Buildings tell us how to worship

Over the centuries, our buildings have been adapted again and again as trends in worship have changed. If you go to Chaldon in the Reigate Archdeaconry you will find a lovely village church on the pilgrim way to Canterbury. It is open during the day so people walking that route can stop by and enjoy the peace, and the mural across the back wall. This was painted in the very late 12th century by a travelling artist monk, using yellow ochre and red. This was to inspire those standing in the church listening to Mass in Latin (which they did not understand) to spend the time usefully reflecting – were they bound to go up the ladder of salvation in the centre to heaven, or down into hell? Even if they were destined for hell there is still hope. For to the right-hand side Christ can be seen, having opened the trap door, rescuing souls. However, tastes in worship changed, and the good folks of Chaldon now sit on pews facing away from the painting, so they can enjoy my sermon, while I keep looking over their heads at the doom beyond them.

Not all church buildings let go of their previous history. Many still tell us to worship in a particular way, even when the current congregation wish to change. At Carshalton Beeches, the church of the Good Shepherd was built as a daughter church of All Saints, Carshalton in 1930. It was built to resemble a Spanish mission chapel. Inside in Latin are the words beginning ‘Iam qui vivit’ which translates as ‘I am he who lives and was dead and is alive forever’. Today, however, acoustic boards are being introduced to the walls, as they have a worship band and the reverberation was not working well.

Meanwhile at St Peter’s, Tandridge they still have to work around the alterations that George Gilbert Scott made to their Norman Church, which gave them Victorian wall paintings and roof lights.

That was just a quick survey of some of the buildings we are using for worship in the Reigate Archdeaconry and the challenges people have with what has been done to them over the years.

The Diocesan Advisory Committee

Today we are not as free and easy with a Norman building as our Victorian predecessors were. Yet there is still a need for adaptation as the people of God proclaim and worship God in fresh ways, which relate to our contemporary society. How do we balance the needs of the current congregation with the need to listen to the building and what it has to say about worship, in the past but also in the future?

This is where the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) comes in. The DAC is an important part of the way the Church of England operates its exemption from Listed Building Consent.Footnote ¹ The Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018 provides that every diocese must have a DAC for the care of churches.Footnote ² The 2018 Measure states that the DAC, when carrying out functions of care and conservation under the Measure, must have ‘regard’ to the role of a church as a local centre of worship and mission, the importance of environmental protection,Footnote ³ and also have ‘due regard’ to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England.Footnote ⁴

The 2018 Measure makes it clear that the DAC is an advisory body on matters affecting places of worship in the diocese, and must in this capacity give advice when requested to inter alia the bishop, PCCs, anyone applying for a faculty, and the diocesan chancellor.Footnote ⁵ An important part of its role is to:

The idea of loss and risk is balanced by the good to be gained from any changes. This approach underpins what have become known as the Duffield questions: the framework applied by consistory courts to determine applications for a faculty to reorder listed Church of England churches. These were first formulated by the Court of Arches following an appeal from the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Derby about proposals concerning St Alkmund’s Church, Duffield.Footnote ⁷ The questions are set out in paragraph 87 of the judgment:

1. i. Would the proposals, if implemented, result in harm to the significance of the church as a building of special architectural or historic interest?

2. ii. If the answer to question i. is ‘No’, the ordinary presumption in faculty proceedings ‘in favour of things as they stand’ is applicable, and can be rebutted more or less readily, depending on the particular nature of the proposals. Questions iii. – iv. do not arise.

3. iii. If the answer to question i. is ‘Yes’, how serious would the harm be?

4. iv. How clear and convincing is the justification for carrying out the proposals?

5. v. Bearing in mind that there is a strong presumption against proposals which will adversely affect the special character of a listed building, will any resulting public benefit (including matters such as liturgical freedom, pastoral well-being, opportunities for mission, and putting the church to viable uses that are consistent with its role as a place of worship and mission) outweigh the harm? The more serious the harm, the greater will be the level of benefit needed before the proposals should be permitted. This will particularly be the case if the harm is to a building which is listed Grade I or II*, where serious harm should only exceptionally be allowed.

The importance of the last question cannot be overstated – the good that can balance the harm of altering a listed building can include liturgical freedom as well as mission. But who is to ensure that those matters are remembered when the make-up of the DAC is mostly made up of architects and historic buildings specialists?

Archdeacons on the DAC

Schedule 2 to the 2018 Measure provides for the basis of the DAC’s constitution.Footnote ⁸ In my experience, there are usually a couple of clergy on the DAC, one to represent the Diocesan Synod and one to give liturgical advice.Footnote ⁹ But the latter will come from a particular part of the church and have particular views which are not held by all lay people or clergy. How can we ensure the variety of our parishes are represented in the room?

The answer I suggest, as so often in the Church of England, is the archdeacon.Footnote ¹⁰ The constitution of the DAC includes all the archdeacons. Archdeacons – those quirky clergy who have embraced ecclesiastical law (at least to a certain extent), who have accepted a role that includes asking church wardens regularly if they have ensured the drains and downpipes are checked, but who are at heart still the priests they were called and trained to be many moons ago.

In the Diocese of Southwark, our chair asks us to speak first to each case from our archdeaconry to draw out the liturgical or mission good that will be achieved to help the committee in its role of advising the chancellor and indeed in feeding back to the parishes to help them to keep the balance of what they want to do now, with what the church might be in the future. We are adept at shifting from the point of view of an evangelical church with a worship band to an Anglo-Catholic church with services of Eucharistic Adoration, to a village church which is struggling to get a warden, but wants to serve its village even so. Long may that remain so.