Every year we gather at our Annual General Meeting to look back to what we have achieved in the last year, and to look forward to where we are headed. This year we are gathering at Lichfield Cathedral, the UK’s first Gold Healthy Healing Hub on 15th October – there will be talks, an healing service and even a walk to the healing well of St Chad! Our president Prof Jim McManus will be delivering the keynote address, and the whole staff team and trustee board will be there too. We exist for our members, and so this is a vital moment to gather to hear your views, and to reach out to new people who might be interested in joining in with our vision. Click HERE to book on the day.
I will be presenting my summary of our work in 2021-22 and our vision for the coming months – here is an extract!
Introduction
When organisations like the Guild of Health and St Raphael get to around 80 years old, many come to a natural end – either they have served their function, or else their original aims and objectives are no longer relevant. Those who go on longer do so either because they reinvent themselves or they reinvigorate their work based on the founding vision of their founders. The Guild of Health and St Raphael is now well beyond its 80th birthday and so I have been pondering which we have been doing – reinventing or reinvigorating?
We were originally set up to ‘preach spiritual healing to the church which has lost the power to practise it’ and to challenge the church which had become resigned to suffering and disease, so much so that people found ’this world of comparatively no account’. The Guild was born to give confidence to churches and Christians to recover the power of the faith to bring healing and hope in this world.
I have no doubt that today, the vision of our founders is still relevant, urgent and needed. Indeed, if you scan your eyes over our aims and objectives, you might, like me, still nod at how important each one is, and how exciting it is to be involved with an organisation with these relevant and expansive aims. And in this report, I will go through our areas of activity to demonstrate how we have been meeting these aims in the past year.
Delivering these aims for the church today, and in the world that we live in, comes with some unique challenges: particularly, the decline of the church in a pluralistic and materialistic world where individualism challenges the value of community life. Additionally, we live in deeply unstable times, not only politically but because of the shadow of Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. These bring additional healing needs and challenges to operations and growth.
Words cannot quite express my gratitude and pride in the Guild team. Together, we have had an extraordinary year of creatively running the membership communities, sensing where we need to put our energies and responding to where God is leading us. We have run many courses, created content, and interacted with thousands of people through events, the website and our online presence. And this has led to growth.
Looking beyond, this has led to strategic development in volunteers, consultancy development and new partnerships in the current year – but it was in 2021-22 that we saw the foundations of this growth, growth which I am confident our founders would have approved.
I had a conversation recently about the difference between prophecy and “a good idea”, and how to tell the difference. Prophecy is a prediction of the future based on the prophet having a particular relationship with God. Good ideas are those which are tested by seeing if they work out in the end. Are we a prophetic organisation, or are we just delivering good ideas that seem to be working?
I don’t feel entirely comfortable with either way of framing our work. To me, the Guild of Health and St Raphael is a gift, and we are joining in with the work of God through the Guild in today’s world – sharing the hope and healing of the faith, reaching those in need, training church leaders, working with medicine and science, and proclaiming the vision that all people can flourish in mind, body and soul in this life. Thanks be to God.
The Healthy Healing Hub Project
The Healthy Healing Hub (HHH) project is the main way the Guild today supports, trains and networks churches to be a place of healing and hope in the community. Through the Good Practice in the Healing Ministry Charter, and training and badging, the churches have confidence in the ministry they offer and others have confidence to partner with them.
In the 2021-22 period, we welcomed 5 Bronze tier HHHs. We have also welcomed three Gold hubs; these are centres of excellence from which we can base regional training. In total, we ran 8 training courses (all full to capacity), and there is no sign that interest is dwindling. Feedback has been positive, with one recent participant commenting:
“This was an excellent and really grounding course that made sense. It not only gives a thorough explanation of the theology of healing, but Gillian provides practical advice on how to explain the meaning behind Jesus’ healing ministry and how we can make sense of that today. It was really encouraging, and I would recommend this to anyone wanting to know more about healing in ministry.” July 2021
We learnt this year that people value the training not only for the content, but for the learning style that we use – person-centred, where story and sharing are valued. Feedback has helped us identify that it is the connection with others engaged in the healing ministry that is of particular value to our members, and this is an area that we are going to build upon.
The project continues to develop: I have recently talked to a prison chaplain who wants to establish an HHH chaplaincy, with the interfaith chaplains. In the future, we will be introducing a fair price policy, professionally filming the training videos, developing a volunteer community, and launching the silver and gold training courses.
Previously, the Guild has offered training on a variety of topics such as contemplation, social prescribing, mental health and green theology. In order to bring order and clarity to the organization, workshops and bespoke training of this type all now come under the HHH project, with member churches accessing them as part of their membership. This will allow HHHs to update their training and explore new ways of offering the healing ministry.
We continue to develop partnerships with organisations which are aligned with our values.
I would like to offer particular thanks to Graham Fender Allison who leads the training development of the Healthy Healing Hub project and leads many of the training sessions.
The GoHealth Community
The GoHealth Community is our individual membership community where members receive a monthly bundle of resources on a topic, which we then explore through prayer and practice. This year we have explored topics including praying for healing, the environment, gender and our body, and mental health, to name just a couple.
We have moved away from commissioning blogs, and instead focused on the community itself with the tagline: ‘Together we flourish’. This motto has proved popular as it denotes the power of community, connection, and a broad understanding of the ministry of healing.
