€¦  · Web viewLessons from a Closed Church: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. Abstract. It is known that Churches across the UK are closing at an alarming rate.

Lessons from a Closed Church: An interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Abstract

It is known that Churches across the UK are closing at an alarming rate. The reasons for such clo-

sures are many and varied but are not the concern of this article. Here I consider the effect that the

church closure has on the ‘faith journey’ of individual church members themselves. Four interviews

were carried out and, utilising IPA, the distinctive threads are considered. I conclude that the indi-

vidual’s experience of church closure must be considered in context and may not be a disaster for

the faith of an individual, serving instead as a catalyst for a new stage of faith.

Keywords

Faith, change, church, closure, death

Introduction

It is well known that church attendance in the UK is in decline for the majority of denominations.

In Yorkshire the membership of Yorkshire Baptist Association (YBA) churches fell by 23% be-

tween 2005-10.1 Average church membership is below 50 in over half of the YBA’s 112 churches,

with many of these congregations worshipping in buildings that were built to seat over 500. Declin-

ing membership numbers increases the strain on the membership that are left, and the members who

are left are of course ageing and able to do less and less. Eventually the church takes the decision to

close and the traditional idea/fear is that the membership will not join other worshipping congrega-

tions but will disappear without a trace.2 This is a picture that is well known and not unique to the

Baptist denomination, indeed the Baptists are perhaps doing better than most.3

1 as noted by Debbie Gamble, administrator for the YBA, in the annual YBA handbooks of those years.2 Bowden, Andrew Ministry in the Countryside (London:Continuum 1994), p. 96.3 see the current work of British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/baptist-union-statistics-2010/

To counter this present situation many have looked to emulate the minority of churches that

are growing and many books have been published that focus on church growth and how to inspire

it.4 In a similar vein much study has been focused on the subject of church decline and how to halt

it.5 Though interesting in themselves these studies seems built on a premise that I, like Davie,

would like to question, namely that ‘the church as we know it’ is ‘good’ for faith and must be pre-

served as a first cause.6

I am currently serving as a Baptist minister in Haworth, West Yorkshire, and have been for 15

years. Over this time I have seen the vast majority of church congregations that I know shrink in

number. I have seen that many churches spend much time and effort ‘staying open’ and I have seen

one or two that have taken the tough decision to close. Given my position as an ‘insider,’ I am in

the ideal place to undertake gentle research into this tender area. As a minister I am often asked to

help people consider and understand what has happened to them and to help them sense ‘the divine

hand’ at work in the messy realities of life. This paper looks at the closure of a single (anonymised)

Baptist church through the eyes of the members involved at it closure, and considers how the clo-

sure affected their faith. It will also suggest a number of lessons that may be learnt. The question

directed to the church members at the heart of this research was, ‘to what extent did the closure of

your church affect your faith?’

What is ‘Faith’ and how does it change?

It is easy to recognise that church and faith are connected in an intricate and subtle way, but seeking

to understand the direct nuances and patterns that hold the two together is another matter. Church

goers across the millennia have disagreed with one another about the exact nature of faith, and in re-

cent years psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists (and the rest) all seeing ‘faith’ through their

4 Brierley, Peter and Jackson, Bob The road to growth: Towards a thriving church. (London: Church House 2005) 5 Brierley, Peter Coming up Trumps!: Four ways into the Future, (Authentic Media 2004)66 Davie, Grace and Institute of Contemporary British History. Religion in Britain since 1945: Be-lieving without belonging. (Blackwell, 1994)

own distinct lenses have muddied the water still further. Though not perfect, James Fowler’s

‘Stages of Faith,’ has given a framework for considering how the nebulous concept of faith can and

does change over time and has been adopted by the church as a positive analytical tool.7 Fowler’s

work is on the syllabus in all the Baptist Union of Great Britain’s training colleges and as such

should be known about by all the ministers. Alan Jamieson’s work (who uses Fowler) in his analy-

sis of church members who stopped attending their churches acts as a parallel to this study.8 The re-

lationship between the church and the individual has been severed, but it is not a direct parallel, as

for Jamieson the individuals choose to leave their churches, and for my work the church has closed

(thereby leaving the individuals) but with the added complication that this closure came about

through the actions of the individuals. This aside, Jamieson makes an interesting point in suggest-

ing that ‘churches… encourage adults to become settled at [the] third stage [in Fowler’s scheme.]’9

If this is true then might it suggest that the trauma of the church closing encourages/forces the

church members to transition from a stage three faith (Synthetic-Conventional) into a stage four

faith (Individual-Reflective)? Might it also change the content of the faith as well as the stage?

