The picture in the UK appears to show village churches closing rapidly.
Frequently they have no families and children’s work, leaving a group of older people with usually more women than men. What does the future hold for such shrinking churches? Not very much, it would seem.
Housing developments
But, with pressure from the government, new housing is now going up in many of our villages. Numbers of people and families will be moving in during the next few years. There are Christians living in villages who are taking an interest in their local communities and not travelling to the bigger towns and better-funded churches with beefier preaching.
Risk-takers needed
Where are the risk-taking evangelists and workers who would go and live in those houses in the villages and really help reinvig-orate the struggling chapels? Often I have found the older saints have stayed and faithfully keep the gospel ministry functioning without any fuss – but where are the younger workers to whom they can pass on the baton of truth and who could help them reach into their communities?
In my experience, helping churches turn round and become more evangelistic requires a change of mind-set amongst the leaders. There needs to be a new looking outwards rather than inwards. Outgrowing the Ingrowing Church, a book by Jack Miller, comes to mind.
Rather than assume that people will automatically be attracted to the chapel, there are those who believe God is calling them to take the gospel to the people they mix with, maybe through children’s ministries or work with the elderly.
It’s already happening
This is what I discovered when I went into a small Sussex village. A couple of older leaders were running a children’s club after school and a little youth group on another evening. Youngsters hear of it through school friends and the village Facebook. The parents of some of the children also attended when they were children. At Christmas the children brought their families to the carol service and there were over 60 crammed into the chapel, of whom over 40 are not known to be believers.
Christianity Explored
There was a village coffee morning that moved to the local chapel to save costs – the chapel having been re-vamped. Christianity Explored was run, with a great response from older people; gradually the Sunday morning congregation grew to 15–20 (at times 25), half being unbelievers. Some help has been received from a local ‘town’ church. Now they are planning an extension to the church to accommodate children’s work on Sundays, and looking into the possibility of employing youth workers.
Help needed
It was such a joy to be with them, to feel the enthusiasm of older leaders not merely keeping the work ticking over, but pioneering with the gospel into their village, longing to reach out to the new housing areas. But help is desperately needed for the future. Where are the younger risk-takers who will move in and work locally, giving one or two days to gospel ministry? Maybe God is laying on your heart to go into a village and get involved in gospel ministry. If you feel like that, let me know and I will put you in touch with one enthusiastic Sussex village church.
