The Church Might Close. But Think of the Money We’ve Saved.

If you ran a restaurant where the cooker didn’t work, the manager rarely appeared and every suggestion for improvement was referred to somebody who had been in charge of the napkins since 1981, you would expect to go out of business. You would not spend the next decade organising increasingly desperate raffles for the entrance canopy. Yet parts of the Church of England appear to regard this as a perfectly reasonable operating model.

The congregation gets smaller. The volunteers get older. The building gets more expensive. Nothing fundamental changes. Then everyone expresses astonishment that the village no longer comes through the door. Clearly, the problem must be modern society. It couldn’t possibly be anything happening inside.

An organ, approximately

Here in Kington St Michael, we have a church organ which, in my experience of playing it, has been altered over the years to the point where its usefulness is severely compromised. You can coax something out of it if you restrict yourself to a few stops and play on the manuals alone. Introduce the pedals, however, and it runs out of wind.

This is rather like owning a car which works beautifully provided you don’t attempt a hill, carry a passenger or engage third gear. “Yes, but it goes.” Up to a point. So does a supermarket trolley.

For someone playing a hymn tune on the keyboards, the problems may not be immediately obvious. That is no criticism of people doing their best to provide music. But being able to produce some notes is not the same as having a functioning instrument. An organist needs reliable wind and the ability to use the instrument properly. Otherwise, you spend the service negotiating with it, like a hostage mediator dealing with an elderly boiler. The congregation may hear music. The player hears everything that cannot be done.

Apparently, that’s too expensive

When I suggested exploring a replacement blower, which I believe may be what the organ needs, the response was essentially: that’s £5,000, and we haven’t got the money. Now, I am not pretending £5,000 is loose change. Nor am I claiming that my assessment replaces a proper diagnosis by an organ builder. But surely the next question should be: what exactly is wrong, what would put it right, and how might we pay for it?

Instead, “we haven’t got the money” seems to function as the end of the discussion. A commercial organisation would at least investigate whether repairing an important asset might help sustain its activities. It might obtain quotations, approach donors, launch a specific appeal or divide the work into manageable stages. The church response, as I encountered it, had rather more finality. There is no money. Put the lid down. Perhaps the wind will return through prayer.

Meanwhile, the porch

The porch, by contrast, appears to enjoy an altogether more promising fundraising career. There are events raising money for it. There is discussion of it. There is, apparently, professional consideration of it. What I have not seen is the completed repair.

I understand that architectural advice and a report have formed part of the process. I do not know the accounts, what has been spent or what constraints the parish faces, so I cannot judge whether that expenditure is justified. Old buildings need specialist advice. Fair enough. But from outside the process, there is a communication problem: money is raised, time passes, and the visible result remains a porch awaiting attention.

If progress is happening behind the scenes, tell people. Publish the target, the amount raised, the work commissioned and the next milestone. Give supporters something more substantial than another invitation to buy cake. A report may be necessary. It is nevertheless a disappointing thing to shelter under when it rains.

Buying the occasion, neglecting the infrastructure

For its patronal festival, the church brings in four university student singers to present choral evensong. Excellent. I want churches to offer worthwhile music, and giving young singers an opportunity is something to welcome. But there is an obvious question. If music matters sufficiently to organise a special choral service, why does the instrument supporting musical life apparently struggle to qualify for a repair campaign? It is like hiring a chef for a gala dinner while declining to mend the oven.

I played for the occasion last year. I wasn’t asked again this year. Naturally, I noticed, but this argument does not depend on who occupies the organ bench. Whoever plays deserves an instrument that works. Nor do I know how this year’s accompaniment is being handled. The broader point is that an impressive occasional event cannot substitute for maintaining the things that make regular activity possible. You cannot build a musical tradition entirely out of special occasions and crossed fingers.

Nobody is suggesting a drive-through Eucharist

Whenever someone suggests that a church should operate more like a business, there is a danger of people imagining loyalty cards, premium pews and a recorded voice announcing that your confession is important to us. That is not what I mean. A church has a spiritual purpose. It should welcome people regardless of their ability to contribute financially. Its value cannot be reduced to turnover.

But having a different purpose does not remove the need for competent management. You still need priorities, maintenance, communication and a plan for what happens when your existing volunteers can no longer do everything. You need to know who you are serving and whether you are making it easy for them to participate. Above all, you need to distinguish between saving money and allowing something valuable to deteriorate because nobody wants to organise its repair. One is financial discipline. The other is postponing the bill until it comes attached to a closure notice.

Where is the leadership?

In two years of living here, I have met the vicar only once: when I played for midnight mass in 2024. That is my experience, not a complete record of the vicar’s attendance or workload. I cannot claim to know every service taken or every pastoral visit made. I am also grateful that lay readers give their time. This is not an argument that their contribution is somehow worthless.

But local visibility matters. If residents rarely encounter the person leading their church, how are relationships supposed to develop? How do ideas reach someone able to support them? Who brings people together around a practical plan? Leadership cannot consist solely of keeping a rota populated. A business whose customers scarcely knew its manager might have a problem. A church trying to form a community has an even greater need for recognisable, accessible leadership. You cannot expect people to feel connected to an institution which seems only intermittently connected to them.

The longest-serving committee in Christendom

Then there is the old guard. Every village organisation has some version of it: people whose service has been immense, whose knowledge is invaluable and whose preferred arrangements have acquired the status of geological formations. Their work deserves gratitude. Their decisions still need to be open to challenge.

The problem is not age. Plenty of older people welcome change, and plenty of younger people can make a committee feel like a tax inspection. The problem is ownership: the point at which “I help run this” becomes “this belongs to us”. New volunteers are welcomed, provided they volunteer to do precisely what has always been done. New ideas are considered, briefly, before someone explains why they were tried unsuccessfully during the Falklands War.

Eventually, the newcomers stop offering. Then comes the familiar lament: nobody wants to help. Sometimes people do want to help. They simply don’t want to spend the next fifteen years seeking permission to move a table.

Children are not a disturbance to the future

A church that welcomes young children, supports a parent-and-toddler group and gives families reasons to enter the building has at least begun investing in its future. That does not guarantee a full church on Sunday. Families are people, not a recruitment scheme. But relationships have to start somewhere. A child who knows the church as somewhere warm, friendly and familiar has a different starting point from one who encounters it only as a locked building beside a graveyard.

Yes, children make noise. They drop things. They ask inconvenient questions. They occasionally interrupt moments which adults have spent considerable effort making solemn. This is a manageable operational challenge. Having no children at all is a rather more serious one.

Similarly, worthwhile music can give people a reason to participate: to sing, learn, rehearse and contribute something together. A working organ will not magically produce a choir. But neglecting the tools and opportunities for participation hardly improves the odds.

A plan would be a start

None of this requires a management consultancy arriving with six laptops and a diagram of a ladder. It requires some ordinary questions. What is the church trying to achieve over the next three years? What needs repairing? What will each project cost? Who is responsible? How will progress be reported? What would make a new person feel useful and welcome?

For the organ, start with a professional assessment and a realistic repair proposal. For the porch, explain the progress and remaining obstacles. For the congregation, create opportunities to participate and give new volunteers meaningful responsibility. There will be difficult choices. Some projects will have to wait. But “we cannot do everything” is a reason to prioritise, not an excuse to do nothing differently.

A rural church needs stewardship with enough imagination to leave something alive for the next generation. Otherwise, one day the building will fall silent, the last volunteers will step down, and everyone will wonder why nothing could be done.

Still. At least we didn’t spend £5,000 on the organ.