THE diocese of Salisbury has launched a campaign to encourage more open conversations about faith, to coincide with Pentecost.

The campaign, “Share Your Story”, will feature ten people aged from 19 to 95 in candid conversations relating their personal experiences.

Each day from Ascension Day, on Thursday, to Pentecost (8 June), the video interviews will be shared on the diocese of Salisbury’s social media channels.

A spokeswoman for the diocese of Salisbury told the Church Times: “Being brave enough to start the conversation and sharing your story encourages other people to share their stories. It’s about opening up and so the language of faith becomes something that we’re comfortable doing.”

Participants of the campaign include a member of the Romany Gypsy community, two army chaplains serving in Wiltshire, and a young woman about to embark on a pilgrimage across the UK.

The oldest participant is 95-year-old Mavis, who lives in Bradford-on-Avon; the youngest is 19-year-old student Hope from Poole. “We had a lot of people stepping forward. We tried to make sure we had a range of different voices covering across the diocese,” the spokeswoman said.

Mavis, who attended church as a teenager because she felt she had to, said that her faith had been strengthened later in life. “Does God think it’s too late? Certainly not. It’s never too late. God doesn’t care whether you are two or a 102,” she says in her video.

Portraits of the participants are on display in St Thomas’, Salisbury for two weeks. The photographs will then be displayed in other churches in Dorset and Wiltshire.

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