanctus1 by the leadership being shared between a team of up to five people, with that team being a mix of clergy and laity; male and female. This team aims to be fluid enabling people to commit to it for an appropriate time-period rather than indefinitely. The story-tellers of Sanctus1 are then not only the leadership team but everyone involved in living the story of the community and serving the city centre of Manchester. To carry the story means to carry the centrality of word and sacrament, the affirmative yet critical approach to contemporary culture and mission as being central to our existence. There is of course a provisionality to this all, knowing that we are still journeying, still incomplete, still trying, still becoming church…

Exeter Network Church

Jon and Jo Soper tell us the story of Exeter Network Church, in the Church of England Diocese of Exeter. This network church is soon to make history as one of the first fresh expressions of church to become a Church of England Bishop's Mission Order. Jon and Jo explain all.

In August 2004 my wife Jo and I moved to Exeter from London to pursue a clear call from God to start a mission shaped charismatic church. We knew one couple there who knew others who were eager to do something. Our first gathering was a party in a garden and then we found a place to meet in the old dry house on the quay opposite a nightclub. We launched ourselves properly as the Exeter Network Church, (ENC) in January 2005.

Our approach has been to develop an outward focused culture and wean people off dependency on traditional pastoral leadership. We are doing this by encouraging everyone to be in a network. A network is a group of people with a name and a God-purpose and which is radically open to the people they are aiming to connect with. These can be very diverse; one of the first networks to get going is called 'Women Who Work For Themselves' (it does what it says on the tin) who meet once a month in a hotel and who support one another in the businesses in which they are involved. Most in the network are not part of church.

Many networks are social networks where you bring friends – salsa, surfing, poker; some are social action networks, such as the team which visits Dartmoor prison once a month; some are age related (children, teenagers, young adults); some are orientated towards discipling Christians, and a few are geographic, such as 'God and Chips', who showed Alpha DVDs in a chip shop during opening hours.

In addition to these, a few times a year we have 'Edge Sunday'. As a church we say we are aiming to be 'strong at the core, blurred at the edge'. On an 'Edge Sunday' we have no worship gatherings, but instead we go out into Exeter and around, looking to express the love of Jesus in creative ways.

At our last event we held a 'big giveaway' (instead of selling) at the car boot sale, which gave rise to interesting conversations, as well as having a team of people praying for people in the high street, cafes, and another team going to the prison. Some in ENC use 'Edge Sunday' to do their own personal blurred edge activity, like inviting their neighbour round for lunch which they have been meaning to do for months.

Networks and 'Edge Sunday' focus us on being intentional about seeing what the Spirit is doing around us and confidently joining in.

Since November 2007 we have been incorporated into the Diocese of Exeter and are about to be made a Bishop's Mission Order, (BMO). One of the most helpful aspects of the BMO is having a Visitor (ours is the Bishop of Crediton). He supports us, visits us at least twice a year and asks us pertinent questions which help us think through what we are doing.

Our prayer is always that God will raise up a confident, creative, passionate and determined church which will be good news to everyone who encounters it.

The ARK

The ARK is a place where children and their families can learn about Jesus and explore their faith. Established in 2007 in Newmains, The ARK has since grown significantly and is aiming to make a real difference to the people of the area. Shona Stirling explains more.

We currently have 80 kids on our register and also run something called Oasis for adults, and a youth cell group for those in the first three years of secondary school. Plans are also in the pipeline for a new community project focussed on out of school support.

Oasis runs alongside The ARK in a cafe church style to give everyone the opportunity to learn about God's love, have fellowship and meet new friends over a cuppa.

Our support churches are Coltness Memorial Church and Bonkle Church; they are linked churches in that they have one minister but two of everything else. There has always been a real history of kids' work here but, over the last 10 years or so that work had started to decline. There were all sorts of reasons – changes in family life, different pressures on families, regulars getting older and a decline in the number of young families attending.

I was trying to make things more family friendly but was banging my head against a brick wall. Why did the numbers drop? Basically because we didn't have any influence at all with the kids in the village. As a result we decided to run a holiday club and see what happened, on the back of that we ran a kids' Alpha in the church at the same time as the adult course.

From that we established a core congregation of kids who were really interested, or who had come to faith from Alpha. We launched The ARK as a Tuesday night congregation, but from the beginning we made it clear that this was not an outreach from those meeting on a Sunday morning.