This change in circumstance, however initiated, encourages reflection on how the faith of church-

goers and their tradition of church going interact. Jamieson chose to study EPC (Evangelical, Pen-

tecostal and Charismatic) churches, which by their theological nature might be more nervous of

Bailey’s ‘Implicit Religion’ that is more typical of many Baptist churches.10 In this area the work of

Richter and Francis is important as well, as they found that people often left church to allow their

faith to grow, rather than because their faith had shrunk.11

Overview of the history of Green Lane Baptist Church

7 Fowler, James W. Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for mean-ing (New York: Harper & Row 1981).8 Jamieson, Alan A churchless faith: faith journeys beyond the churches (London: SPCK 2002) p.122.9 ibid p. 12210 Bailey, Edward I. Implicit religion in contemporary society. (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos 1997). 11 Richter, Philip and Francis, Leslie Gone but not forgotten: Church Leaving and Returning (Lon-don: DLT 1997).

Green Lane Baptist Church (GL) was built in the mid 19th century amidst an industrial boom. The

village it is in grew to around 15,000 people and has remained at about this level ever since, though

the industry has waned and it has largely been over shadowed by its more sizeable neighbours. At

one time the town had four churches, an Anglican, a Methodist and a Catholic church all of which

predeceased GL. Alma (one of the experients interviewed for this study) suggested that the

churches ‘were separate and yet there was a good relationship between them,’ and speaking about

the 1940’s-50’s ‘everything went on in the village. Going to (the big neighbouring town) was an ex-

pedition in those days….’ The self contained nature of village/town life played a important role in

church life and the churches made a huge contribution to the village/town life. In a multitude of

ways GL is a typical example of many churches in the the UK. The congregation is much dimin-

ished but the memories of yesteryear are still present. The average age of the members is in the

70’s, and the premises is dilapidated and increasingly unfit for purpose.

GL had an usual chapter in its history though, as in around 2002 a number of members of the

New Zion Christian Fellowship (NZCF), (an evangelical free church that did not believe in paid

ministry) that used to meet in the GL building but separate from the church, joined GL swelling the

membership from perhaps 15 to nearly 50. Ten years later the majority of these started to leave and

GL found itself in a similar position to before but with a more aged congregation and an increas-

ingly dilapidated building to look after. It closed for worship in the Summer of 2012, and at the

time of writing remains unsold.

Method

To gain data for this research project I undertook 4 interviews with members of GL. I was led to

two of these members, Alma and Pauline, by the YBA regional minister and then these two mem-

bers volunteered Jane and Maureen, who became the other two interviewees. The minister of GL at

the time of closure, Derek, also volunteered to be part of the study. The five members (one inter-

view was with sisters Pauline and Jane who chose to be interviewed together) were contacted by

post and telephone with the background information relating to my interest, along with a set of

questions that would provide the starting point for the interviews.

A number of considerations arose through the difficulties involved in finding suitable candidates

to interview. In a small closing church it is highly likely that the members know one another (and

are even related) and when one member is invited to take part in research it is possible that they will

talk with others, perhaps even to discuss how to respond. (I had given the candidates the questions

that I would ask before hand.) Secondly, it is possible that some members would have been so chal-

lenged by the church closure that they ‘fell out of the loop’ and were hard to reach. This ‘self-select-

ing out’ of the most impacted by the church closure would then be very hard to consider.

The interviews lasted between 40-70 minutes and were conducted in the interviewees homes.

The interviews were generally kept quite informal and ‘light’, and they were recorded digitally and

then written up verbatim. After each of the interviews I wrote some initial reflections in the car be-

fore driving home, and each interviewee was sent a letter of thanks in recognition of their help. Ev-

ery care was taken to ensure that both the welfare of the participants and confidentiality were pro-

tected. Analysis of the interviews took place over a number of weeks as I listened repeatedly to the

recordings and typed them up verbatim.

