Growing Good: A presence in every community
Growing Good: Growth, Social Action and Discipleship by Hannah Rich, in partnership with Church Urban Fund and Theos, was the culmination of three years of extensive qualitative and quantitative research, including 350 interviews in over 60 parish communities across England and new analysis of existing parish data that explored the relationship between social action, church growth and discipleship in the Church of England. The Growing Good Toolkit from Church Urban Fund helps church groups explore and implement the findings of the report.
In a five part series for the Living Theology Forum we explore the 6 features identified in the report that characterise churches exhibiting healthy growth. In this first extract from the report, the focus is on Presence – in other words, the way in which churches are present and visible within their local communities. The report finds that a church grows in number and depth when it is present in and connected to its local community, which may be manifested through its social action.
One of the defining aspects of the Church of England is its presence in every community, facilitated by how the parish system recognises pastoral and spiritual responsibility for the entire country and its population at a local scale. Every community and every individual has a local parish church, regardless of whether they attend. Collectively, this is the footprint that both constitutes and justifies the church’s national presence even in an era where its perceived value as a national institution is diminishing. In fact, where there is residual fondness for the Church of England, this is often expressed with reference to its local rather than national incarnation.
One vicar expressed this as a fundamental part of the church’s ministry:
There is a ministry of presence that we have and that we’re called to have. So what does victory look like for the Church of England? I think victory sometimes looks like staying.
The visible presence that the church has in a community is key to the growth of the congregation and the effectiveness of its social action at a local level. It is important not only that the church is doing good, but also that it is known for the good it does, and growth in presence is therefore sometimes framed as a precursor to growth. A strategic awareness of what the presence of the church looks like to its community is important. We encountered parishes where the church building is in the heart of the community geographically and this renders its presence in community life natural.
In one of these, where the building is prominent in a busy market square, the church’s core social action was the presence of congregation members in the church building every day of the week to welcome passers-by in for conversation, refreshments and prayer. The congregation has almost doubled in five years since this became an intentional part of church life, including a number of people returning to church after a long absence. The clergy here also report a notable increase in the number of occasional offices (baptisms, weddings and funerals). The recently arrived curate felt that:
It’s a church at the heart of its community, both sort of physically and spiritually. Physically, it’s got a great position right at the heart of the marketplace and I think that everything we do tries to put the church at the heart of the community.
This is not, however, an approach that all churches have recourse to; we visited other communities where the parish church is harder to find physically, such that the natural footfall of local residents past the building is lower. An awareness of what the presence of the church’s ministry might mean in a specific parish context is critical for growth, perhaps more so than any particular characteristic of that ministry. Even between parishes we might categorise as similar, there is not one universal picture of what presence looks like. In several rural case studies, for example, the church was the central institution and main community building in the village. In another not dissimilar rural case study, however, the congregation described the need for the church to rediscover its own distinctive presence in a thriving village with over 50 other community groups.
In one inner-city parish where the church building was positioned in the midst of densely-populated terraced streets, we heard about a congregation who held a regular coffee morning called ‘Open Church’, described as a time during which the church would be open for the community to come for conversation and refreshments. However, the doors of the church building remained closed throughout and there was little physical indication outside of what was going on inside. A local resident walking past, for example, would not have known they were welcome to come in. The intention behind the activity (and its name) was hindered by the invisibility of the church’s presence.
This continued until a new member of the community remarked on this apparent disconnect. The deliberate decision was made to open both of the double doors at the entrance to the church; something we were told had typically only happened previously in order to facilitate funerals. This represented a small change in culture and practice, which was described by congregation members as having been significant for the impact of the church in its wider community.
A helpful lens through which to consider this is Cameron et al.’s ‘Four Voices of Theology’ model, which distinguishes four aspects of theology in practice: normative, formal, espoused and operant. The last two in particular are important here. The espoused form of theology is “embedded within a group’s articulation of its beliefs” whereas the operant theology is “embedded within the actual practices of the group” (note 1). According to this model, the same community or congregation may have multiple theological voices that can sometimes contradict or contrast with each other. In the case study above, the espoused theology of the ‘Open Church’ was at odds with the operant theology expressed by the closed doors. An authentic theological voice is important for church growth; congregations should therefore consider how their culture and social action helps or hinders the coherence of it, as in this example.
