I have just returned from a four day visit to Manchester and to the Ashton under Lyne Circuit, where I was stationed as a probationer minister in 1997.
Last Monday, I had two very interesting walks which helped me reflect on the important things we are when we say we are "church" in today's society.
I walked in the morning along Park Road in Dukinfield, where I had a little church called Tame Valley Methodist Church. It served in its heyday an industrial area, chiefly of mills. The church was nowhere to be seen having been closed in 2008 and then demolished because it was unsafe due to asbestos.
In its day, it was a place full of activity, spiritual and social, no it has been, unless you know its story, erased from history. It might have never been there. My picture above, shows what it looked like when it stood.
I met some friends from the church for coffee on Monday morning. I watched the closing service of the church on a video with them. I watched them cry as the Superintendent said words of de-consecration and the video went on to show folk dismantling important things that were inside the church that had always been there. The minister said on the video, they were no longer a church. It was very sad.
However, Marie, the steward there, when she spoke said, "the building might have given up, but we haven't!" It was good to learn that four years on from closure, they still meet as a group of folk from that place in her home, for prayer and bible study. A church building unsafe and then demolished, a people doing church together in a differently, caring for one another pastorally, and still learning together with regular visits from their minister in the place the building served. Being church with no building...
When life changes and things that were always there are no longer there and you have to watch them change, it is painful. This area has not only lost both its church buildings (there was also a small Anglican mission along the road) but also most of its employment, the mills having long closed. But I saw hope in the story of a little fellowship still meeting - and regularly praying for their community.
Later on Monday, I went and stayed for a night in Manchester City Centre. I trained for ministry in Manchester and greatly enjoyed living in the city. We were in college the Saturday in 1996 the IRA bomb exploded in Manchester, and caused widespread damage, although miraculously, killing no one. The city has changed especially round the Cathedral and Exchange Square beyond recognition. There are new buildings, new projects, and there was a confidence that things had to be rebuilt, because the people were stronger than the hatred of a few, that buildings could go, but people's resilience and strength to keep going were more important than them, even if some of them had been there for a long time. I rediscovered this postbox on Monday evening. This postbox was undamaged around absolute chaos. It has been put back where it was as a sign that in the end we keep going, despite hardship and confusion. It was interesting to see in the visitor information centre off Piccadilly Gardens, the aftermath of a campaign called #ilovemcr where people came together after last year's riots to say in the end we are better than horrible things that happen, we will keep going.
As the hymn says, tower and temple may fall to dust.... but that is not the end. Even though leaving a building or familar landscapes can be really hard.
At that closing service I sent a message with this prayer by Bruce Prewer from "Jesus, our Future":
Give your people the will, loving God, to close down some churches with the same faith and vision with which we open them. Let us give thanks for all precious memories, but do not permit us to live in them. Inspire us to move on gratefully and graciously, to worship and witness in new places and in new ways. And may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing.
I like that prayer a lot.
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