Go to many towns and you will find buildings that once were banks. Some towns no longer have any operational banks. Building societies also have reduced their branch networks. Why should this be the case? In part the development of internet banking has reduced considerably footfall. The growth of on-line purchasing and out-of-town shopping has resulted in many people not needing to go into town. ATM machines in supermarkets etc again has taken away the need to visit bank premises. From a commercial perspective the reduction in demand has led to savings achieved by closing branches and reducing staffing levels. Those without internet access, mobile phones or wary of using debit cards, mostly older people, have lost important, indeed vital, access to banking facilities. For the banks it is not managed decline but a response to customer preference.
Compare and contrast this with what is happening in the Church of England (CofE). Every acre of our green and pleasant land is within a church parish. But all is not well. Travel around and you come across abandoned churches, parishes with no priest, or at best sharing a priest with another parish. Some parishes share their priest with anything up to fourteen other parishes. The reality is that the failure to recruit more ordinands than those resigning or retiring means there is insufficient clergy to meet the demand, although a flimsy palliative is to use the services of retired clergy with permission to officiate. The CofE is increasingly reliant on authorised lay persons to conduct services or perform other functions traditionally the responsibility of clergy. However such persons cannot conduct weddings, or perform functions reserved in the Book of Common Prayer specifically for ordained ministers.
The parish system is reliant on volunteers to act as churchwardens, members of parochial church councils (PCC) and various officers including those of treasurer and PCC secretary. Many PCCs do not have a full complement of members, some parishes have no churchwardens and others no treasurer. In law PCCs are independent charities subject to the full rigour of charity law overseen by the Charity Commission. With parishes lacking a full complement of officers, PCC members and churchwardens as well as no priest dedicted soley to the parish is it any wonder the parish system is creaking. And then there is the issue of the upkeep of the church building. As footfall decreases the pool of individuals prepared to fulfill roles within the parish also diminishes. Whilst this conjery of pressures affects many parishes to varying degrees it is no surprise that parishes in poorer areas, suffer most. Lower footfall means reduced income and this, together with the difficulty in finding people within the parish to improve the situation, means such parishes are earmarked for closure or merger. Instead of tackling head-on the issue of engagement within parishes the CoE has gone along the road of managed decline.
The parish and the community it serves was and should continue to be the beating heart of the CofE. The church should invest in resuscitation and development, particularly in poorer parishes, making the church meaningful within the community, being of, for and with the community. It is not a question of more bums on seats it is about engagement. If you like, it is about the product and securing buy-in by the community.
