Calling Time: Notes on closing a church

3 Consultation and PCC decision

In the last chapter I began to tell the story of closing one particular church. I began by outlining the context of the parish, describing the situation which led to the decision and then I began to tell the story of the process that was followed as far as the first public meeting. This chapter takes up the story and will take it through the consultation process as far as the PCC decision being made and up to the second public meeting. Again I will draw out some observations to note at the end which arise from these experiences.

The public meeting began an open period of consultation in which the PCC Standing Committee formed a working party to gather together the salient pieces of information on which the whole PCC could make their decision. It was decided early on that this would need to be in the form of a report. I took it on myself to draw together all that we knew so far so that we could see where the gaps were. It was going to be a very heavy summer.

The precise order of events is not in the main relevant here. As the summer progressed, if we had been in any doubt before, we were left in no doubt that we had a determined campaigner on our hands. This manifested itself in accusations of illegality and faculty jurisdiction infringements. The person concerned had been to check all faculty permissions at the Diocesan Registry and had decided that there were a number of irregularities, all extending back over a long period of time. It was not clear just exactly what he expected to be done about them, but he made a lot of noise about the gaps as he saw them. The clear aim was to show one church riddled with problems and the other, while containing some infringements, to be the only safe option for the parish.

This failed, because some aspects were covered by the archdeacon’s ruling and others turned out to be outside the 6 year time limit for someone making complaints¹. On the way to that outcome significant amounts of time and energy were taken up which a brief mention here will not capture!

This fed into a dispute over the seating capacities of the two churches. This took on a life of its own and there was still not agreement two years later. Scale drawings were prepared by the campaigner to display the capacities he was asserting. These were disputed and it involved professional advice on the architect’s standard for a person in order to assess the capacities more accurately. This turned out to be 480mm per person, though the standard for auditoria was subsequently increased to 500mm per person in recognition that people are getting larger! In the end (after the second public meeting) the archdeacon commissioned a report from the consulting architect to arbitrate and within a tolerance confirmed the PCC Standing Committee’s conclusions. With hindsight, it would have been better to have commissioned such a report in the first place leaving the architect to argue the point and defend his professional indemnity.

In the interests of openness copies of the quinquennial reports were made public and these resulted in many conversations between the determined campaigner and our architect over the finer points. These were at the PCC’s expense and it is estimated that this cost us something approaching a four figure sum. All the time the persistent attempt being made was to show one church to be far better than the other. A sheet detailing the relative costs of repairs required on all the parish’s buildings was prepared and made public. This in turn produced its own correspondence and disputes.

A copy of a report was pushed through my door which indicated that without any prior notice a retired fire officer had been commissioned by the determined campaigner to give his opinions on the relative safety of the two buildings. This however did not agree with the views the PCC Standing Committee had obtained from the local fire service who had advised on safety matters. There were errors in the unofficial report. These ran to an attempt to argue that all the seating needed to be fixed to the floor and that one of the churches did not have adequate fire exits. Both of these proved to be false.

Towards the end of the consultation process we received a further ‘report’ from this man with the request that it be posted on the church noticeboards. This was declined because it would have given it a prominence over all the other submissions we received which was not warranted and also there were inaccuracies within it which we did not wish to publicise.

I found this individual to be profoundly irritating, but it was important to respond to his many letters and campaign literature with firm courtesy. That was tremendously draining emotionally as each encounter came with the impression that it had the potential to turn nasty.

More widely we were concerned to ascertain the views of the congregation. This was one of the criteria we had established for deciding between the buildings. A questionnaire was devised to facilitate this and encourage members of the congregation to offer their opinions. Care was taken in constructing these to avoid implying ‘correct’ answers and to avoid leading the respondents towards any particular answer. In the main the questions asked for answers that could be recorded to give an overall picture. Several of the questions also gave the opportunity for the respondents to give further clarification where that was appropriate. Boxes were made available in the churches for replies and an address was given for these to be returned by post if that was preferred. This questionnaire came down very heavily in favour of one of the churches.

It was also decided to canvass the views of those who had recently decided to come to the churches for either a baptism or wedding. Our intention was to find out why they chose the building they did, since they had been free to choose whichever they had wished. The choice of church for such an occasion was seen as being a significant element in determining where the wider community looked when they identified with the church. These are such special events for a family that people tend to go to the building where they feel they have some sense of belonging or which they think of as being theirs’ in some way.

Again questionnaires were used and stamped addressed reply envelopes were enclosed to encourage the forms to be returned. Similar care was taken over these. Again these gave decisive results.

It was decided not to distribute a questionnaire to the entire parish. It was felt that the majority would treat this as being ‘junk mail’ and bin it. Again reply envelopes would have needed to be enclosed to ensure a sufficient respondent rate. This was prohibitively expensive. It was felt that the consultation process had achieved good coverage in the local press and it had been well known in the community that views were being welcomed. Conversations with members of the church community indicated that the wider community was aware of the matter under review and there had been plenty of other opportunities made available for views to be expressed.