Use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

In analysing the transcripts I could have used a wide range of tools but I chose to use IPA, a qualita-

tive research approach committed to the ‘examination of how people make sense of their major life

experiences.’12 It is a relatively recent approach to qualitative analysis that was born in psychology,

health and social science, but I think that it is highly appropriate for congregational analysis as the

closure of a church that one has attended for many years is surely an example of a ‘major life expe-

rience.’ IPA recognises the phenomenological aspect to church closure as an experience that is

lived through and engaged in by real people located in time and space. It recognises as well that this

experience is understood and ‘created’ by the people themselves and that this interpretation of the

experience is all that is available to the analyst. Smith, Flowers and Larkin neatly summarise the

co-dependency of interpretation and phenomenology as articulated in IPA as follows; ‘Without the

phenomenology, there would be nothing to interpret, without the hermeneutics, the phenomenon

would not be seen.’13 All of this happens in an idiographic rather than nomothetic manner.

It is worth noting that the father of modern theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher, is credited as

being integral to IPA. For some more conservative theologians this might suggest that IPA will de-

construct ‘faith’ altogether and imply that it is ‘nothing more than…a psychological crutch or a soci-

ological construct’ but this is not the direction that this research goes in at all. In using IPA I am

seeking to hear from real people about their real experiences rather than forcing them into a pre-

constructed theological framework. I realise that as a church minister it is possible that the intervie-

wees gave answers that they thought I might approve of, but I sensed that this was not the case. My

position as a Baptist minister allowed me to gain access to ‘rich and detailed personal accounts,’

which might not have been as easy if I were an unknown neutral academic researcher.14

Themes found from analysis

The overriding question behind the research was simply: “How did the closure of the church affect

your faith?” and the simple answer from all of the interviewees was essentially the same:

12 Smith, Jonathan A., Paul Flowers and Michael Larkin Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, Method and Research (London: SAGE 2009), p. 1.13 ibid p. 37.14 ibid p. 40.

Alma: ‘I don’t think so, no.’

Pauline: ‘It didn’t. We didn't sort of think we had been let down we just knew it was material.’

Jane: ‘I don't think closing the church altered the way I felt.’

Maureen: ‘I still believe in Christ. I still have a very strong faith.’

The simple binary, yes or no, that seemed to be assumed in the question perhaps did not give

enough space for a more nuanced answer. However I suggest that either having faith or not is a cat-

egory choice that is commonly spoken of, even if not understood.

Derek, the minister, gave his answer quite slowly and thoughtfully:

‘It didn't affect as much my faith… but it certainly… but it certainly affected … (long pause)

psychologically.’

His location of faith as exterior to psychology is interesting here and perhaps is influenced by the

minister’s distinct call into the faith as opposed to being ‘of faith’ since birth. Pauline, Jane and

Alma were all brought up in the church and saw it as a way of life integral rather than an optional

extra.

Having analysed the interviews of the five experients, there were a number of themes common

to all of them. Without wishing to loose the ideographic nature of the individuals it is important to

see how they reinforce each others perspectives. Accordingly I shall consider six themes making

free use of actual quotes:

- Sadness and grief

- Ongoing church commitment

- ‘Other people’ are thought to be more affected than me

- Reflection as important

- Drivers to closure

- Impact on the minister

After considering these themes individually I shall see how they combine uniquely within the

lives of the experients and suggest that Davie’s simple, ‘the closing of such buildings [churches]…

has a demoralizing effect on everyone,’ is not the final word.15

Sadness and grief

All the interviewees exhibited signs of sadness and grief in speaking about the closure of their

church. Pauline, Jane and Derek used the word ‘sad’, with Derek adding ‘anger’ and Maureen ‘de-

pressed’. Tears welled up in all their eyes and speaking about the closure was not easy. Alma

seemed most phlegmatic and used the most neutral language, simply suggesting that her feelings

about the church closure were not‘a thing we talk about very much….’ Alma was a science teacher

overseas for a missionary society and she suggested that this experience gave a sense of perspective.

