An Occupational Therapist by background, Pippa specialised in Neurorehabilitation and Care of the Elderly within the NHS. She is now the Pastoral Care and Seniors Minister at Holy Trinity Claygate and has been running Connections, one of the largest Church-based groups for Seniors in the UK for the last 10 years.
She is passionate about loving and caring for older people and reducing loneliness and isolation. Her heart’s desire is for all seniors to be given the opportunity to hear the gospel and discover God’s amazing grace and love. Therefore, after much prayer, Pippa came up with the idea of using well-loved hymns as a way of sharing the gospel in a gentle and accessible way with seniors, and ‘Hymns we Love’ was developed and used extremely effectively from within Connections at Holy Trinity Claygate.
At the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic in April 2020, Pippa saw the opportunity to use Hymns we Love on a phone line to reach the hundreds of thousands of older people who were now even more isolated. After discussions with the Evangelism and Witness Team at Lambeth Palace, Daily Hope, the free phone line, was born, supported by the Church of England and Faith in Later Life. In less than a year, the Daily Hope received more than 400,000 calls and has proved to be a lifeline to the many isolated and vulnerable older people who are unable to access online material.
In recognition of her work, Pippa was awarded the Alphege Award for Evangelism and Witness in 2021 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, for her exceptional work in finding creative ways of bringing God’s love to the over 65’s. His citation expressed the desire for Connections and Hymns we Love to be replicated in all churches in the UK.