This year we have added just over 100 new members to the GoHealth Community. We saw particular growth through the email Advent retreat, where over 40 people joined. We have learnt that people especially value the connection with others who have similar interests, and the role of prayer. These are two areas that we will develop in the coming year.
I would like to offer particular thanks to Wendy Lloyd who manages the GoHealth Community content, and brings to the role specialist skills around community growth and marketing.
The GoHealth Podcast
Podcasting is one of the most important communication tools at our disposal because they get away from soundbites and instead can explore topics at depth. This year the GoHealth Podcast has helped us reach new audiences who are encouraged to continue the conversation in the GoHealth community, the HHH project or other events.
We launched our second season of the podcast, Learning to Heal, where we explored in conversation topics such as addiction, death and dying, and living with chronic illness. I chatted to a wide range of guests, who generously gave us their time and wisdom, including Brian Draper, Paula Gooder and Claire Gilbert.
In 2021-22, there were 1307 listens to the podcast, which represents an increase of around 300% on the previous year.
Again, huge thanks to Wendy Lloyd who manages and produces the podcast.
Chrism and research
Our journal Chrism continues to be a source of interest for many members, and we have seen a modest increase in membership this year. Unfortunately, the conference was postponed. This represents the struggle many organizations are having with in-person gatherings following the pandemic. I continue to look for a sub editor to help with timely production after a number of issues have been delayed in publication. However, we were delighted to publish a number of excellent articles, including by Jim McManus and The Bishop of London amongst others. Chrism remains a viable and unique journal and, with just a little more support, I am confident that we will continue to improve its circulation.
Website and online learning development
We continue to invest in the website, as it is our most useful form of engagement, marketing and our membership place. Indeed, in this period over 20000 people visited the website, up 160% from the previous year. 68% were new visitors. The majority were from the UK, but there was also significant interest from the US. Most referrals to the website were from Facebook.
As a small charity, we strive for efficiency. One of the ways that we do this is by using the Denis Duncan lectures to create group and individual training resources held on the moodle platform. These are available free to members and are run as group learning events in the GoHealth Community.
Events
As noted above, in-person gatherings continued to be difficult in this period. However, we ran many events online, including the 2021 Denis Duncan Lecture with Dr Ruth Valerio. This event had over 130 tickets sold and was run in partnership with the Church of Scotland who continue to value the relationship. We also ran a number of smaller online events and training, including the healing potential of the hybrid church, a social prescribing workshop, and a quiet morning and a music and healing workshop.
Our Online Presence
Social media continues to be a powerful way to reach new audiences, find new members and attract people with training events. We continue to work with a marketing consultant who helps us refine and promote our message, and to get people involved in our work. Over the last year we have reached over 164,000 on Facebook (up 177% on previous year)
Becoming a national voice
Alongside creating an online presence, I work hard to elevate the Guild as a reliable and powerful voice on health, healing,and faith in the public square. This has led to growth in networks and membership, training opportunities, consultation work for the Guild and a number of new projects.
In this year, I appeared on UCB Radio, Premier FM and twice on the BBC Local Sunday shows. I was also interviewed at length by the Lifefulness podcast, a leading secular platform that explores the role of community in spiritual development.
I preached in several locations around the UK including Canterbury Cathedral, Brasenose College Oxford, Lichfield Cathedral and Bath and Wells Cathedral. I also spoke at a number of training events, including Sion college in London, for the Diocese of Bangor, and as a group of theological advisors to the Bishop of London. I also sat on the steering group for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s commission on the review of social care in the UK. I led online workshops for the Heartedge community, the National Healing Advisors network, and New Faith Deal Focus groups for FaithAction.
Financial issues
I am grateful to Chris Garman in 2021-22 for his assistance with the financial operations for this year as we continue to improve operations in terms of efficiency, policy, and governance. While operating with a deficit budget is not ideal, we are going in the right direction financially. Income is stable and, with the investment in staff and web developments, I remain confident that we will see the growth that we are aiming for. Further donations, commissioned work and consultancy fees would also be good income streams to reduce the deficit.
And finally….
I am blessed to work with a gifted and visionary staff team – I really could not do it without them. So an enormous thank you to Wendy Lloyd and Graham Fender Allison. I have learnt so much from you both – thank you for giving the Guild your energy and wisdom, and for being prepared to help me and the trustees develop God’s mission in the Guild to bring healing and hope to many.
It is with sadness that Chris Garman decided to leave the Guild to more actively pursue his retirement. I would like to thank him for his work, and wish him all the very best.
We welcomed our new Company Secretary, Dr Sue Martin. Sue comes to us with enormous experience of health governance, and trustee work and I am absolutely delighted that she is part of the team.
I am also thrilled to be working with the new Chair, Steve Coles, and would like to thank him for everything that he has already brought to the Guild in terms of the trustees, and the support and guidance he has offered me as CEO and the staff team as a whole. We are very blessed that Steve, who comes with a huge range of skills and experience in the third sector, feels called to lead the board of the trustees .
I would also like to thank the board of trustees and particularly David McDonald who took on the acting chair role this year before Steve was appointed.
Finally, thank you to all the members and supporters – please pray for me, as I pray for you.
Reverend Doctor Gillian Straine
Chief Executive Officer
You can download the full Annual report here: