Beating the path to a rural revival

from CRE News - January 2022

My Church Needs One of Those Pages

The Church is the biggest grass-roots organisation in the country so healthy churches are an important sign of a healthy society. So said the Bishop of Exeter, the Rt Rev Robert Atwell, making his maiden speech in the House of Lords in November. ‘Village churches are at the heart of rural communities,’ he stressed. ‘We need to strive for open church doors and open virtual doors.’ Sarah Cracknell, project manager for the Church of England’s Grow the Rural Church initiative, will lead a seminar on the subject at CRE South West (12 noon, Wed 23 Feb) – one of 30 scheduled during the exhibition’s two days (see pages 20-24) ‘The Covid-19 pandemic has meant people are rediscovering the gift of “local” and finding imaginative solutions to the challenges confronting us,’ she said. ‘For the first time many are working from home and investing in their village. We are discovering new ways of doing church,

Devon’s landscape is dotted with small, rural church buildings along pilgrimage routes, built hundreds of years ago to serve its local community. Devon Pilgrim supports these churches, helping them offer hospitality to pilgrims, who, in turn, are invited to reflect, re-root and add their prayers to those of the generations who have worshipped in these historic places before them. Sarah Cracknell will share the story of the development of Devon Pilgrim at CRE South West. ‘This project has brought new energy into churches and established new relationships with people outside the church,’ she explained. ‘As well as increasing visitor footfall to church buildings, it gives an opportunity for people to ask the kind of spiritual questions that often surface during a pilgrimage. Whether it is the Celtic idea of the inner journey or the medieval tradition of travelling to a specific place to seek help, pilgrimage is having a resurgence.’

worshipping together online and connecting with the fringe in a way our urban cousins have been yearning to do for years.’ Grow the Rural Church Project is an eight-year project that has been running in the Diocese of Exeter since 2017. Jointly funded by the Church Commissioners Strategic Development Unit, it was set up to support rural churches in finding sustainable uses for church buildings – and to enable exhausted and burdened church communities find capacity for mission. ‘The mid-point of our project funding coincided with the first lockdown and we had to find new ways of working,’ said Sarah. ‘We used the time to deeply evaluate the situation. This CRE seminar will share the main points that we learned from the first half of the project and how we have adapted to support our vulnerable rural churches.’ Visitors will discover more about the resources the project has produced, including Lightening the Load, a selfassessment toolkit for churches, and guidance and support for festival churches in Devon.