A couple of years ago, I heard Rowan Williams, the last-but-one Archbishop of Canterbury, give a talk. He is a deep thinker and someone who I greatly respect. After the talk, he was asked about the current state of the Church of England. He was tactful but said that he had never known the church be as anxious as it currently is. To be fair, there are issues facing senior clergy that would disturb me if I were in their position; churchgoing has been declining for generations, congregations are elderly and there is now a shortage of vicars. Some grasp at straws; the Bible Society convinced itself there was a “quiet revival” going on in church attendance amongst young people. This was news to me and indeed to the statisticians in the church who collect data on attendance. Eventually they had to retract their claims. Ironically, this is taking place against a background of real growth locally. Congregations at Billingsley and Glazeley are now as good as they were in the 1970s; Highley and Chelmarsh are seeing growth and I think this is also being observed in the neighbouring benefices. The growth is mainly in the elderly, some might question if it is sustainable in the long-run, but equally society will always have plenty of people over 50. And, despite the “quiet revival” debacle, there is some evidence that young people are more curious about religion than their parents and grandparents. Some in the church seek quick fixes, be that optimistic targets for new congregations or a hankering after old-fashioned revival. I am doubtful about the value of these approaches. It took 300 yearsy to convert the Roman empire to Christianity and it seems to me that a better approach is the quiet work of relation-building with individuals, the “cure of souls”within a community, to use the language of the Book of Common Prayer. This is not quick work, I rarely see results and do not expect to in my life time. But the who God deals with eternity plays the long game.
Rev David Poyner