At a recent meeting of the church council I chair, I told the trustees that are responsible for assets totalling many, many, millions of pounds. After this deliberately administered shock, I explained that the church building is one of our principal assets and is worth a fortune.
We’re used to thinking of the high cost of running churches, with heat and light, water rates and insurance. The costs can be horrendous. But most churches only realise the true financial value of their buildings when they start looking at repairs and refurbishing … and then suddenly recognise how the costs can be genuinely astonishing. Seeking grants for refurbishment requires time and skill. It’s such hard work that many of us are tempted to think, ‘If only we convened in a shed. I don’t want a costly building. I don’t want to be rich’!
While our church buildings are costly, they are worth more than gold to our local communities, and for many reasons: beyond the opportunities to worship, and ignoring for a moment the heritage and memories they represent, a church is often the only local space available for community activities. In my parish alone (I moved to Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester in November 2024), the churches host a food bank and food pantry; dancer groups, slimming world, and keep fit groups convene there; counselling and ESOL occur there; we hold luncheon clubs for the elderly, isolated and confused; we created groups for the mentally ill; we host knitting and parentcraft groups; and we rent the building to countless parties and celebrations of comfort and relief—all in addition to the traditional activities associated with a church such as services and Bible studies.
This list represents a snapshot; the exact detail will differ next week, next month, next year. But what remains constant is the value to the community these buildings represent. For many local people the church is the only social space remaining.
This context explains why I noticed the debate on 13 May in Westminster Hall debate at which MPs from different political parties urged the Government to re-fund church buildings if they want to continue to see vulnerable people helped and heritage saved. The meeting itself was a response to the 2021 report published by the National Churches Trust, The House of Good: Health which documents the support that local churches give to their host communities: in terms of finance, the report estimates that this help amounts to interventions that save the NHS about £8.4 billion, which is equivalent to employing 230,000 full-time nurses.
The meeting heard that investing in church buildings makes good economic sense: £16 of social value is created for every £1 that’s invested in a church building (The House of Good: 2021). The meeting was sponsored by the National Churches Trust as a way of lobbying the Government about state aid and tax breaks including the Listed Places of Worship Scheme.
It’s worth thinking wider. The debate I’ve referred to, about the expense of running a church, prompts some church councils to panic or give up. It’s so hard! In fact, one of my first introductions to this debate centred on a near-derelict church in Levenshulme in central Manchester. I heard the story over twenty years ago, so the details are older still. I forget the fuller story, but the church allowed a local GP to meet in its damp vestry for a peppercorn rent. The small congregation was demoralised and could no longer either afford or even recognise their church for what it was: a community asset. Ashamed of their building’s state of repair, they hung blankets over the flaking plaster and gave hot drinks to cover their embarrassment at the lack of heat. But, relatively soon, the congregation began to grow as the people who’d seen the GP started to attend divine worship. They appreciated the fragile offer of friendship offered and wanted more.
Fast forward a decade and the church was thriving. By accident, these few elderly members had discovered the obvious truth that nowhere else befriended the lonely or fed the hungry. By accident, they were living out Jesus’s ‘manifesto statement’ in Luke 4, and discovered it was devastatingly attractive. People were using their church for more than loving God (worship) and instead used it for loving their neighbour as well. Repairing the divorce between the two halves of the Great Commandment also repaired the disconnect between the church and its host community.
This isolated story greatly inspired me. It therefore seemed natural when I took up my first position as Vicar (in Oldham) to adopt the same model. My smaller church in Clarksfield, Oldham, was damp and failing, elderly, struggling, and entirely without hope. Fifteen years later, its building is one of the best maintained in the area and hosts the largest community centre in East Oldham. Last month it received the King’s Award for Voluntary Service (KAVS). Local people regardless of ethnicity or religion describe it as ‘my church’. And it is.
All of us are in the business of sponsoring the Kingdom of God. When the idea of a church building offering love has percolated through to its host community, that idea has generally acquired a flavour of hope. It looks and sounds and feels good. I’m suggesting that we consciously move away from the idea of a church building as a place reserved for worship, and open it to the community as an expression of hope.
Many churches are afraid of opening their church building to non-churchgoers. Perhaps they are afraid the sacred space will be polluted. In fact, the movement of spiritual power usually flows in the opposite direction, with visitors and their activities feeling a profound blessing. Perhaps offering our churches as a space of hope is one modern response to the story in Mark’s Gospel of Jesus telling the ‘rich young ruler’ to give everything to the poor.
Discuss this