Sundays were definitely not the best time for something new as we've got a lot of single parent families in the area, and kids are either with the other parent at the weekend or the parent wanted to take them somewhere else. As everywhere now, there are also a lot of football clubs and sports clubs so there were lots of tired parents about. They were running around six days a week and, quite understandably, didn’t want to get up early on a Sunday.

It wasn't long before the Tuesday night sessions at Coltness Memorial Hall also had some of the parents coming along as well. They were using The ARK to dip their toe in the water, with the result that we had increasing numbers of adults there.

After another tranche of Alpha on a Tuesday, several parents formed a group to meet on a Tuesday night. For the children, we started off as being for five to 12-year-olds; then it became five to 13, and now it’s five to 14. We have grown up with them!

A particular challenge is trying to bridge the gap for kids between singing and worship. Traditionally we are very strong on sung worship in church but not everyone likes to sing. I do teach sung worship to kids and I do expect that we should sing but I also recognise that there are lots of people who express themselves differently.

We went on to introduce flags because some of our boys who hate singing really love flags. We are not getting it 100% right all the time by any means but we do talk about worship as a response to Jesus, and emphasise that worship can be done in a variety of ways. We say that if we want to respond by singing quietly, that’s fine, but there are all sorts of other expressions too. Some of our boys breakdance and some choose to just sit quietly or to use sign language instead of singing.

At least once a term we also have an all age get-together when we ask the children to invite anyone who lives in their house. The format there is a bit like Messy Church where there is some kind of teaching as well as craft activity.

We use the whole building at Coltness Memorial Church. For a while we did meet in a local café and developed great links with the Muslim owner and his family. Sadly his business faced real difficulties and we couldn’t use the café any more but our friendship with him goes on.

In the next stage we aim to have premises of our own. The church is currently on the periphery of the parish, which has about 3,500 people. Our vision is to move The ARK lock, stock and barrel into the middle of the village from where we could run a community venture, and provide other groups for children’s activities – both spiritual and otherwise. ARK is also working closely with Newmains Primary School and Morningside Primary School to offer a number of clubs for children and their parents.

We have a building in mind so we've been working on a feasibility study and business plan. Both churches are very closely involved in the future plans, and it’s exciting to see!

Fresh expressions of church have always been there but in our traditional congregations we have often become so comfortable with what we're doing that we forget there is any other valid way to 'do' church. As far as we're concerned, the whole fresh expressions thing is about blessing the community, not trying to do the hard sell and convince them that we know what’s best but simply to demonstrate the love of Jesus to those currently outside traditional church circles.

Street Church

Street Church in Northampton welcomes up to 90 vulnerable and homeless people at its weekly get-togethers. David Bird describes how Christians from various denominations work together in developing the work and ministry of this growing fresh expression of church.

Our early experience of homeless people here at St Giles involved them coming along to Alpha courses for the free food before disappearing pretty quickly. They'd also turn up on the doorstep of the vicarage and I would have a chat with them. At one point, a guy came along with a spiritual understanding of God who asked me to pray for him; at that point I knew that I had to do more than offer him a cup of tea and a sandwich.

A member of the congregation is involved with the Hope Centre, a project that serves what is quite a large homeless community in the Northampton area. When one of the community died, it was a social services funeral and none of the rest of the people who knew him from the streets had any idea when it was or what had happened.

They wanted to have some sort of memorial service and the Hope Centre volunteer asked if I would go in and do something for them. About 50 people turned up to that. It wasn't a recognisable service as such, but we played his favourite music, talked about what he was like as a person, and they lit candles to remember him.

A lot of homeless people find Sunday the most difficult day of the week because there is nothing open specifically for them so we got together with other churches to arrange a weekly Street Church drop-in service from 1.30pm to about 3pm. It takes place at the Salvation Army Northampton Central Corps community hall, and the majority of helpers are from St Giles but there are also people from Kingdom Life New Frontiers International Church, the Salvation Army, the Roman Catholic Church, and another Anglican Church. Each takes it in turn to provide the all-important catering.

We use multi-media material from The Work of the People, an American organisation which highlights Christian issues – usually through visual images rather than words. There is very little 'preaching' as such, it's more a case of sharing testimonies and stories but a lot of it is one-to-one relational stuff. We also invite guests to come along and sing to us as performance worship. Some of the homeless have got musical gifts too so they're also getting more involved in that now.

