Every Church Counts offers plan to help save some U.K. churches

Michael Palin is best known for being part of Monty Python, the groundbreaking, wacky and irreverent British troupe that changed the face of comedy. These days, he has a more serious role as vice president of the National Churches Trust in the United Kingdom.

“Right now, many church buildings are in danger of closure,” he wrote on the Every Church Counts website, a new program to save the U.K.’s historic churches.

“More and more churches are adapting to the needs of their communities, providing not just spiritual comfort but a range of valuable services to local people such as food banks and warm spaces and helping to combat the scourge of loneliness,” he said, adding “Churches are also a vital part of the UK’s history and we need to act now to prevent the loss of tremendously important local heritage.”

What’s happening in the U.K. dovetails well with what I wrote about last week regarding the future of church buildings in this country.

In that column, I wrote about the new book Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition (2024, Eerdmans).

In the book, various authors highlight the challenges facing the future of church buildings in the years ahead as membership and attendance falls and interest in traditional forms of religion wane.

They went on to encourage church leaders to start thinking today about what they can do to either keep their buildings open, or how they can re-purpose the building or property to serve their communities in new and creative ways.

It’s an urgent issue; by 2030, it is estimated that as many as 9,000 of Canada’s 27,000 churches and other places of worship could be closed.

Something similar is happening in the U.K., where churches “are at risk as never before,” according to Every Church Counts. Thousands, it says, are in danger of closing due to disrepair, including some of the country’s oldest heritage church buildings.

“Roofs leak, towers crumble and floors collapse,” the organization says, noting there are over 900 churches on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register.

In Wales, about a quarter of historic churches and chapels have closed in the last decade, and just as many are now at risk. The Church of Scotland is actively planning to close as many as 40 per cent of its churches.

“The burden of keeping these buildings open rests almost entirely on congregations – the people who actually attend services,” the organization says, noting there is no help from governments or national denominations to cover the costs of maintenance and repair.

“The backlog of repairs for the Church of England’s churches is at least £1 billion/$1.7 billion CAD, and the annual need is estimated to be £150 million/$258 million CAD a year,” it goes on to say.

That’s why The National Churches Trust has launched Every Church Counts. “Our vision is that church buildings across the U.K. are well maintained, open to everyone, sustainable and valued,” it says.

To see that happen, Every Church Counts has come up with a six-point national plan to help save some of that nation’s churches.

The plan, which would involve government, heritage organizations and various denominations, would start by supporting what it calls “heroic volunteers” — the people at every church who are doing their best to keep them in good order and repair. It calls for a network across the U.K. to support these volunteers by providing them with training in maintenance, repair and fundraising.

The second point would be to encourage the government to recognize and support how churches provide what it calls a “national help service” — hosting food banks, responding to homelessness, offering free or inexpensive meeting places for various groups, and responding to local natural disasters.

Third, it encourages the creation of an annual fund of at least £50 million/$86 million CAD to do needed repairs. It also suggests creating ways for people to donate to help build that fund.

Fourth, it encourages the U.K. government to find ways to promote tourism at heritage churches so they will be more visible to the public and, fifth, to find ways to help churches stay open longer during each day so more people can visit them.

Finally, it calls on government, heritage organisations and denominations to coordinate their efforts and provide leadership to advocate for church buildings. “Everyone who uses, loves or supports church buildings has a role to play,” it says, adding that if the plan is followed the UK’s churches can continue to be “welcoming and useful for generations to come.”

Things are different in Canada — we don’t have as many older and historic churches. But the challenge is the same; keeping more of them open so they can serve their communities. And who knows? Maybe in the UK, as here, church buildings won’t be like the dead bird in Monty Python’s famous ex-parrot sketch.

They won’t, in John Cleese’s immortal words, have “kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.”

Visit the Every Church Counts website at http://wfp.to/yOx

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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