By Rachel Brown
Last year, after hearing God speak to me about a ‘wellbeing centre’, I prayed that He would show me how to do this and that He would provide some other people to do it with. I attended a Health and Wellbeing training day organised by the diocese and heard Ruth Rice speak about Renew Wellbeing spaces. I thought, “this is how I do it!” and felt really excited! Since then, God has faithfully provided a team and we have been in a process of meeting, praying and doing some training to get prepared for starting the renew space in our church foyer at St. Polycarp’s, Hillsborough.
We all enjoyed a Renew Wellbeing retreat day at St Polycarp’s on February 24th; we were refreshed and inspired again by the vision to provide a safe, quiet space in our area. We have decided to call the renew space, Renew S6. A renew space is somewhere where people receive a warm welcome with simple refreshments, they can enjoy a shared hobby, talk to others and pray if they choose. There are more than 200 renew spaces across the country and we pray that God will bring people in our community who need a quiet place where ‘it’s ok not to be ok’.
We opened our doors for the first time on Friday 1st March and will be open every Friday from 10.30am – 12.30pm. We had a lovely morning, enjoying refreshments, time to play a game or decorate a coaster and also times of quiet, reflective prayer. There were a few of us from our church and we pray that others from our local community will join us. Please spread the word, we are very excited by what God is doing!