Every six weeks or so we offer pampering when people get their nails and hair cut. Some prostitutes also come in and we do their nails too, just to serve them and show that we care.

Street Church began in Easter 2008, and some of the people later started coming to our traditional church service in the evening as well. One man who did that now wants to be baptised. I have been quite precious about it in some ways because it feels like something that is both the work of God and a tender plant. The direction we want to take it in is to help these vulnerable people get a lot more stability in their lives, and set up mentoring for a number of individuals.

As ever, money plays a key role because the project is being run entirely by volunteers at the moment though we have recently applied for a grant for a part-time worker. It is nothing like church as many would think of church. You can't ask our regulars to give by Direct Debit for example, and that means it will never be self-supporting. Instead we see it as part of our mission to Northampton, our church supports it and other churches support it in that way.

It is tough work but worth it because there is a huge mix of people at Street Church. Some of those are kids thrown out of their own homes by their families; they can be into drink or drugs so that can be quite difficult. There is a guy called Dancing Joe who always turns up smartly dressed though a bit 'crinkled' round the edges, and there are quite a few Eastern Europeans who have had jobs in the past but are now sleeping rough.

One of our volunteers is an ex-Army guy, and he deals with a number of men who have come out of the forces and – for one reason or another – just can't cope.

I often say that many of the homeless we deal with are no different than anyone else; it's just that their sin and their weakness are much more obvious than other people's. Those who come to faith at Street Church and begin to sort their lives out often say they no longer want to be part of the community because they are keen to move on. That's understandable but some have remained and carried on helping as volunteers and that's a very powerful message to those who come. It says, 'just because I live on the streets doesn't mean I will always live on the streets. Just because I haven't got my life sorted out now doesn't mean that it will always be that way.' It gives them hope.

Reconnect

Known and loved by many as a tourist hotspot on the Dorset coast, Poole is also home to missional community Reconnect. The community, which has been meeting in the area since September last year, celebrated its commissioning in a town centre café in March. Revd Paul Bradbury, Pioneer Minister for Poole Town Centre and Hamworthy, and Community Leader of Reconnect, explains more.

Reconnect's intention, our vision, right from the start was very much to see people become Christians from an unchurched background. We are still finding out what happens after that. Reconnect may help to create new communities for these people, or perhaps they will ultimately feed into existing churches, or join us. We are not sure really, but we do know that we are open to what the Spirit is saying, and are working closely with other churches in a bid to do what God wants us to do.

When I became Pioneer Minister in September 2008, the then Bishop of Sherborne, Tim Thornton, conducted the licensing ceremony at St James' Church, Poole Old Town and then on the Quay. We walked from the church in a bit of a rabble down to the seafront where there was an exchange of symbols – I was given a bucket of seeds and a fishing net to represent the Kingdom and the work I'm doing.

On 21st March, the Bishop, Dr Graham Kings, came and commissioned us as a community at a café in the town. We had about 70 people there and started off with some children's activities before the bishop led the commissioning and we signed the rule of life – something we had been developing in our meetings since Christmas by looking at Acts and the gospels to find out what it means to be a community of disciples. The rule was signed by all the community and the commissioning was essentially a commitment by us all to seek to live the life expressed in the rule.

We organise felt making sessions as part of our outreach activity, and we made felt 'stones' on the commissioning day to be included in a prayer cairn. People came up and prayed for Reconnect as they put down one of the stones. The bishop also seemed to enjoy the day, even having his face painted (after the ceremony!)

The vision to gather together a missional community emerged after six months of prayer and listening, and Reconnect came into being in September 2009.

As Pioneer Minister to central Poole, my area includes the town centre and lower Hamworthy. This area is undergoing large amount of development and a huge proportional increase in population. It's a relatively small area, ranging from a small housing estate which is in one of the most deprived wards in England to converted warehouse apartments whose owners have a yacht just off the Quay. Tourism is also a major factor with people coming to work here, usually seasonally, from all over the country.

We see Reconnect as a shop window to say Church is not just about Sunday mornings, it's about many other things. Our aim for Sundays is to meet in such a way that our energy can be put into making friends with non-Christians in the area and serve the community. One of the most effective ways so far has been to clean the local beach a couple of times! It was an easy thing for us to go and do. The first time we did it we had various people ask us what were we doing, and the second time we had four local residents come and join us to help.

