Church buildings must close to free worshippers from the cost of upkeep

sir – Since March 2020 I have worked almost without a break, holding live morning prayers, quizzes, virtual services and much more online. The diocese has been consumed by the challenges of Covid-19.

What do the parishes need at this time of crisis? They don’t need to be put under more financial pressure from the centre; they don’t need to be discussing sexuality; they don’t need diocesan consultations.

I am rector of three parishes with a combined population of about 11,500 people. I oversee three beautiful listed buildings, one of which has just required maintenance costing more than £60,000.

Our churches have been closed for 10 weeks, as requested by the bishop and the public health director. I have no idea how many people will come back to worship when we open on Palm Sunday. I have paid my diocesan contribution of £58,000, and, thanks to the generosity of my congregations, we are not going to face substantial challenges in 2021.

There have been some green shoots: people we have never before had contact with have joined our online meetings and we have generated connections through our food bank.

However, the fact remains that the job is too big and the demands too significant if our parishes are to meet the extra challenges the diocese and national Church are expecting of us.

Now is the time to be radical and visionary. What both clergy and congregations need is to be set free – free from unnecessary costs, red tape, diocesan strategies and national consultations. Church buildings must close, and the weight of their upkeep lifted from congregations’ shoulders. Holding church services in people’s homes, and meeting in schools and village halls, must be the new normal.

In 1945 the Church published a visionary document called Towards the Conversion of England, which was sadly never implemented. We are in danger of making the same mistake.

Clergy are tired, short of resources, and burdened with costly buildings

and a system that is overly managerial. Let’s create an agile and flexible Church that responds to society’s needs. I believe Covid-19 is calling time on the old pattern of being “church”. Rev Duncan Beet

Rector of Sileby, Cossington and Seagrave, Leicestershire

sir – As a churchwarden, I received a 40-page document from the Diocese of Oxford entitled Flourishing Together in Church Leadership.

The document is helpful and refreshingly jargon free, but when the Church has lost a great deal of income, I wonder how much it cost to produce and how many will actually read it. David Ruddock

Finchampstead, Berkshire

sir – If you cut off the connecting roots to a tree, no matter how rich the soil, the tree becomes top heavy and will fall. Sadly, this looks like happening to the Church of England. Charles Lovell

Wolsingham, Co Durham