Some 78 per cent of the Church of England's church buildings are listed. The incumbents, wardens and church council members responsible for those churches have the joy of worshipping in buildings of beauty. They also have the privilege and bear the burden of preserving that heritage for future generations. That joy, privilege and burden are very often combined with grave difficulties of limited financial resources with which to meet the costs of maintenance. Even more pressing can be the problem of engaging in modern styles of worship and modern mission activities in churches designed for a very different world and for very different styles of worship. All too often the burden of building maintenance can be seen as a distraction from the work of mission, with the restrictions imposed by the faculty system on alterations to churches being characterised as barriers to mission. The recent report of the Church Buildings Review Group recognises the extent and urgency of the problems flowing from the listing of such a high proportion of the Church of England's churches and from the fact that the burden of maintaining historic churches is falling on small and ageing rural congregations.

Thus the publication of Buildings for Mission comes at an opportune time. Nigel Walter and Andrew Mottram provide a wealth of helpful guidance on practical maintenance measures. They also explain how historic church buildings can be fitted for mission and can be used to further mission. They give much sensible guidance on how to go about making re-ordering proposals and obtaining permission for them. The tone of the book is refreshingly positive and the practical suggestions are grounded in a carefully considered theological understanding of sacred place.

The book's authors express the hope that their work will assist those of all denominations caring for their church buildings. However, their own experience is primarily Anglican and the book's focus is on the listed churches of the Church of England. The incumbents and wardens (and, ideally, the church council members) of all such churches would benefit from reading this work. Its usefulness to those outside the Church of England and to those in that Church whose church buildings are not listed will be markedly less.

The book's subtitle is ‘a complete guide to the care, conservation and development of churches’. The authors describe it as a ‘handbook’ bringing ‘the knowledge, experience and advice of people who have been working with church buildings into one volume’ (p ix). They also describe it as ‘a companion to Re-Pitching the Tent by Richard Giles’ (p xii). There is a great deal of value in it but it does suffer from attempting too much or, rather, from a lack of structure in its approach to a multiplicity of objectives. There is much to commend a work which combines enthusiastic and imaginative encouragement for those caring for historic churches with grounded practical advice on basic maintenance tasks. Buildings for Mission does this but does so in a somewhat disjointed way. Thus the chapter on ‘Practicalities’ follows that on ‘Context’ but precedes that on ‘Principles’. I suspect that the authors would accept that an understanding of the principles should govern the approach to practicalities. Certainly it would have been more logical for the assessment of the context of church buildings to be followed by the consideration of the principles which should be applied in that context and then by advice on the practicalities of applying those principles. The practical guidance also suffers from a lack of structure or consistency. What is said is all sound but at times the advice is at a high level of generality, while at others it is expressed in precise and detailed terms and with reference to particular devices or websites that are likely to become rapidly outdated. For the present reviewer there were also times when the tone of the advice jarred and verged on the patronising. Those who are incumbents or wardens of listed churches may well not be expert architects but they are likely to be adults with a fair degree of intelligence and for many of them the jocular and simplistic tone in which much of the advice is couched will be irritating.

Those responsible for listed churches and for making them fit for use in the twenty-first century should overcome any irritation because they will gain much from this book. They will still need to consider the work of Richard Giles to gain an understanding of the appropriate physical arrangements for modern worship. For practical matters they will also still need to have regard to the Faith in Maintenance team's Good Maintenance Guide and James Behrens’ Practical Church Management – works which manage to provide practical advice to non-experts in a tone and style which recognise that their readers are intelligent adults.Footnote ⁷Buildings for Mission should stand alongside those works on the churchwarden's bookshelf. It gives positive encouragement and contains much of real value which is not in them. In particular it gives sensible and detailed advice on the process of faculty applications, on fundraising and on public engagement, as well as setting practical advice in a considered theological context. It is a book which archdeacons should be recommending as a source of encouragement to those daunted by the task of caring for a listed church. In addition it should be recommended as a corrective and education to those who say that the preservation of historic buildings is incompatible with the Church's mission in the modern world.

The work is worthy of further development, just as listed churches can be. For the future the authors will need to consider the book's structure as well as the tone of the language used. Thus Section E, entitled ‘Projects’, consists of short examples of works of extension, re-ordering, public engagement and the like which have been achieved in particular places. The examples are useful as showing what can be done but they would surely have been more effective if placed alongside the relevant passages in the earlier parts of the book. They could then have illustrated the points which were being made in terms of practical matters or issues of principle as the case might be. In addition, more detail on the problems faced in the particular cases and how they were overcome would have made the examples more compelling.

I conclude by addressing the aspect of the book which is perhaps of most direct interest to many of the readers of this journal, namely the short chapter on the faculty process. Considerable care and thought has clearly gone into this. It includes a flow chart setting out the operation of the questions proposed by the Court of Arches in the case of Re St Alkmund, Duffield [2013] Fam 158. This and the accompanying text provide clergy and wardens with an admirable introduction to the requirements which they will have to meet in obtaining permission to re-order a listed church. However, the chapter bears the title ‘Ecclesiastical exemption’. That title and the introduction to the chapter give the impression that the purpose of the faculty system is simply to get or to preserve the benefit of the ecclesiastical exemption from listed building control. The readers of this journal know otherwise. As the Court of Arches explained in Duffield (adopting the language of the Chancellor of Oxford), the Church of England does not have the faculty jurisdiction in order to obtain the ecclesiastical exemption. Rather it has the exemption because it already has that jurisdiction. The faculty jurisdiction derives from the Church of England's position as an episcopal and not a congregational church. It would be of value – indeed, would be necessary – even without the ecclesiastical exemption. It is clear that the authors of Buildings for Mission understand this. They are supportive of the faculty system and set out its benefits clearly and persuasively. However, the chapter's title and the introductory section detract from this treatment by focusing on secular planning considerations. The emphasis on the exemption as being the starting point might well have been appropriate if the book was in truth providing for the needs of those outside as well as those within the Church of England. The reality, however, is that the bulk of the chapter deals exclusively with the faculty system of the Church of England. It explains the work of diocesan advisory committees and gives an extended analysis of the Duffield approach, alongside practical advice on seeking faculties. As this demonstrates, the book will be of great value to those responsible for Anglican listed churches but of only limited value to others. Future editions would benefit by a frank recognition of that and by consequent refining of the focus of the advice given.