Avenues for mission that we are exploring include workplace ministry, a felt-making group and a grow-your-own project on a small housing estate. As a community we are generally nomadic, quite deliberately so, as that offers a chance for people to reflect on where they are in this journey. But it soon became clear that people felt they needed a place as a focus, a place to meet that is central to our mission.

We have a monthly pattern of meeting one Sunday in a local school, the second Sunday in our homes, third Sunday 'out and about' serving the community and fourth Sunday worshipping at other local churches. We dub this 'Festival' Sunday when Reconnect regulars go to a church somewhere else. We can't provide the experience of a bigger church, worshipping in a larger fellowship, so we say go and enjoy that experience and feed back into Reconnect. We also meet as adults on a Tuesday evening to worship, pray and explore our mission and community values together.

Funding was made available for three years, and I'm very aware how things take time to come to fruition. At the moment, we are really just feeling our way but we remain very committed to laying down firm foundations for a community. We aim to be invitational and participative in everything we get involved in, and work towards living out that rule of life which will provide us with our core values and shape all we do.

Loving Hands

Knit one, purl one, create a fresh expression of church in the Warrington Methodist Circuit. Support worker Sue Jackson explains how the simple idea of knitting groups has led to a loving community wanting to help those around them and find out more about faith.

How wonderful to be paid for something you love doing, what a gift from God! To start off, we had heard of a similar initiative operating in Ellesmere Port and we visited it. We were amazed by what we saw because it was so vibrant. We developed the resources they gave us, and incorporated the devotional at the end of the time together. Now it's simply church on a Thursday afternoon, and we love it.

It's fantastic to see that church taking shape as people come together, enjoy time together and with God, and create something that really makes a difference. I get my knitting devotions by going online; Christians around the world are doing similar things and there are some inspirational studies to use.

People's lives have been transformed by Loving Hands. One of our members, Robin, first came along with his wife Eileen. She duly gave him some needles and wool to knit a square, but he quickly moved on to lacy blankets and all sorts of things. Robin is well known locally as a choirmaster but found himself unable to conduct while awaiting hip replacement surgery, he was glad to put his hands to good use by knitting instead.

A lady turned up and asked me to teach her to knit. I helped her to cast on, and she told me that I wasn't doing it correctly! She then said she had been a knitter when she was younger but hadn't done anything for years. Next time I saw her she was knitting quite a complicated basket weave blanket. Now the lady who 'couldn't knit' is on the internet all the time learning new stitches and teaching them to everyone else.

When people arrive they have a rummage through the wool and needles and patterns we've got and then decide where the results of their efforts are going to go. We've done things for the Mission to Seafarers, and the Children of Honduras Trust, but we've also knitted lots of fingerless gloves for all the local ministers…

We meet on alternate weeks at Lymm Methodist Church hall, Eagle Brow, Cheshire, and the Ryfields Retirement Village, Warrington. One 95-year-old lady, who is registered blind, said she hadn't knitted for 'donkey's years' and feels her life has been transformed by this simple act. We've also got a knitting corner in the coffee shop at Padgate, where people knit squares for blankets while they chat, eat and drink.

If we know of anyone who has been bereaved or ill, or could do with a bit of comfort, the Lymm group make them a scarf and send it with a card. Every time they are feeling lonely or desperate, they wrap these scarves around their necks or cuddle them.

One lady took three scarves to friends who were unwell. She said to me:

Now I understand. I knew we were a group knitting things for charity, but I didn't see the bigger picture until I took those scarves to people who needed them. One of my friends wrapped it around herself straight away; it was so comforting and meant so much to her. It's not the knitting, it's not knitting at all, it's God.

Methodist minister Revd Jackie Bellfield is thrilled at the church's development.

Knitting is one of those things that used to be very commonplace, and every family had someone who could create that much-needed jumper or baby outfit. Then it went out of fashion as people bought ready-made items off the shelf but now it's making a comeback, and Loving Hands is part of the revival.

What started as an opportunity to create knitted goods for charities and community groups has developed into a place where people talk, share their problems, pray and take part in a short devotion. Church in a new sense has emerged, and it’s about a lot more than people getting together and having a chat.

The group makes all sorts of things, including items for the local premature baby care unit, and the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, Sands. As a result of that, some of the women in the church have talked about miscarriages and stillbirths they suffered 40 or 50 years ago. These are things they have never talked about before, and would never have talked about to this day without Loving Hands. That can only come from God.

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