Their doors might be closed but Britain’s churches are working harder than ever before
Since lockdown began, empty chapels have been repurposed as food banks, services have been streamed online and one reverend has taken his hymns to the streets. And that’s just the start, writes Emma Fowle
In Douglas Murray’s recent article for The Spectator he argued that, in a time of national crisis, the church missed the opportunity of a lifetime by effectively shutting up shop and putting their feet up for a well-earned break. When Murray shared the article on Twitter, it prompted hundreds of responses from congregations and clergy across the UK who countered that far from being shut, they have been working harder than ever since closing their doors on 23 March.
Reverend Brian Casey, vicar of Springburn Parish Church, was one of the first to respond, tweeting: “Our church has worked harder in the last three months than at any other time. We have fed 2,000 people a month at a cost of around £30,000 and I have buried 90 people personally in three months. I am exhausted and my phone still rings day and night.”
Springburn, on the outskirts of Glasgow, is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Scotland. At the opposite end of the country in Newquay, Cornwall, the town reported to be hardest hit by the economic impacts of Covid-19, Reverend Matt Timms echoes Casey’s comments. Timms, dubbed “the surfing vicar,” recently hit the headlines for staging England’s first drive-in church service but says that behind the success of the drive-in and the media attention it attracted, he and his team at Wave House Church have been working around the clock since lockdown to meet not only the spiritual needs of the community but the increase in practical, emotional and mental needs too.
Across the UK, churches have been stepping up to the plate, repurposing now-empty chapels, meeting halls and parish churches as foodbanks, community kitchens and distribution hubs. One such congregation is Gas Street Church in Birmingham, where vicar Tim Hughes was recently presented with an award by the prime minister for producing The UK Blessing, a song described by Boris Johnson as “truly uplifting” and that “touched millions around the world with its message of hope”. The song has been viewed over 3.7 million times on YouTube but Hughes is far more passionate about serving his local community. “We believe that God’s heart is to bless people, so we were really keen to sing this blessing over the UK at a time of great uncertainty, anxiety and pain,” says Hughes. “But also to show that even though church buildings were closed, the church is very much alive.” For Gas Street, this has meant opening a food distribution hub that feeds hundreds of people every week, manning a telephone service for the isolated and lonely, and launching debt and money management services to tackle the longer-term economic impacts of Covid-19.
The church is part of Love Your Neighbour, a network of 36 city centre hubs, established by Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London when a local foodbank situated close to the site of Grenfell Tower suddenly shut down. “There were 80 families expecting food,” says Tom Jackson, CEO, of the day that the local foodbank closed. “Amazingly, our first deliveries arrived on that very same day, so we were able to parcel them all up and help provide for those families.”
A Food Foundation report released in April showed that 1.5 million people had gone without food for a whole day since the start of lockdown. Jackson says that their church was determined to be part of the solution to that problem. “The need was far greater than we could meet on our own,” he says. “But if all of the churches across the country came together – and there are more churches than there are pubs – you know, we could make a really meaningful contribution.” From a standing start, Love Your Neighbour has provided over 1 million meals in less than four months as well as providing friendship, advice and training to vulnerable and isolated people who might otherwise fall through the gaps.
With the full economic impact of Covid-19 yet to be felt, it is likely that many churches will continue to be relied upon by the communities that they serve, making the refocus from buildings to people even more important as the church looks to offer both crisis intervention and long-term solutions. “Charity is great at dealing with the fallout of a broken system,” says Jackson. “but business has the opportunity to change the system itself.” As well as leading Love Your Neighbour, Jackson is co-founder of the charity Resurgo, whose Spear programme is designed to “transform the lives of young people and raise up a new generation of entrepreneurs who can bring about social change” and is delivered by many of the Love Your Neighbour network churches. Since lockdown, the charity has innovated rapidly, moving online and opening up their programme to anyone who needs help getting back into work, regardless of age, in response to the economic impact of Covid-19.
While the church is no stranger to meeting practical needs, simultaneously dealing with a considerable upturn in demand for those services and having to rethink their entire modus operandi has been a challenge for many. For congregations like Gas Street, with a production setup that would rival most West End shows, a largely young and digitally literate church community and a strong online presence, making the switch to online church may be relatively straightforward. But even among smaller and less tech-savvy congregations, many have worked hard to make the change, recognising both the need from within their own congregations and the desire from outside it. One in four adults has now watched an online service during lockdown.
