Dear Friends and Supporters,
Hello and welcome to our Spring 2025 newsletter
Since our last update in September we have been busy delivering a fantastic range of workshops, training, counselling, and much more for the benefit of our clergy friends and their families.
Our aim is to advocate for pastoral supervision and improve the mental health and wellbeing of all clergy throughout their ministry.
To help us achieve this, we are delighted that our Advancing Clergy Reflection programme has kicked off for Church in Wales with attendees enjoying a week’s workshop as they started their training to become pastoral supervisors. We have also delivered Mental Health First Aid training, resilience training, and piloted a relationship masterclass with Dr Kathryn Kissell. Alongside our preventive work we have also assessed, diagnosed and funded counselling for over 100 clergy and their families in need of support.
And, all this has been funded by the generosity and kindness of our individual regular givers, our Trust and Foundation friends and those wonderful people who have remembered St Luke’s in their will and left us a gift.
In this issue we will focus on:
A welcome message from our new Chairman:
The new Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities chaplains pastoral supervision project:
St Luke’s has become increasingly aware of the growing need for more chaplains in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities across the UK. In 2019 the Church of England’s General Synod recommended that every diocese appoints a chaplain, we believe to date there are only two funded part-time posts, with a further ten Anglican clergy having this role alongside their main position.
Anecdotally, the Charity understands some chaplains have experienced high degrees of misunderstanding and discrimination from both their cleric peers and parishioners. They can feel isolated and under supported, which can adversely affect their wellbeing. The ecumenical ‘Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Community Friendly Churches’ initiative reports:
“Through our work, we have encountered 
various forms of hate and ingrained negative stereotypes against the communities, stemming from a lack of cultural awareness and understanding. We are here to help churches build bridges with the communities and support positive engagements within their neighbourhoods”. Home – Gypsy, Roma & Traveller Friendly Churches
As a leader in clergy wellbeing, St Luke’s wants to explore whether the introduction of a supportive space, to reflect with others who share in this ministry, would have wellbeing benefits and support chaplains who carry out this distinctive role.
Generously funded by The Benefact Trust, we will be providing chaplains with 
an online, professionally facilitated, reflective practice group monthly for two years. This aims to reach clergy from across the country and across denominations. Evaluating this initiative through administering a digital comparative questionnaire, we will collect information from chaplains at three points; before starting, midway and following completion of the sessions. We are seeking to gather themes of the impact of zoom-based reflective groups for chaplains, the experience of supporting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities, and to keep developing the evidence-base for collective pastoral supervision in specialisms. Dissemination of findings will be via a final report and an online event or in-person conference presentation/s.
“It is hard to express how delighted we are that St Luke’s are offering this reflective practice opportunity to Chaplains working with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. It is wonderful that St Luke’s recognise the nature of our work and is open to Chaplains across denominations and including Lay and Ordained ministers” – Rev Nicky Chater chair of Gypsy Roma and Traveller friendly churches
Our social world
Our newsletter is sent out twice a year, but we post every week on social media.
- We share thoughts and ideas to help or remind our ‘followers’ and the social media world at large, to care for themselves and their wellbeing.
- We follow other organisations that focus on mental health and we share some of their posts too if we think they are particularly helpful or inspiring.
- And yeah – ok you’ve got us… we do sometimes share some fundraising stuff.
We create these posts:
- To offer help to you
- To help you offer help to those around you,
- And to help you offer help to us!
Here’s some of our posts and shared links we prepared earlier… Do click and have a look!
Don’t wait twice a year to hear from us – follow us on Social Media now.
An opportunity to enjoy 'You are my God'
Our chairman, Rev Canon Stephen Fielding has recently published “You are my God”, a transformative 7-day journey through selected psalms, offering clergy daily affirmations and reflections to nurture their spiritual and emotional wellbeing.
To order your copy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/YOU-ARE-GOD-psalm-based-affirmations
>>>>>STOP PRESS>>>>>STOP PRESS>>>>>STOP PRESS>>>>>
Our lovely friend and trustee, Hilary Ison, is celebrating a big birthday this year with a big jump!
Hilary will be jumping out of a plane and skydiving, to raise funds for St Luke’s in May at Honiton Airfield, Devon.
Some of you may know Hilary from her work delivering training to clergy and agree with us when we say what a star she is!
Please do offer encouragement and support by visiting Hilary’s Just Giving page https://www.justgiving.com/page/hilary-ison-2
Last word…
St Luke’s is entirely funded through trusts and foundations, gifts from parishes and gifts from people like you!
Every gift, no matter how small, makes a huge difference to the lives of the clergy and their families when they use our services.
You can also support us by sending a cheque to St Luke’s at our address:
Room 103, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZ
A donation today or a gift in your will enables St Luke’s to continue to support clergy and their families.
Our website contains lots of information to help you, or someone you may know, through difficult times http://www.stlukesforclergy.org.uk
And finally, if you have been a beneficiary of our services in the past either as an individual or taking part in a workshop we would love to hear from you. We use quotes and case studies to highlight the importance of our work when speaking to donors.