In a number of case study parishes, the narrative of growth began from a point where the local community did not realise the church was still open. In one suburban parish, an individual who had recently joined the church community with no prior faith background spoke about how they had previously had the false notion that the church was closed:
I’d always lived locally and I had tried several times in my life to get into this church over a number of years and every time I’d come, it had been closed. I thought it was a closed church, actually, from looking at the outside of it. I’d never seen anybody go in or out.
For this individual and others we heard from in various places, the fact that the church building “looked closed” gave the impression that the church community was itself no longer present. In one church where attendance was declining, but whose leadership were keen to reverse this, a member of the Parochial Church Council (PCC) described the challenge of “trying to rebuild the understanding that there is an active church in the community here.”
The vicar of one church highlighted how, when they arrived in the parish, they were struck by how many people in the local community thought the church was closed:
The number of people that said that they thought the church had closed down years early was really shocking. The whole outside space of the church was totally overgrown with brambles and weeds. The whole site looked like it was closed down.
In this example, the congregation was already engaged in a substantial amount of social action, much of it hosted in the building, but this was unbeknown to those outside the church.
In one parish, we saw how growth had begun with changing the outer appearance of the building so that the community was aware it was there. This was a collective effort, with members of the congregation and local residents involved in the work of clearing the churchyard and painting. The immediate impact of this was that the social action activities already hosted and supported by the church saw an increase in drop-in visitors, as did the Sunday service, which has doubled in size and now includes a number of individuals who were previously guests of the church’s social action.
A lay leader illustrated the impact of the changing building on the church’s social action:
People just turn up for help. They can see that life is here now and they wander in and want to look round. You can see that life is here now. That’s the difference.
Elsewhere, in a city centre parish, the dismantling of a literal barrier wall that had surrounded the vast church building had been a fundamental and symbolic part of developing the church’s mission, which ultimately led to significant numerical growth. Together with intentional connection with local residents, what had been an enclosed church building became a thriving presence within a busy square. The church rediscovered its ancient role at the physical heart of the community and the congregation grew.
The reverse can also be true; one member of clergy spoke about arriving in a parish to discover how, in its finances, the congregation prioritised the repair of a perimeter fence over social action or charitable giving. This was, the vicar felt, inadvertently indicative of a cultural and theological outlook in which the congregation presented itself as “a gated community of wonderful praying Christians”.
The importance of a congregational culture characterised by its openness, tied to the visible openness of the building, was a recurring theme in growing church communities.
The physical presence of the church can also point to the reason for its action and worship. German theological Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that, “the space of the church is the place where witness is given to the foundation of all reality in Jesus Christ” and in this sense, we observe that the church building can be central to connecting social action with discipleship and growth.
As one church staff member put it:
The great thing about here is the church as a building really speaks about the love of God. I don’t know if you felt it when you came in. Sometimes people just cry when they walk into the building.
In numerous places, we encountered social action taking place in the church building itself, either by necessity or by choice. Several churches did not have church halls or additional spaces and therefore host everything in the same space as worship. This can be used to symbolise the faith motivation behind the action. For example, one church ran a second-hand school uniform swap and used the altar rail to display the clothes. Volunteers expressed that this was a way of gently enabling visitors to interact with every aspect of church life, whether or not they were familiar with the church as a place of worship or only as the place they brought their children for a new uniform.
This importance of the church as somewhere sacred is what distinguishes it from secular charitable organisations. This is critical if social action is to lead to the discipleship of those involved.
In one small town parish, we heard the story of a woman who came regularly to a church coffee morning but asked if a cross on the wall could be removed from the space where it met because she was uncomfortable with it. Whilst they refused, this was a wake-up call for volunteers here that in their eagerness to welcome the whole community, they had not differentiated themselves enough from any other civic institution, to the point where those visiting did not recognise the spiritual value of the place. Their social action work was thriving, but it was not growing the congregation.
This is a prime example of how the culture and intention around social action, and not merely the action itself, is instrumental in growth. The same form of social action – for example the coffee morning – can enable discipleship in one place and not in another, if the culture is different.
