Suffolk Historic Church Trust is 50 years old, 1973 -2023. To celebrate a service was held at St Edmundsbury Cathedral Sunday 17th September which I was privileged to attend. 400 reps attended from 60% of churches.
In 1973 the Duke of Grafton gained support for a new body to help with restoration & upkeep of Churches & Chapels across Suffolk and the Trust came into being
In 1982 the idea of the Bike Ride was born which overnight became the main source of funding for the Trust. It was the first county to do the Bike Ride.
The Bike Ride is now the Ride & Stride (cycling & walking) and raises £200,000 in a single day each year on a Saturday, early September. Half the money goes to the churches & the other half goes into grants which support restoration & development of churches, such as repair of windows, new doors, extensions, toilets, kitchens, etc. (I was fortunate to receive a generous grant from the Trust towards a kitchenette at the back of Seaton Road Methodist Church, Felixstowe, which has made a huge difference to hospitality in the church.)
The Trust is non-denominational & supports 600 churches & chapels across Suffolk. Churches come in all shapes & sizes built to the Glory of God. There are large spaces (Cathedrals) & small spaces (meeting halls), old (apparently Suffolk has the greatest concentration of medieval churches in Europe – thanks to the prosperous wool trade in East Anglia) and modern (new church plants).
Churches were built to last but don’t look after themselves. They can be a place of worship but also a place of solace & wonder. The elephant in the room is that there are many empty pews & chairs. The challenge is to make them relevant to a modern society & to those who don’t worship inside them. The way forward (the challenge) is for churches to be a community resource to make them sustainable. May they continue to inspire us BUT community outreach is our calling.
So the next time you enter a church consider the craftsmen & architects who built it (often in local materials) with love & purpose. Consider its sense of history, its faithful worshippers over the centuries. May it have vision so that in 50 years’ time it is still there, still cared for & still serving its community.
Bishop Martin Seeley asked us to:
“Look up, look outwards & look forward to the next 50 years.”