The Big Question

This month’s question is: ‘How important is a church building to a congregation?’

“I suppose the answer to our question depends largely on how the congregation use their building.

“Sadly, many of the sanctuaries where we worship week by week are often closed except during public worship, meaning that, whilst most people often think of the Church as the Sanctuary where people worship, it’s often the rest of the building around it that says more about what role it plays in a congregation’s life.

“Who, for example, uses that building? Is it mainly used by Church organisations? Or by community groups? For what? What sort of relationship does the congregation have to those groups that use them?

Does the building open the door to people to worship or are its facilities not what people expect and need these days?

And dare I mention it, is the building even in the right place, at a location people can see and find?

“Of course, buildings are important to congregations. They are the place where people gather. They are part of our collective memories and shared history, part of the story of our faith. We are familiar with the pews or seats, inspired by the way a place looks – all of which add to the worship of God’s people. And let’s be honest, some of them are amazing works of art!

“Whatever we do with them, though, we need to make them work for the Kingdom. After all, Jesus needs us to be more than mere caretakers of stones and bricks and mortar.”

“As a ‘manse child’, then a ‘manse wife’, moving from parish to parish, I have never felt a huge attachment to a church building. I think of myself as a sort of ‘Christian nomad’! That is not to say I haven’t loved the buildings I have worked and worshipped in.

“However, for those who have been born into, baptised, confirmed, married, and worshipped in the church of their forebears, the significance of a building is huge. I lived in Shetland until recently, where two out of three of the church buildings are closing. I witnessed the distress, hurt and disappointment felt in tight-knit communities, where generations have worshipped in the same building, and where everyone in the community regards the building as ‘wir kirk’.

“A church building is a congregation’s ‘home’. It is also set in a community as a centre of worship, witness and outreach and can become a ‘home’ for that community. As such it is important, vital even. This happens in many churches, where amazing work is done through different projects, but the church building only earns and retains its importance when it facilitates the outreach and mission of the church.

“But when the church building is the only place where ‘things happen’, or when it is simply in the wrong place, Christ’s mission can be limited. Now, even more than in the past, we need to be a ‘church without walls’ – out there – in schools, colleges, shops, factories etc.

“In other words, where people are.”

“Standing for the first time in the vast, sublime, holy space of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, I recovered my breath, turned to my wife, and said: “I’m glad I’m not the Fabric Convener on this Kirk Session!” It was a parody of a very contemporary and pragmatic attitude; church buildings are a burden. Just to stand in the Sagrada Familia is to grasp that things are more complicated than that – but then, for me, so is the experience of conducting worship in the United Church of Bute, and looking out at the congregation.

“Our people love their kirk – but for the great majority of them, it isn’t the building they worshipped in when the newly-united congregation was formed in 1999.

Relinquishing one building after another, not without sadness, element after element of the congregation moved on, and now this, the former High Kirk of Rothesay, is our sacred space. The congregation loves and needs its sacred space – and that that isn’t the same as the sentimental love of a building.

“Covid-19 revealed another dimension of this. When lockdown came, we turned to YouTube, and I recorded my part of our services in the otherwise empty building. This turned out to be tremendously important. Our building grounded us.

We learned that a worshipping community grounded in time and space can remain one when its worship flits to cyber-space. The building gave our worship a focus.

And of course, ‘focus’ is the Latin word for ‘hearth’, isn’t it?

“Hearth and home…”

“Church buildings for congregations can be important – as important as a home to live in for individuals. However, if the building doesn’t actually enable what it is intended to enable then it ceases to have any real purpose; not without significant developmental costs at least. That’s when our ecclesiastical buildings become very visual public symbols of irrelevance.

“Sadly, our land is now strewn with many depressing such symbols of tired, damp, cold sanctuaries that the vast majority of our nation’s population simply won’t tolerate attending.

“The better question is: ‘What are our church buildings for: monuments to a long since bygone era, or centres of excellence for ministry and mission in the present?’

After all, who wants to live in a house with a leaky roof that doesn’t protect from the elements, or draughts blowing through every door and window that fail to keep the residents warm? So, who wants to attend worship, fellowship or Christian education in a place that simply isn’t fit for purpose?

“If a Church building is a facility that facilitates real life-changing and life-giving ministry and mission it is very important.

If it does not, it is not – in terms of the congregation’s fundamental purpose, at least.

“I appreciate, of course, that our buildings are important to many for sentimental reasons.

“Alas, I also know that sentimentality doesn’t pay repair or heating or insurance bills. And those things are important.”

“Church buildings often cause us to be in two camps – those who are devastated at the thought of all that heritage, history, family events and many other occasions within that particular atmosphere (and sometimes led by a peculiar minister (meaning here, ‘significant, unique!’ ) Others can’t see what the fuss is about – it’s only bricks and mortar, folks, chill. It’s God we worship, not a building!

“And of course, I suspect the majority of us have mixed feelings. I have just moved into a six-month sabbatical after being part of the potential closure of one church building in Inverness.

“Although this closure was a requirement from Presbytery for many years, it had tarried. Practically, and financially, one cannot keep a large church open for 30 folks on a Sunday. Personally, I now worship (often ‘live’) in a school, and was a part of a Church plant, where we worshipped in a rugby club! Yes, God is everywhere.

“That said, there IS a sense of His presence in some churches that is transcendent, from all the pilgrims’ prayers from yester year that defies description; you know He’s there.. So – my sincere condolences to those of you facing imminent closure of a beloved building.

“I pray He will comfort you, and open your mind to that broader understanding; ‘But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord NEVER ceases.’ Lamentations 3:24.”