The Church of England could rent out parish churches instead of selling them under proposals to deal with dwindling congregations.
At present, churches struggling to fill pews are often merged with other parishes and their buildings sold off.
However, under plans being considered by the General Synod, the Church’s legislative body, buildings would be allowed to lie “fallow” with the option to reopen them in the future.
This could mean renting them out at times and also offering them to other institutions, such as local authorities or even other Christian denominations, under a shared ownership deal.
The plan has been proposed by the Church Commissioners for England, the group which manages the Church of England’s investment portfolio as well as its £10.3 billion endowment fund, and is chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Set to be debated at Synod next week, the plan suggests the “fallow concept” to “enable the church and community to remain open to new opportunities for witness and service as circumstances change”.
It says that closed churches will be able to “move forward again once the time is right” and stresses that this is “not hibernation, but a ‘waiting on the Lord’.”
Victory for campaigners
The plans have been welcomed as a victory by campaigners who have long accused archbishops of presiding over rapid disintegration of parishes.
The Rev Marcus Walker, chairman of the Save the Parish campaign group and a General Synod member, described it as “a real win for local parishioners across the country” to help avoid “the final death” of their church being sold.
It is expected that under th proposals congregants whose church building is lying fallow will have to travel to worship elsewhere.
In June the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, who has been in post since 2013, said that the decline in church attendance during his tenure was something that “personally, I count as failure”.
The average attendance for Sunday services across the Church in 2013 was 1,009,100. By 2019 that figure had dropped to 854,000, a decline of just over 15 per cent.
Many churches have since struggled to hit pre-pandemic congregant numbers. A report by the Diocese of Oxford, based on a limited number of parishes, estimated that attendance in October 2022 was at 81 per cent of the 2019 level.
Last year The Telegraph analysed Church data to reveal that 423 churches were closed between 2010 and 2019.
The figure signifies the downward trend in the number of churches in the country, with further analysis showing that almost 1,000 have been forced to close in just over 30 years – 940 between 1987 and 2019. The number of churches left stands at around 15,496.
In November 2022 it also emerged that Christians now account for less than half of England and Wales’s population for the first time in census history.
The Office for National Statistics results showed that 46.2 per cent of the population (27.5 million people) described themselves as Christian in 2021. This marks a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3 per cent (33.3 million people) in 2011.
‘Not everything has to be binary’
Responding to the new proposals, Rev Marcus, who is also Rector of St Bartholomew The Great Church, London, and who was consulted on the plans, said: “What has happened here is that the Church has finally recognised that not everything has to be binary.
“Before a church would have to be either fully functioning or closed down and everything handed over. The idea of there being an in between stage isn’t a bad one.”
He added: “One of the biggest concerns people on the ground have had is the speed with which diocesan officials have rushed to close and sell off churches that don’t fit their plans, spreadsheets or bureaucratic demands.
“This ‘fallow time’ idea shows the Church has really listened to us and includes options to allow churches to keep functioning even when they’re struggling with buildings or paperwork, to allow buildings and their upkeep to be shared with local councils or other denominations, and to allow churches to avoid the final death of being sold while other options can be explored.”
The General Synod will review the paper when it meets in York on Saturday. In order for the fallow churches measure to be rolled out, the proposal will need to be explored further by legal officials. It is understood that if it goes ahead, the process would be led by clergy or parochial church council in conjunction with the relevant diocese.
A Church of England spokesman said: “As the review notes, church life is a shared community endeavour which includes everyone whether they have some belief or none.
“These are draft proposals aimed at helping the Church explore ways of keeping churches open so that they can continue to play a central role as a Christian presence in their communities.” (The Telegraph)
