Some of the longest job descriptions belong to rural Church of England clergy. ‘So what do you do?’ ‘I’m the Rector of Aldwincle, Clopton, Pilton, Stoke Doyle, Thorpe Achurch, Titchmarsh and Wadenhoe.’ Every one of these place names evokes an ancient Pevsner-worthy church, smelling of candlewax, damp hymn books and brass polish. Though many villages no longer have a shop or a pub, most do still have a parish church used for regular services — even if only on the first and third Sunday of the month. You push open the creaky door, and last Sunday’s hymns are still up on the hymn board.
Last week the brilliant blind member of the House of Laity John Spence (whose mesmerising speech in the final debate on women bishops swayed the vote towards ‘yes’) warned that the Church could be ‘eliminated’ from rural areas in ten years’ time. ‘If you look at [the] arithmetic projection you identify that, over the period 2007 to 2057, church attendance and membership would fall from 1.2 million on a regular basis to something like two or three hundred thousand.’
Can the current situation go on, in our 10,000 rural churches? Tiny congregations, with few people under 70; overworked clergy racing from church to church, having no time to chat to parishioners after each service, worn down by having six Grade I churches to look after, underpaid or not paid at all and at a loss as to how to make more people come to their Family Communion?
The truth of the daily struggle was revealed to me by the Revd Jo Saunders, rector of Great Casterton, Little Casterton, Pickworth and Tickencote in Rutland. When I rang her, she was applying for a grant to mend the heating system in her smallest and poorest church. ‘It will only cost £600, but that’s more than we’ve got.
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