ACC Accord Summer 2021 Issue 111

“Reaching out to
help those in need
is our calling as
Christians
of love kept me going. But to my
further pain, some people chose
to keep away to ‘give me space’
and others crossed the road to
avoid speaking. Day by day, week
by week, although many people
did their best to help, life collapsed
around me, and six months later I
was at my wits’ end.
It was through finding, but only
by chance, two Christian support
services that I was able to turn
my situation around: Care for the
Family’s Widowed Young Support,
providing weekends and days for
those who lose a partner young
and Holy Trinity Brompton’s The
Bereavement Journey course. There
I met people who understood grief
and who helped me to navigate the
challenges I was facing. I discovered
that my oscillating emotions and
reactions were normal, and in
finding others who had survived
what I was going through I saw
hope.
Out of that experience my work
in bereavement was born. I
determined there and then to
do what I could to ensure that
bereaved people across the country
could access understanding
support quickly and would not be
left grieving alone. By 2016, I had
formed the charity AtaLoss.org,
to provide a signposting website
for the bereaved. This now has
over 900 services – both local and
national, a wealth of information
and an online counsellor chat
service, and has become the UK’s
central, ‘go to’ place when someone
dies – a lifeline for many over this
past pandemic year.
However, I also wanted to enable
Christians to support the bereaved.
Christians are no different in being
influenced by death denial and we
can avoid people we hear of who
have been bereaved for fear of
saying or doing the wrong thing.
Bereavement also naturally raises
the big questions of life: about
purpose, the afterlife and nature
of God – the very questions we
want people to ask. Yet because
of our death denial, we miss the
opportunity of addressing these.
Those of us who do step in can also
fall victim to platitudes and cliches
if we’re not careful, or we may offer
Scriptures or spiritual ‘reassurances’
that things will be better, when we
need to affirm the struggle and
come alongside the person in their
pain. This means that bereaved
people quite often find churches
hard places to be.
Reaching out to help those in need
is our calling as Christians and is
in itself the message of God’s love.
Interestingly, ‘helping widows and
orphans in their distress’ is how
the New Testament describes
authentic church (James 1:27) and
Jesus is ‘a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief’. But we
have been reluctant to become
acquainted with grief ourselves.
LOSS AND HOPE
One of the consequences of
the pandemic is that things are,
thankfully, changing. Its constant
focus on death has disturbed us
all, reminded us of our mortality
and stirred us up to seek to help
those who grieve. One of the
projects I’m involved with is Loss
and HOPE, a coalition project
launched at Lambeth Palace on
what turned out to be the very day
the first UK Covid-19 death was
announced. With the Church of
England’s Life Events Department,
Care for the Family and HOPE
Together we are seeking to equip
churches to support the bereaved.
Before the pandemic the National
Bereavement Alliance called
for a 3-tiered approach across
Britain to build capacity to meet
the burgeoning demand. They
argued that if first, information
and signposting could be offered,
and then second, understanding
community support could be
found, then the third level of
specialist intervention could be
reserved for the prolonged or
complex needs. Our desire was for
the local support to come from
Christians and the Church.
Consequently, The Bereavement
Journey course that helped me
so much years ago is now being
promoted to churches across the
UK as a church-wide response to
the pandemic. Offered with all the
resources, training and support
needed to make it easy for any
church to run face-to-face or online,
it is a six-session course of films
and discussion groups for people
bereaved in any way, to enable
them to process their loss. The first
five sessions deal with issues of
bereavement that are unrelated
to faith, making it accessible for
anyone of any faith or none, and
a sixth optional session offers my
own Christian response to the faith
questions I find are commonly
asked. The Loss and HOPE website
aims increasingly to offer resources
to enable Christians to discuss
and prepare for death, support
bereaved people as individuals and
provide a comfortable environment
for those who grieve. It is our hope
that in so doing many thousands of
grieving people across our land will
experience the love and comfort
of God and find new meaning and
hope through the Church.
Yvonne Tulloch
About the author
Yvonne Richmond
Tulloch is Founder
and CEO of
AtaLoss.org, the
UK’s signposting
website for the
bereaved:
https://www.
ataloss.org/
For more information see
https://www.lossandhope.org/
44 accord Summer 2021 www.acc-uk.org • www.pastoralcareuk.org