Particularly in rural communities, we heard how the presence of the church is still known, accepted and valued. Knowing the church and feeling a part of it is seen as a unique part of community life in the rural context, even where this does not necessarily translate into large attendances every Sunday. In rural parishes, particularly those with smaller congregations scattered across a team ministry with a large geographical area, the presence of the church need not necessarily mean that every building is open, all of the time. This might not always be feasible.
In one case study, we encountered an Ecumenical Missional Partnership spanning a mixture of Anglican and Methodist congregations in a number of small villages across a vast geographical area. Keeping the buildings open where possible sent a message to each village that it is valued by the church. The politics of village identity meant that it mattered not only that there was a church locally, but that there is a church present in that village. It was a form of witness; a way of stating, like Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28, that “the Lord is in this place”.
The partnership between villages as well as denominations allowed for social action to be shared between communities that could not have sustained it alone; for example, a holiday club for local children run by volunteers from numerous churches which intentionally moved between villages in order to be present locally to all those involved at least once. Across the dozen Anglican congregations involved in the partnership, statistics show some to be growing, some declining and some inconclusive in terms of their attendance, for a multitude of demographic reasons. Collectively, however, the church was pursuing growth in ways that each isolated congregation might not be able.
Being a presence in every community also requires courageous commitment to places where this is less easy. A bishop interviewed in the preliminary stage spoke about the need to put this into practice by continuing to resource ministry where it is hardest:
The strength of the Church of England has been to have priests living alongside the poor in those places… The church we’re supposed to be, the Church of England, is one that covers all those places regardless of whether people can pay or not, keeping a presence in every community.
It is not innately harder to grow a church in a more deprived parish and the statistics do not indicate a correlation between deprivation and growth. However, when growth occurs, it is portrayed as being hard won in these parishes. We heard about one priest working “heroically” in a difficult outer estate parish who has had his “confidence knocked” because everything he has tried has worked reasonably well, but “without seeing the flourishing we’re presented with in other places.”
If a church building closes, however necessarily, it is perceived not only as the church leaving a place but also as God leaving a place. In one case study, an estate parish in a deprived and geographically isolated coastal community, we heard how one by one, the churches of other denominations had closed and left the area. The Roman Catholic Church there had held its last Mass the same week we visited. That the Anglican Church remained was not in itself evidence of flourishing, but had strengthened the resolve of the congregation to continue worshipping and engaging in social action there so that the whole community would know they were still loved by God and his people.
To see the church grow here might involve sacrificial strategic decisions to keep churches open in places where they can’t afford to be, or where they don’t have many people, in order that there is still a witness in those places. Pursuing the growth of the church and of the Kingdom in these places might mean actively resourcing churches that are at present declining and funding faithful ministry in tough circumstances in the hope of things changing.
It is also important for the church to resource the places where people are all the time. In non-commuter areas or areas with high levels of unemployment, what it means to be present to the people in the community is different from in a parish in a dormitory community where people commute out to work during the week. The COVID-19 pandemic has thus far brought changes to working life and the extent to which that is permanent remains to be seen. If these dynamics shift completely, so too will the implications of the ministry of being present to people.
Both growth and social action are often seen as the result of greater connection to the local community, whether through formal partnership or informal relationship.
In one example, a pioneer congregation had been planted in an area of the parish where the church had previously been relatively inactive. One of the first steps in this was developing a working relationship with the ‘Friends of the Park’ group, known as one of the most active community organisations locally. This group met on Sunday mornings to tend to the park adjacent to the church building and also to socialise; for example, they organised regular litter-picks followed by sharing refreshments. Rather than competing with this, the church decided that the new congregation would meet on Sunday afternoon and the church members would also join in with the park activities. This led to a thriving partnership between the church and the park group, several of whom joined the church. At Christmas, the church was invited to lead the park carol service.
The pioneer minister described how:
There’s a real sense that [the park group] know where we’re coming from and are respectful of that. Some of them are on the fringes of church. Those big conversations are there and things about the fifth mark of mission, care of creation – we’ve spoken about that and why we’re passionate about it… There’s a general recognition that these community partners are coming from different places with different focuses but actually a shared passion for this land and this community.
