Spotlight on a church

C3 UnitedLife Sutton Central is one of ,any churches across the UK using Lifewords resources within their outreach and support groups.

Recently, UnitedLife were the recipients of two Little Bricks of Little Books, one for their Kintsugi Hope wellbeing sessions and their regular “Coffee and Conversations” events.

Kintsugi Hope – its name inspired by the Japanese technique for repairing pottery with seams of gold – is a charity with a vision to grow a movement of wellbeing groups where people who struggle or who have felt overwhelmed can experience a safe and supportive space. Kintsugi Hope groups work in communities through the local church with an attitude of humility, not seeking to judge, fix or rescue, but to come alongside and love one another.

Katherine shared: “The Little Books have been so popular that one of the Little Bricks was empty within a week. Kintsugi Hope explores depression, anxiety, forgiveness and loss along with other themes, so the Little Books of Joy, Chaos and Help have been particularly popular in this context.”

The Little Books are made available at each of UnitedLife’s Kintsugi Hope sessions. We loved having the Little Brick available for people to look through in the café too, and many choose to take with them a Little Book that resonates with their context.

Katherine continued:

There is a diversity of people and experiences in the London Borough of Sutton with pockets of people who are experiencing high levels of poverty. We find that a number of people attend both our Kintsugi sessions and our debt support (run in partnership with Christian Against Poverty/CAP) due to the overlap in their experience of debt and poor mental health.

The team at UnitedLife also uses resources like Daily Strength regularly through their CAP debt support, in pastoral care and in outreach to local community. Our resources are also used at their ‘Coffee and Conversations’ events, hosted by Katherine.

One lady that we provided debt support to through CAP Sutton started coming along to a number of our church activities and began to show an interest in the Christian faith. The lady shared that she felt the Holy Spirit working in her, but that she found the Bible overwhelming and difficult to read due to her struggle with lower literacy and dyslexia. We decided to give her Daily Strength, which provided her with a much more manageable way of engaging with and reading the Bible each day. She later put her faith in Christ and was recently baptised at church!

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