Tenterden Benefice
Lossenham has an illustrious past as a centre for prayer, with the Carmelite priory at its hub. Scrolling past the dissolution and the intervening centuries, the estate and the village now find themselves in the Church of England benefice of Tenterden, colourfully known as Tent ROX — Tenterden, Rother and Oxney. The nine churches are led by the Team Rector the Reverend Lindsay Hammond. The former NatWest employee and landscaper was ordained shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday and has been in Tenterden since 2011.
He says that despite the outward wealth around here there are “pockets of quite considerable deprivation.” He told the newsletter: “Because these pockets exist in what is predominantly a fairly affluent area they can be invisible.”
The benefice is involved in two schemes to help those in need. The Tenterden Family Food Bank collects food from members of the congregation, with contributions from Waitrose and others, to be made up into food parcels for those in immediate need, rationed on an emergency basis.
A second, more recent project, is the Old School House Larder, operating out of the community hub in Church Road, Tenterden. Lindsay Hammond says the scheme keeps around forty families afloat. It depends mainly on cash donations to buy food. “That hints that we do have in our midst families who are going through quite tough times,” he says.
Team vicar the Reverend Jeannette Kennett, a former primary school teacher, says there are problems that are typical of rural environments. One is the lack of public transport. The buses don’t run reliably, hospital appointments can be difficult to get to. “It leads to isolation and loneliness across the generations,” she says.
The benefice also helps run two Christmas schemes, which have become intertwined. The Christmas Big Wrap is a collection of donated gifts handed out to children of families helped by the Old School House Larder. Eight hundred presents were distributed last year.
Christmas Cheer is a direct cash appeal that raised the best part of £15,000 last Christmas, for 140 individuals. That money goes to families identified by the schools’ family liaison officers. The church has no direct contract with them and doesn’t know who they are.
The schools reports back on the reactions of the recipients. Lindsay Hammond tells of one family with an elderly man living next door. “They said they’d never had the wherewithal to have him round for Christmas but now they could this year.”
Jeannette Kennett calls stories like that “heart-warming.” She says everyone has the capacity for compassion but can’t extend it to their next door neighbour if they can’t feed their own family.
Lindsay Hammond says one thing the Church of England does well is work with others to make things happen. He holds out the prospect of future cooperation with Lossenham, “to make a difference.”