Alma’s uncle had been a founding member of the church and she had attended all her life. She had

the deepest roots in the church of any, but her experience of worshipping overseas seemed to help

her come through the closure with less heartache. In a similar way, Pauline had spent many years in

London, and so although she grew up in the church and retired back to the church, she was in a

sense removed. Jane had both grown up in the church and remained worshipping there, and she

was clearly still troubled by it, ‘it [the church closure] throws you… I don’t know… I can’t just ex-

plain really… it’s just a difficult, er… it was sad because it was such a big part of our lives.’ Mau-

reen had been very involved in the church since her return from overseas. Her faith had come alive

after an illness in the family and she had ‘turned back to Christ,’ becoming involved in the church

diaconate quickly afterwards. Maureen seemed to blame herself for ‘taking [her] eye off the ball’

and allowing the church to move away from its Baptist heritage.

Death has for many years been seen through the work of Elizabeth Kubler Ross and her five

stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.16 These are to some degree evident in

15 Davie, Religion, p.110.16 Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth On death and dying (London: Routledge 1970).

the interviewees and could be seen to be in evidence in the run up to closure as well. The more re-

cent work of ‘continuing bonds’ (where the past is not just set aside as finished, but continues to im-

pact the future) seems to be in evidence as well, however, as the next theme will explore further.17

Ongoing church commitment

All the interviewees were now regular worshippers at other churches. The choice of which church

to start attending was for a short time a common question that they all shared, ‘it was a matter of

where to go…’ (as said by Alma but implied by all), and after a brief liminal period they all settled

down in one church or another. Some of the old friendships were maintained, some surprising

churches were chosen, but denominational and geographical boundaries were crossed in an effort to

find a church that ‘felt’ right. It is only two years since the church closed, but already Pauline states

that she ‘is quite happy there.’ Pauline is aware that as four members went with her from GL to her

new church ‘we try not to be in the clique- but you can’t help it….’ Pauline’s sister Jane has not yet

found her feet in a new church and ‘I'm still a Christian I still try and do good but, er no, it's per-

haps been a bit more difficult for me… I don't know in what way… I’m still a bit of a floating

voter.’ Maureen picks up Alma (who has become increasingly in need of physical help to leave the

house) and takes her to their new church. Maureen, who is still angry about the manner of the clo-

sure of GL is clear that, ‘I could have walked away but he [Christ] still had me and he wasn't letting

go.’ She is not looking to become a member of her new church and is quite happy to ‘have a Sun-

day off.’ From these sentiments I perceive a strong understanding that GL church, though a cradle

for their faith, was truly understood to be, ‘you've got to remember… only bricks and mortar: (Mau-

reen).’ The church was playing a signpost like sacramental role, rather than a goalpost like end in

itself. Derek, the minister, agreed with the others that ‘everyone who was there at the end went to

another church.’ Though he followed this up with the recognition that ‘it's one thing going to

17 Klass, Dennis, Silverman, Phyllis & Nickman, Steven (eds.) Continuing Bonds: New Under-standings of Grief (Washington D.C.: Taylor & Francis 1996).

church… it's another being part of it,’ he interpreted their actions by suggesting that it came from a

‘tiredness’ (from their experiences of GL), rather than an antipathy to Christianity.

‘Other people’ are thought to be more affected than me

Reflecting on how his congregation might have felt about the closure, Derek commented ‘I would

imagine that some people, if that's all they’ve ever known… it would be immensely difficult for

them.’ However the other experients seem to go against this assumption: Alma commented ‘I think

that for somebody whose never been anywhere else it would affect them more than me… I've got a

broad experience,’ Pauline ‘Change has to come, that’s what we think both of us, and in what way I

don't know… but some [people] will not! they might be going for years so…they like the tradi-

tional,’ Jane ‘we can understand even at our age, we’re not stuffy stick in the muds we realise that

you've got to change … you’ve got to change’ and Maureen ‘all of them used to say “Maureen, you

carried us through it brilliant.”’

For one reason or another, the experients all thought that they had coped with the change better

than ‘the rest’. Pauline and Alma put this down to having had experiences of other churches along-

side GL, but this was not the case for Jane who had only ever been a GL Member, or for Maureen.