All of this research was written up and the results correlated so that a clear picture of people’s views could be seen. The final report ran to over 80 pages of A4 type. It was split into sections:

The background to a decision needing to be made;
A discussion of the purpose of the church and the local implications of this;
Consideration was given of the various buildings, the facilities they afforded, their relative merits, their current state and the repairs required;
A projection was made of the future building needs for the church’s ministry;
There was a section on social trends and preferences, which church people chose for their baptisms and weddings and the potential of each place to assist with the church engaging with the community;
The parish’s finances were noted and the projected effect of each building on these;
There was a discussion of the correspondence received and the questionnaire results;
All of this was then brought together with the criteria originally set to reach a decision;
The conclusions were drawn and a recommendation made to the PCC which identified one of the churches for closure.

The report was passed in its final draft form to a friendly church lawyer to be checked for legal inaccuracies. His advice was that as long as the information contained in it was accurate and correct then there should not be a problem.

The report was issued to PCC members in adequate time before the meeting. It is not known whether this was held in confidence, but the previous experience would imply that this could not be assumed. Certainly some questions in the meeting when it was discussed had a familiar ring about them. The result was an overwhelming decision to back the recommendation of the Standing Committee. The archdeacon was present at the meeting so that he could witness the process in case personal knowledge was needed at a later date. The meeting was preceded by a Service of Holy Communion to prayerfully prepare for the decision to be made.

A decision was also made to stop holding the main Sunday morning service at the church recommended for closure on the first Sunday of the month from then on. Other services would continue: the monthly 8.00 o’clock Sunday Communion and the weekly Friday 9.30am Communion. The ministry of the church in the parish would be focussed through the church to be retained. With hindsight, this seems to have been the right decision because it took two years from that point to achieve the closure and to have continued would have been unbearable for the church community and have had a detrimental effect on its mission.

A summary of the report was produced which would be freely available to anyone who wanted a copy and the full report, together with the ensuing PCC resolution, was published at a nominal charge to cover printing costs. Everyone who had specifically written was sent a copy of the summary together with a letter informing them of the decision. The congregation were informed on the Sunday morning after the service and copies of the summary were freely available to all who wished to have a copy.

There was a small congregation for whom the decision was deemed to be particularly painful. They were told in advance by me after a midweek Eucharist in the church concerned two days after the PCC meeting. The day after the meeting I went to see one couple who had given many years faithful service to that church and told them privately of the decision.

Again a press release was prepared and issued to the local papers. This time the story printed majored on the promise of a fight to overturn the decision.

The second public meeting was more animated. I decided that because I was so involved in the process and the decision it would be better for someone else to chair the meeting. The archdeacon was therefore called in. Again a school hall was used and I opened the meeting by outlining the decision. I then handed over to the archdeacon to chair the rest of the meeting. The PCC’s consulting architect was present to answer any technical questions on buildings and the secretary of the Diocesan Pastoral Committee was present to hear what was said first hand. It was clear from the meeting that a fight would indeed be made for the decision to be thrown out at the next stage. Seasoned campaigners clearly knew that this meeting was just about venting spleens, the arena having shifted to the Diocesan Pastoral Committee in whose court this now lay.

Summary of observations:

Anyone seeking to close a church needs to be prepared for skeletons to come out of cupboards which they didn’t even know were there. People will rake over faculties and use anything they can to achieve their ends. It is worth checking the parish’s title to everything and also ensuring that best practice is being followed and possible to be followed: e.g. fire safety², disabled access³, child protection⁴, faculties and any other legal time bombs. Many of these have the potential to just pull the rug from under our feet if we are not on sure ground.
There is no substitute for professional advice where a serious dispute is involved. This is not a cheap process. These are required to ensure the accuracy of any claims being made.
The process needs to be open and so reasonable requests for information need to be met, even if they are made in a way that irritates.
Even the irritating need to be handled with courtesy, though if erroneous claims are being made firmness may also be required.
Questionnaires provide a good way of canvassing people’s views in a form that can then be tabulated to enable the results to be quantified. The questions need to be formulated with care to avoid leading respondents towards any answer or implying ‘correct’ answers.
A church should never loose sight of the pastoral care of those who will be hurt by a decision. There is no substitute for on-going personal relationships. If these have been established before hand they will pay dividends when deep disagreement comes, but only if they are genuine. However, if they are not entered into genuinely by one of the parties, then expect to be ‘stabbed in the back’. There is no getting alongside some people.
We all need to recognise our limitations. Work out in advance who the best person will be to chair the public meeting after the decision has been made locally. If an outsider is needed, get one in.

Footnotes:

¹Anyone with a complaint that something has been installed into a church or an alteration has been made to the fabric without the necessary Faculty permission has to register their complaint within six years of it taking place.
²The Churches Main Committee Fire Precautions Guide Circular NO 1998/2
³John Penton (2001) Widening the eye of the needle Church House Publishing
⁴The House of Bishops has guidelines on best practice and every diocese has its own guidelines on implementing these.

18th May 2002

Last updated February 2008