In several other case studies, working with local residents’ associations was highlighted as being key to engaging locally, and the relationships that had developed in this way had led to new people joining the congregation. It is a visible and constructive way that the church can be seen as active in, with and for its local community.
In the qualitative phase, conducted prior to the pandemic, a small number of participants mentioned the importance of online presence. This was mainly discussed with reference to local community Facebook pages, which are important to community life. Those who mentioned this felt that it was valuable for the church to be present and contributing to the conversation of the local community wherever it takes place, including on social media. These pages were noted as a forum in which needs could be identified that the church might contribute to addressing. Several church leaders gave examples of initiatives or pieces of informal social action that would not have happened without the connections made in these forums, but which had led to the growth of the church community.
In light of the pandemic and the resulting turn to online rather than in-person worship for a season, this is a valuable reminder that the church’s presence in the community can and does extend beyond the physical building. The way worship happens has necessarily changed and, for some, so has the way the church is able to interact with its community. However, greater engagement with online spaces both for worship and relationship need not only be a consequence of the pandemic, but also a chance for the church to broaden its network in a permanent way.
Engaging in social action is not likely to lead to growth, numerical or spiritual, if no one knows it is happening, and therefore the visible presence of the church is fundamental to its growth. This is not a call for social action to be self-serving or the church advertising for its own sake the good that it does. Rather, it reflects Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 about letting the light of the world shine before others that they might see good deeds and glorify God. Where we observed churches growing as a result of their social action, it was also the case that those we encountered outside of the worshipping community actively recognised the church as a positive presence locally.
Case Study
The streets of East Swindon, known as Parks, are empty on a blustery autumn morning. A few mothers lead toddlers past shuttered shops. Two young people stand and chat outside a house, wearing onesies. Forty per cent of children in Parks are living in poverty, according to a report in 2019. Since then, the main local employer, Honda, has announced the closure of its factory in 2021, and the coronavirus has hit.
“The main problem is one of hopelessness,” says the Revd Lydia Morey, the church curate. “There’s everything associated with poverty, hunger and lack of job opportunities. “When the Honda factory announced that it was closing, it was completely devastating, and then the coronavirus came.” The church, she says, “is small with limited capacity” but is consistently involved in “building community” and trying to meet the needs of the people in the area.
“There is a constant stream of people asking for foodbank vouchers.” A community choir – the Lionesses – was established at the church two-and-a-half years ago. “I think singing lifts your spirits and makes you feel joyful,” says the Revd Morey.
The choir’s leader is 59-year-old Diane, a mother-of-four who lives with her partner in East Swindon. Abused by her stepfather as a teenager, Diane says she has found “peace” at St John’s. “I have learned that if I need someone to talk to there’s always someone to talk to here,” she says. “If I need to sit and think, I can. I’m in a different place now. I don’t get angry anymore. I would have stood and had a fight before. Now, I would rather walk away.”
And she is “the most proudest person” of the choir’s achievements, which have included singing carols in the nearby Morrison’s. Her best friend, Rose (56) is also a choir member. Rose experienced violence at the hands of her first husband. The church and the choir have changed her, she says. “This place has been transformational for me. I was scared. Before, I kept myself to myself. Now I like talking to people. It’s brought me a long, long way.”
Reprinted with kind permission from Growing Good: Growth, Social Action and Discipleship in the Church of England, Theos and Church Urban Fund 2021
Note 1: Helen Cameron, Deborah Bhatti, Catherine Duce, James Sweeney and Clare Watkins, Talking About God in Practice: Theological Action Research and Practical Theology (London: SCM Press, 2010), p. 54, italics the authors’.
Photos by Clare Kendall
Questions to consider:
The Growing Good Toolkit is a FREE six session course helping churches explore the connection between social action, discipleship and growth. Through six flexible, interactive small group sessions, we explore how our churches can be faithful and fruitful in our local communities.
• What does the presence of the church look like in your community?
• What might the presence of the building convey to the community around?
• Does the community know you are present?
• What could you do to make your presence more visible?
• What are the opportunities and the challenges of the physical presence of the church where you are?
Hannah Rich is a senior researcher at Theos. She previously worked for a social innovation think tank and a learning disability charity. She has an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science for the London School of Economics.