Crystal Balling

The Bishop has been 'visiting' the Deanery with a certain degree of world-weariness as it wasn't originally his idea. He has attended acts of worship (some rather eccentric ones), viewed various examples of churches engaging with communities (I took him to the Day Centre next to the church where various of our congregation work or volunteer, and was disappointed Sister Frances of the Cross wasn't there to tell him about her stroke as she does everyone else) and 'encouraged the clergy and laity in their mission and vocation', which is lovely.

First of these events was a Deanery-wide eucharist at Hornington parish church last Sunday evening, which I attended before zooming up to London to Tanz Macabre to wash my brain out with some loud music. I couldn't help looking around and reflecting that in twenty years' time half the people there would be dead or at least not able to do much in the Church. Yes, people do tend to get more religious as they get older, and yes, some churches have moderately successful evangelistic endeavours, but the level of loss isn't going to made up on current form, and to imagine some sudden reversal in social trends which will lead to rapidly increasing numbers of people in church is just that, imagination. It's not going to happen. The diocesan bishop encourages us to 'resist talk of decline as inevitable', but the purpose of growth seems to be so that we can keep everything going as it is and not have to face change.

So over the next generation the Church of England will almost certainly face a demographic crisis in which there will simply not be the people or the money to keep everything functioning as it is, the hierarchy, the churches, the structures. At Swanvale Halt the age profile of the congregation is fairly high, so I think we will face this same trough within the next ten years or so. We will have to face serious questions about what we do.

However, Swanvale Halt has something not every church now has: an incumbent priest with freehold. I envisage that, as things get worse, parishes will be amalgamated and churches will close in a desperate effort by the hierarchy to salvage as much of business-as-usual as possible. And, here and there among the wreckage will be a diminished band of clergy with freehold, saying No. Because freehold means we can't be moved, gotten rid of, or have our parishes reorganised, without our agreement, until we reach the statutory retirement age of 70.

What I suspect (and hope) will happen is this: as significant parts of the Anglican Church reel and stagger twenty years from now, Swanvale Halt and churches like it will have been through their demographic trough and will be coming out the other side. Age will take a whole echelon of people out of the church within a relatively short period, and it will feel different, be a significantly different community; and that will be the beginning of new growth. Nothing to do with whether I perform well or badly, really, though I imagine I could stymie the whole thing if I was seriously crap. But that will only happen if clergy with freehold can hold on and preserve the core of those church communities. Which is why I suspect (unless God shouts very clearly to the contrary) the folk of Swanvale Halt will have to put up with me for some considerable time!

I could be wrong, of course.