Jane articulates an awareness that life and change go hand in hand. This understanding is in obvi-

ous tension with the idea that her faith has not changed, and will be considered later.

Reflection as important

Since the church closure all the experients had been able to gain a sense of perspective. Maureen

was clear that ‘when it first happened I don't think I could've [spoken about the closure]’ but now

she has ‘come to an understanding… He [Christ] wants us elsewhere….’ Pauline agrees with this

‘its just a different start really’ and Jane ‘It might lead to something even better….’ Alma’s sugges-

tion that ‘It’s not made any difference really’ could be seen as somewhat negative, but I do not take

it in this way. The whole of Alma’s reflection connected her faith to another plane removed from

the grounded reality of church going. When asked what her uncle might have thought of the closure

of the church that he founded she responded with a simple, ‘I’ve no idea! I never knew him!(fol-

lowed by laughter)’ In some ways this shows a lack of reflection or imagination but the continuing

experience of church life in the present seemed to be quite sufficient and sustaining for Alma.

Derek was unequivocal ‘I don't think it's the end of the church…green shoots can arise but they will

be very different shoots.’ All of the interviewees saw the church closure coming for a long time.

Derek understood that GL was in ‘last chance saloon’ back in 1996 when he was called to be the

minister, and Jane and Pauline ‘saw it coming for about two years.’ In undertaking the interviews

the experients had (some for the first time) been given space for reflection and this seemed to be of

value to them.

Drivers to closure

GL belonged to the congregational strand of churchmanship. This meant that a resolution passed at

a church meeting is required for its closure. No external bishop or synod could close it against the

will of the members, though the official ‘minuted’ reasons for closure may well not be the actual/un-

derstood reasons….

A lack of money was most often cited as the main driver to closure, simply not being able to

look after the church building, but also ‘football is the new religion (Jane) …supermarkets (Alma)

… television (Pauline).’ Behind these spoken reasons was the belief that society had changed in a

way that had almost accidentally had a negative impact on church going. ‘People are so much more

mobile than they used to be…you haven't got the community you used to have (Alma).’ In many

ways Jane, Pauline and Alma were firm believers in the secularisation theory of the 1960’s and 70’s,

seeing it as a natural result of a changing society.18 Maureen saw the driver towards closure in a

very different light as she was on the church leadership when members from NZCF came and went.

These new NZCF members did not belong to the Baptist Union and ‘they were more charismatic

(Alma).’ Some of these new members, ‘a little clique lot (Maureen)’ came onto the leadership team

of GL and ‘two separate groups (Maureen)’ developed. Eventually Maureen had had enough and

came off the leadership team as she could not stand ‘one particular person…[who] just thought he

was God.’ (Alma had stood down as church secretary at the start of the influx of members thinking,

‘clean sweep, I’ll give up and then new people can take over.’) Pauline, Jane and Alma all spoke of

how ‘everybody just started suddenly to disappear (Maureen) …somehow they left (Pauline) …

drifted off (Jane).’ The minutes from the final church meeting highlight that church membership

had declined from 45 to 15 in two years. This huge and speedy decline in members, being atypical

reminds us that the ideographic approach is necessary in analysing the gathered data. This being

said it is interesting to note that Maureen (a deacon prior to this collapse in membership numbers)

and Derek (being the minister throughout) had a significantly different view of the unfolding events

to the others. Maureen blamed herself suggesting that she ‘took her eye off the ball.’ In saying this,

along with giving a personal view at a church meeting that ‘we cannot continue’ she owned that ‘I

just felt that night like I'd shut the church.’ Derek saw the main driver to closure as a ‘tiredness of

the relational things’ that had come about through the new members not fully integrating with the

old GL members, along with a couple of pastoral problems that took great sensitivity and energy

from him in particular.

