Article for July Parish Publications: Ecclesiastical Jenga

Are you familiar with the game, Jenga?

Players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of fifty four wooden blocks. Once a block has been removed it is placed on top of the tower, creating a increasingly unstable structure. The game ends when the tower falls over.

I was recently speaking to a country Vicar in another Diocese, he had care of eight churches, and there were also three Junior Schools in his Benefice. The Bishop had been trying to persuade him his post could be part time rather than full time. As he was speaking the phrase 'ecclesiastical Jenga' came to mind. It seems to me that over time blocks have been removed from rural ministry in a misguided attempt to see how much support can be withdrawn without the whole edifice collapsing. The Church of England was once strongest in rural areas, but now in the countryside it is perilously weak. One might think this was driven by declining congregations, but recent studies have suggested this is not so. 'New in the North: New worshipping communities in the Northern Province 2023', by the Ven. Bob Jackson and Dr Bev Botting, found that church growth is “hampered more by constraints on the supply of church than by falling demand.” In other words, reducing clergy and numbers of services drives falling attendance numbers, and maintaining clergy numbers and services gives the potential for growth. The authors argue, "In the present spiritual climate, where provision is made, people will come. There may never have been a time in recent decades when people have been more responsive to what church has to offer when it is offered.”

In reducing rural ministry the Church of England has been assiduously sawing off the very branch it was sitting on. If you don't believe me, an obscure parish Priest, then consider the words of the Bishop of Hereford in a recent interview. He said there is “clear evidence that maintaining stipendiary clergy levels leads to church growth.” He argued that well supported vicars, and in parish churches doing what they do best, there is the best potential for growth in attendance and faith.

I have seen for myself time and time again the value of faithful rural church congregations; they help generate community, and friendship, and a sense of local identity, all things which often people who do not go to church value and tell me they recognise as good. Through the life of rural churches I have seen people come to faith in Christ, and grow in the faith of Christ. If the Church of England would back us, we could do even better. The churches of the Welland Foss Benefice are each special in their own way, and are all places of truth and beauty, both in their architecture, and in their congregations. We are worth investing in, as are hundreds of small rural churches up and down our nation. I may be simplifying the matter to make a point, but I am right. Growth comes from small seeds, just ask Jesus...

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

Matthew 13:31-32