Liz Tapp, Anna Chaplain at The Meeting Place, Great Bookham, Surrey, was commissioned on Sunday November 3, 2024.
Liz writes:
“Being commissioned has been a wonderful opportunity to look back on what God has done and is doing in my life. Several years ago, I was given a card. On it were printed the words, ‘Let God have your life, He can do more with it than you can.’ How true this is! I am so thankful to God for calling and enabling me to transition from teaching to serve as an Anna Chaplain, and I feel very privileged to journey alongside others. The commissioning service was a wonderful time of praise and thanksgiving to God.”
Elaine Crutchley, a trustee of The Meeting Place, also spoke at the service. “It is six years since a small group of us from across the 3 churches in Great Bookham started a conversation about how we might reach out to the increasingly elderly community of Great Bookham to share the love of God.
Inspired by Debbie Thrower, the pioneer Anna Chaplain, we had a vision for an Anna Chaplaincy in Bookham and District. We wanted this chaplaincy to be truly ecumenical, to reach out to people in our community who wouldn’t come into our churches. We had this sense that there were many who had lost contact with the church of their childhood, maybe they had lost faith in the struggles of life or maybe had no faith at all.
In the middle of Covid God worked powerfully amongst us and we were able to appoint our founder Anna Chaplain, Anne Milton-Worssell. Anne worked tirelessly to lay a foundation for this ministry in Bookham. The Spirit of God has continued to move us, challenge us, grow us and lead us as we have reached out to people in the community and now been able to appoint Liz. Recently a team of Friends and Volunteers walked to raise money for the 10th Anniversary of the national Anna Chaplaincy network.
We have many stories to tell about the joys of serving in this way. Please pray for us as we seek to share love and hope with older people in our community.”
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