Impact on the minister

At the closure of GL Derek was only a couple of years away from retirement, having been called to

the church in 1996. Bowden suggests that, ‘with the parish goes the parson,’ and it is unsurprising

18 see Bruce, Steve (ed.) Religion and Modernization (Oxford: OUP 1992) pp. 170-194; Aldridge, Alan Religion in the Contemporary World (Cambridge: Polity Press 2000) ch. 4.

that Derek as the minister featured in the interviews.19 Again the ideographic nature of this story is

important as the majority of the new members that joined the church from 2002 on came from the

NZCF who did not believe in paid ministry. Ministry has its demands when a church is functioning

well, but at GL this added a significantly troubling dynamic. Maureen was aware that ‘they were

burning Derek out’ and expecting him to do all the work. Over a period of time Derek began to

struggle more and more, ‘I don't think any of them were aware of my health and the issues and the

attack that I was under and the complete isolation I felt… I actually ended up on medication… I

had to see the doctor… I had a breakdown.’ On reflection Derek considers that ‘when things got

really bad relationally I should have left,’ but he did not. Alma (who had stood down from the dia-

conate by this time), and Pauline and Jane seemed not to be aware of this tremendous burden that

Derek was bearing but they saw him doing all that he could to keep the church going, ‘he could do

some of the jobs… of the plastering… he did as much as he could (Pauline) …we felt for Derek be-

cause he put his heart and soul in it (Jane).’

Considering the individual people themselves

Having given an overview of some of the key themes highlighted by the interviews it is time to see

how they combine, constantly keeping in mind the question under the spotlight: ‘How did the clo-

sure of the church affect the faith of those involved?’ In order to answer this question I shall con-

sider each experient in turn.

Alma

Born into and brought up in GL to older parents, faith is linked for Alma to community. She was

deeply connected to this community and after her father died she remained ‘at home’ rather than fol-

lowing her calling overseas until her mother had also died. After nearly 20 years abroad she re-

turned home and the community of GL’s village had changed and so had the church. This change in

19 Bowden, Ministry, p. 13.

the community prefigured the closure of the church and lessened any impact it might have made.

Alma’s faith seems to be much deeper than the church. She was not Baptised with others of her age

as the diaconate advised her, ‘I will decide when I want to get baptised, not you!’ and so she waited

until she felt ready. She went onto the mission field much later in life than was usual. She never

married and her independent nature that is still apparent precludes a dependance on a church for her

faith to remain vital and steady. For Alma the closure of the church seemed to equate to the closure

of a supermarket, ‘… it was [simply] a matter of where to go.’. This is not a value judgment that

lessens the importance of faith for Alma, simply a statement of fact.

Pauline and Jane

In many ways, Pauline and Jane are quite similar to Alma. Their parents met and were married in

the church. The social side of church was all important and growing up, ‘we had a lot of fun…inno-

cent fun.’ This social side constantly had the aim of raising money for the church, but it was per-

haps done with the idea that the church was so connected to the village that helping the church

equated to helping the village and a ‘we are all in this together’ feel. The closing acts of worship

mentioned, (the Christingle and the Final Service), both filled the church ‘and it was standing room

only… and it was wonderful and that’s how we remember it.’ Jane stated that ‘the church at the end

was completely different to how it was a few years ago’ and ‘it’d been sort of limping along for a

while really.’ This recognition highlights the idea that the church that closed in 2012 was a different

church to that which Pauline and Jane remembered so fondly. This ‘fondly remembered church’ in

fact ceased to exist (if it ever existed outside the rose tinted sense of childhood) over many years

prior to the actual final service. The reality, sadly, is that the church is unlikely to have been full to

bursting at anything other than the anniversary services… so a ‘false’ memory is at play.20 Although

the church closure played no obvious part in shaping or changing Jane or Pauline’s faith, both

Pauline and Jane spoke about the sadness that the closure induced. ‘It makes you sad for a while oh

yes (Jane)… because you're losing your friends of course (Pauline),’ but this sadness seemed to be

20 see Gill, Robin The myth of the empty church (London: SPCK 1993).

in the same vein as the loss of a friend who has moved away, or through the loss of social bonds

brought about through the natural ageing process.

