What is a church's legacy when it closes? 

Sometimes I read obituaries. What about an obituary for the body of Christ in a particular place? By Chris Lewis, honorary minister of Mount Zion Baptist Chapel in Bonymaen, which officially closed earlier this year

Sometimes I read obituaries. What about an obituary for the body for the Christ in a particular place? Churches can have personalities. The small Baptist church in east Swansea that has closed was missional and that mission was characterised by its connection to a close knit, working class community. It was characterised by clear principle, commitment and tenacity.

Like an individual might, it has left a legacy.

What is success in church terms? Is it simply in programmes that attract people hoping that they’ll end in emotionally loaded reports of baptisms, gushing testimonies and growing numbers?

Or, is success in people finding a way of direction and coherence in their own lives, be that ever so ordinary, getting up in the morning, putting food to put on the table, getting the children off to school, doing one’s job if one is available, making ends meet when you can and recognising that there is no shame in asking for help when you can’t. Above all, finding with all these pressures that you can actually give something back, have self respect, perhaps most important realising that we are not alone.

Yes, the church was located in an area of overall deprivation with pockets of severe deprivation. I think what ‘reached’ people in the area was to see things from their point of view. As an honorary minister to the small congregation, I had an advantage, for years, I’d been a chaplain in industry and areas of public service.

A managing director with whom I worked once said to me, “You’re on someone else’s turf.” So, that’s the starting point, I’m here and how I get get on depends on relationships, which assumes understanding, speaking the language, a suspension of judgment. You seek ways to ‘do with’ and not to ‘do to’. A criticism of a church mission somebody made was “They work over you, not with you.” Let those fired up by a sense of mission be warned.

I have to acknowledge that the validity of this ‘chaplaincy’ approach was recognised with some Home Mission funding for a time but I also had ‘side jobs’ – just like a few people around. Most important was that the members supported this even though they were not able through age, illness and commitments to be all that actively involved.

What are the substantial outcomes? Well, the first was a foodbank, after a year registered as a charity that has now been running more than a decade. It was necessary then and is still well used, though not as much as before the pandemic which saw the emergence of more local foodbanks.

One success is that a number of the trustees are capable people whom we met first as service users. They bring their skill at managing on small margins, they know just how much is in stock, what’s short, what needs to be made ready. They take the referrals, do the communication, manage the business; they manage, they have agency, one has discovered a talent for bid writing.

As it’s ‘our’ local foodbank, by and large people own it and don’t abuse it. The church has closed but the foodbank charity bought the building with a grant, as a community asset.

What were the other outcomes? A group of teenagers wanted to do performing arts, but that was over a decade ago. They couldn’t go to city centre theatre activities, amateur and professional, because those involved fees and travel. We did it ourselves, not highbrow, but it was fun, gave them confidence, helped some with literacy, engaging with a script and revealed talent.

Early on there was a general election and through contacts, I was able to organise a BBC TV news piece about reducing the voting age to 16. Later, one of them featured in and in part presented an ITV News documentary on living alone, just 18. Her mother died of cancer, her father had likewise, some years before. The group’s still going with some founding members and new people, now they’re young adults, some with children. Their last review, at the community centre, was a sell out.

Trying to use the chapel garden such as it is has been hard going: false starts, Covid, people having to move for jobs or when they get an offer of an assured tenancy in social housing of one sort of another. Some of it is a lack of predictable leisure when you five days in seven with various shifts, such as in call centres or retail, or the exhaustion of having side jobs. We also started an informal social group for mostly people who were isolated.

We keep going, with expert partners. Some of us are looking at buying and developing a site which for complex reasons has been more or less derelict for 30 or more years. The plan is to develop some social housing, managed cooperatively, and a green space with maybe, a community orchard. It may or may not work. Five years will tell.

These are the more visible outcomes, a charity, a theatre club, a community interest company, public recognition through substantial funding of what we together, sought to do. None of its been easy, you have to be patient. I’d dare to suggest it’s enriched some lives, something like the ‘more abundant life’ of the Gospel according to John. Is that ‘just’ natural or spiritual, psychikon or neumatikon in Paul’s words (1 Corinthians 15:44) when he writes to the church at Corinth? Are the two really separable?

The old chapel is held in affection by older people who visited in the past for services, Sunday School or the other activities that were characteristic of chapels. The outcomes listed have renewed that affection among younger people because it’s relevant.

A less visible outcome is more personal: people greet you in the street, call you by name, or ‘Reverend’, or ‘Sir’, or ‘Father’, ‘Padre’ (ex military, obviously). A chaplain is still a pastor, but to people who may or may not be religious.

They talk to you about the realities of their lives good or bad, actually and literally about the price of fish in the case of the local chip shop owner. They talk you you about their hopes, fears, beliefs. Recently we were invited to the wedding of one those teenagers who wanted to act. It was a privilege. 

You listen, you try to care for them, they care for you, help you with things. I think that’s practical Good News.

 

The Revd Chris Lewis has retired from a role as East Swansea Community Chaplain. He served as an honorary minister to Mount Zion Baptist Church whose members supported the initiatives described here and what has happened since 

Image | Angel Luciano | Unsplash