The Church of England’s weekly online services have been watched by over 5.2 million people, with a fifth of these usually attending church once a month or less. A third of those who watched Archbishop Justin Welby on Easter Sunday were 34 years old or under – a far younger demographic than would usually be associated with the established church. Hughes reports that over 3,000 people are tuning in to Gas Street services each week, three times as many as were previously attending in person, and the uptake in streaming and zooming church services even led to claims that church “crashed the internet” one Sunday morning in early May.
I think people are looking for something at the moment, looking for hope. I mean, maybe they’re just grateful for a distraction, a singalong, but I think it’s more than that. I think people are grateful for the message
But not all church responses have been necessarily high-tech. In order to cater for non-digital natives, the Church of England launched Daily Hope, a free 24-hour phone line with “hymns, prayers and reflections” that has now received over 170,000 calls. And in one West London parish, a local vicar has taken to his bike to spread his message of hope.
Reverend Pat Allerton, or the “Portable Priest” as he has become known, has visited over 50 streets in his Notting Hill patch during lockdown, setting up his small PA and playing traditional hymns, such as Amazing Grace, and inviting those listening to join him in the Lord’s Prayer. In a video on YouTube, people can be seen leaning out of their windows, waving and singing. In scenes reminiscent of Italy, one man joins in with his violin, serenading his neighbours. A woman dressed in black stops on the street, bows her head and places her hand over her heart, visibly moved. Others smile, point and take photos.
As in many parts of the UK, Allerton’s urban parish covers a diversity of ages, ethnicities and religious traditions, including many who would describe themselves as having no faith at all. Yet his simple response to having to close the front doors of his physical church building seems to resonate. “If people can’t go to church, church should go to the people,” he says, adding that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. “I think people are looking for something at the moment,” says Allerton, “looking for hope. I mean, maybe they’re just grateful for a distraction, a singalong, but I think it’s more than that. I think people are grateful for the message.”
So why, with the church so obviously busy, are some commentators suggesting that it has been entirely absent? Perhaps, suggests Danny Webster of the Evangelical Alliance, Murray’s comments in The Spectator were simply a matter of mistaken identity. “Church buildings and physical church services provide a very visible manifestation of the church,” says Webster. “People who see the church in very traditional senses are only looking in those places and therefore they’re missing what is happening in other areas.”
Matt Bird, CEO of Cinnamon Network, agrees, believing that many still perceive the traditional church to be the whole expression of Christian faith. The Evangelical Alliance estimates that there are more than 2 million evangelicals in the UK, including 500,000 Christians from black majority churches and, more widely, over 1 million more from black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities. Both Evangelical Alliance and the Cinnamon Network are involved in making sure that the voices of these churches are heard, alongside those of the established church, by the government Places of Worship Taskforce.
Despite the Church of England and the Catholic Church combined making up less than half of the 50,000 church congregations in the UK, both Webster and Bird believe that there is still work to be done in increasing religious literacy and challenging the notion that the church is simply a physical building. “The church needs to help civic society understand that although we haven’t been meeting physically, we were never closed, and we continue to make a transformative contribution to communities,” Bird says, noting that church volunteers were already contributing £3bn worth of time to their local communities each year, even before the current crisis. With the Evangelical Alliance reporting that 90 per cent of their member churches are providing support for vulnerable people and over half have started new services since lockdown, it is likely that this figure is now even higher.
But in the end, perhaps the real judge of the church’s response to coronavirus will not be political commentators, journalists or politicians, but those who received a telephone call or a hot meal, who were supported through a crisis or prayed with when they lost a loved one, who were helped with debt or assisted to get back into work. “In a time of crisis, the church stood up and said, ‘we’re here to help, we’re here to serve, we’re here to generously give,’” says Hughes, “and I think we’re going to see the benefit of that in years to come. When we are eventually able to gather back together, people who were blessed by those churches are going to want to know what causes generosity, they’re going to be interested in hearing more from those churches and connecting with them.” Maybe that will be the real measure of success for the church.
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