Faith & Worship
In 2019 there were around 400,000 people living in care homes in the UK, and around 60% of these had dementia (Age UK figures).
However statistics are looked at, it remains a fact that there are many elderly folk currently in care who may have lost contact with the church that they once belonged to, and access to a visiting Chaplain or Minister is important.
But communicating God's Word to this demographic is not quite the same as to a regular congregation. Attention spans may be short, and simple, understandable illustrations invaluable.
One person who understands that is Bishop David, some of whose sermons written in the care home where he lives are shared (with his permission) below.
His daughter Clare says, ' Some of them are what I call Magic Carpet sermons because in them he takes his listeners (residents cooped up in a care home, unable to travel anywhere on holiday or otherwise!) to such places as Rome, Joppa and the Mediterranean. In my favourite of these sermons, he transports us to 3 churches of St Peter - to the majestic basilica in Rome, to a church in the midst of London and finally to a tiny little church in the Yorkshire Dales.'
These reflective and delightful sermons are shared with the hope that others might find them useful, edited as necessary, to fit their own situations.
(Bishop David's story on this link)
| Sermon Title | Download |
|---|---|
| Sunday before Advent. Christ the King | .docx |
| Advent 1: The waiting game | .docx |
| Advent 2: A morning walk | .docx |
| Advent 3: Bright lights | .docx |
| Christmas Day : A watchword for the coming year | .docx |
| Feast of the Epiphany | .docx |
| Epiphany 2: Finding and being found | .docx |
| Lent: Forty acts of giving | .docx |
| Sexagesima, 2 before Lent: How to read St John's Gospel | .docx |
| Sunday next before Lent: Experiencing the presence of Jesus | .docx |
| Sunday before Lent: Changing the world | .docx |
| Lent 1: Expectations | .docx |
| Lent 2: Jesus in the Temple | .docx |
| Lent 3: The woman at the well | .docx |
| Lent 4: Mothering Sunday | .docx |
| Palm Sunday | .docx |
| Easter | .docx |
| A talk on numbers, especially seven | .docx |
| All Saints: The Beatitudes, spiritual treasure | .docx |
| All Saints tide: When the saints go marching in! | .docx |
| St Hilda: Princess and Prioress | .docx |
| St Michael & All Angels | .docx |
| St Valentine | .docx |
| St Simon & St Jude | .docx |
| Trinity 11: Peter the Rock | .docx |
| Taymar sermon | .docx |
©John Birch · Prayers written by the author may be copied freely for worship. If reproduced elsewhere please acknowledge author/website
Privacy Policy · Links · Author · Donate
