I pondered...
Could a Change of Language spark a change-of-mindset for many beautiful and long-cherished buildings whose future might, just now, seem uncertain?
So I fell to thinking: about people falling in love with places. This is seldom a rational process, for people simply’ fall for’ a place and perhaps occasionally, bizarrely, people fall in love with redundant churches! Why?
The language is dated, the very title seems to smack of decay to those who cannot feel the history of the generations that invested love, spiritual homeliness and, of the time, vast funds, to create these havens from the storms of life. They have had good carers, they have had indifferent carers and occasionally unimaginative carers - and those places have fallen into disrepair, often beyond being restored.
But many, many have thankfully survived, but a lack of imagination within an introspective Anglican Church has possessively clung to the notion they have to be called a something church: and the musty word redundant has been pressed into reluctant service.
So, let’s stands back a tiny distance and see if we can do better with our description for these, O so often, beautiful Oases. Let us simply recall who they were built to honour. They were built to honour The Creator of The Cosmos, clothed in the human frame of Jesus Christ.
Being a generous God, The Creator saw fit to endow we mere humans with an amazing vestige of his own function borne out of Love, creativity.
Would it not be entirely fitting for these often incredible edifices, which have had love, often of generations of women, lavished on them through good tunes, bad times, times of peace, times of war to be given a changed persona. in the lingo of today, could they collectively become Creativity Hubs?
This is an age in which such an idea could’ fly’, at least partially because fundraising for imaginative projects can be more easily generated than perhaps at any time before in history. Crowd funding has reached a mature stage. So, for example, American money, wondering where to find a sound home just now, could well think that a small plot of land, with a wonderful serenity about it, and being home to the remains of an ancestor, could be a good place to be rooted into/ invested in.
Patron of the Arts has long been a noble title, for generations the province of the wealthy. But today, it could become a far more broad-based accolade. Any takers among the generation that has been made wealthy by windfall profits on even a modest home willing to make a modest stake in that beautiful little chapel that lies in a close-by woodland, attended by a faithful locals?
Maybe this is too simplistic, but surely it deserves some further consideration!
The Church Estate might well be be able to work with some major philanthropists to make a core fund available to give the notion a kickstart - by making grants available on a ‘matched’ basis to, in turn, encourage local funds generation
Dioceses could surely find ways of transferring the land and buildings into community wide trusts - couldn’t they? Might they even make modest handover grants to do essential weatherproofing? After all, they would be shedding a present liability
It would be surprising if local creatives didn’t welcome nearby spaces to make their work more widely appreciated.
Creativity-Hub Trails could be attractive ways of a wider public being invited to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of these often ancient refuges. Places where people have brought their joys, their celebrations and their sadness could be repurposed, without the overlay of the too often dead-hands of formal religion. Many places could burgeon yet another imaginative location for a coffee shop. It’s already been done in many places, so maybe this is the time for a trickle to become a tide.
Given a modest core fund to help build a community, many places might find eager gardeners and allotment enthusiasts to help such a dream to come alive with wildflowers and herbs.
Local clergy would be relieved of the guilt of having a redundant ecclesiastical asset in their often massive parochial portfolios - and just to emphasise this separation, perhaps the location, rather than a seldom remembered patron saint, could become the main feature of the name. That would, sometimes, require an act of generosity by a local ‘guardian’ parish - but isn’t generosity at the heart of the Christian Gospel?
Surely it’s worth an exploration!
Maybe we could say ‘Goodbye' to ‘redundant churches'
And welcome Creativity Hubs across our lands. It could just be a twenty first century resolution of a centuries old problem.
Trevor Thorn, Durham and The Cambridgeshire Fenlands, April 2025
Subsequently posted to Facebook on 3rd May 2025
My thought experiment on the use of former places of worship at http://crossandcosmos.blogspot.com politely refused by The Church Times - 'I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work for us’.
Pity really! Naively I thought it might be germane to quite a lot of CT readers - but then again, I hear that CT often focus on internecine battles in the CofE these days. So why should a bit of speculative futurising about formerly much-loved buildings, interest a readership that is tearing itself apart at the seams and perplexing any non-church person who would still like to believe the CofE might be about love and inclusivity.
Reply - Sad to me (of course), though I wonder if it could be anything to do with a bias towards being preoccupied by factionism? Well, it’s a thought!