In the conversation that lasted over fifty minutes, the words ‘God’, ‘Jesus’, ‘Spirit’, ‘Lord’,

‘prayer’ were never mentioned. Collins had a similar finding in her work with 30 academics, and I

agree with her reflections that this lack of Christian vocabulary does not detract from the validity of

their spirituality or spiritual experiences.21

Maureen

Maureen was the most animated and the most angry about the church closure. This was a church

that had been very kind to her in her hour of need and was a church that she had invested a consid-

erable part of herself in. Her claim that ‘I am Green Lane Baptist Church’ is reminiscent of a foot-

ball fans pledge of allegiance, though she recognises that her true allegiance is to Christ and not to a

building. It strikes me that through the closure of the church Maureen has learnt a valuable lesson

that would perhaps never have happened otherwise. Before the closure Maureen was preaching to

others that ‘He [Christ] wants us elsewhere,’ but only in reflection on the church closure did she un-

derstand this for herself. By saying ‘how could He [Christ] let it happen…why did He [Christ] let

them down’ she came to the realisation that ‘He [Christ] didn’t let us down.’ The closure of the

church, though sad, opened Maureen up to a new way of understanding that God is bigger than the

church. This was something that she knew intellectually but had not yet experienced.

Derek

Like Maureen, Derek came to faith with a ‘huge conversion experience’ that was wrapped up the

death of his father in law. Derek assumes that faith should always be in flux and that his faith has

matured over time. As the minister of the church Derek was privy to much that was hidden from

the rest of the congregation and he was in the middle of a good deal of conflict, seeing and feeling

21Collins, Gwen What makes academics tick? in Crutchley-Jones (ed) God at Ground Level, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008) pp. 41-62.

much that was destructive. He used the phrase ‘a long and complicated story’ a number of times,

and when the church closed he ‘went through an immense grieving period once the church had

closed because I was angry….’ The church had ended up being a drain on the members resources

and this angered Derek. It had become the opposite of what he thought it should be.

At the time of the interview Derek had just retired from ministry having spent the last 18

months working part time for another small local church. When asked about how his faith felt after

the closure of GL and after retirement, he admits that his faith is ‘very different… it kind of feels…

at one level it feels comfortable not having all those kinds of responsibilities and at the same time

it's kind of feeling like your at sea in a boat without oars… and you're not quite sure what’s

happening….’ It is hard to analyse these feelings, attributing their genesis to either the church clo-

sure or the retirement from ministry in general. It might have been easier had the research hap-

pened closer to the events themselves, but alternatively it might be useful to return to Derek in a

few years time when the dust has settled on his retirement a little more and when he has reflected

and balanced the various experiences with more perspective.

Conclusions

This study has looked at the closure of a single church through the eyes of some of those involved.

At the outset to this investigation I was under the illusion that the closure of a church could be ana-

lysed as an isolated event, complete in itself. I have learnt that this is not the case and it is clear that

everybody, in bringing their own unique history with them, experiences and interprets the closure

differently. Maureen provides a good example here. In her preaching to others, she maintained that

‘He [Christ] wants us somewhere else’ but it was only in her reflection on this in the interview with

me that the truth of her own words became clear to her.

None of the experients verbalised a ‘positive’ change or growth in their faith through the closure

of the church, but none spoke of a ‘negative’ effect either and all of the experients seemed to hold

inconsistent and mutually exclusive theologies. There was a recognition that ‘things must change’

(Jane, but common to all) alongside a desire to have everything as it used to be. I agree with Gill

that living with this tension is not a failing but a sign of Christian maturity, as if Fowler’s more

paradoxical stage 4 (Individual-Reflective) or 5 (Conjunctive) faith was being entered into.22 The

interview process itself seemed to be almost acting as a cathartic debriefing for the experients.

A second point is also worth making. It was clear that all the people interviewed assumed that

faith, if it is valid, should not be changed by the closure of a church. Alma, Pauline and Jane

seemed proud that their faith had not changed; Maureen guiltily admitted that her’s had been

rocked; Derek only admitted to a psychological change. I think that this assumption that faith

should not be changed by a church closure needs to be challenged. Given that faith is connected to

life, and as life is constantly in a state of flux, should we not also expect faith to be constantly

changing?

A final and obvious point that may give solace to church ministers up and down the country…

the closure of GL did not give rise to the closure of faith for the congregation. The closure of the

church was very sad for those involved, but faith continues. As Gill suggests, ‘Structures are impor-

tant - but only as means not as ends. Our end as Christians is our relationship to God in Christ.’23

22 Gill, Robin Beyond decline: A challenge to the churches (London: SCM Press 1988) p. 132.23 ibid p. 120.

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