My Grandma lived right opposite Calverley Methodist Church (pictured below) and the story goes that one day, while applying for life insurance, she was asked her date of birth “the 10th of June” she replied, but couldn’t remember the year, so she got up from her chair walked over to the front room window, looked out and said “1872” she knew this because the date is carved in stone on the front of the building. Maybe, in part, because of that story, there feels to be an intrinsic link between this building and me and we share such a lot of history. The building is a typical nineteenth century Methodsit Chapel, seats over three hundred people and was, until the late fifties one of two similar sized chapels in the village, which even today, after considerable house building over the last sixty years to my knowledge is still a village and retains it’s green belt separating it from the urban sprawls of Leeds and Bradford.
Sadly, like the majority of Chapels and Churches up and down the land, it is a long, long time since the Church had a congregation for worship which filled the place and without knowing for certain, my guess is that the building has remained empty for the greater part of fourteen months. It would hurt to see the place close, because encapsulated in it’s bricks and mortar are irreplaceable treasures for me, memories. Even now, I could list literally dozens of names of Saints, who were part of my childhood Christian family and are possibly responsible for me inflicting myself on Churches as a minister. It wasn’t so much what they taught me, but the people they were, the example they set, and I will always owe a huge debt of gratitude to so many.
Hard as it is, those days are long gone, life has moved on, I’m a different person, in a different place today and as I look at this beautiful building, I wonder “is this what the Church of May 2021 looks like?” not just the building, but the different expressions of Church I grew up with in the sixties and seventies, we talk so often about things being “fit for purpose” and as a Church leader today, facing not only the challenges thrown up by the whole pandemic experience, but the even greater conundrums caused by aging Church communities and aging clergy, I find myself being tested, to see what my faith needs to look like as I live in the context of this day and age.
A Prayer:
Great God of love, over many generations you have called people to follow you and throughout history your followers have sought to understand what that means in their time and place. As we try to move on from this pandemic experience, we pray for wisdom, that we might know where you are calling us go next and what your Church might look like to be relevant to future generations.
Amen