If this was your Church what would you do?
The BBC have reported on the impending sale of a Methodist Church in Barnsley and there is uproar among the users of the building who consider that it is not the circuit or the local Church who has the right to sell it, they insist that the Church was paid for and built by the people for the people, past, present and future and as such it should not sold for redevelopment.
Has the Church (or circuit) got it wrong?
Of course we are not in possession of all the facts, we do not know the other pressures for mission on the circuit; maybe they need to sell the building to realise funds for another mission that is starving for lack of funds.
But it does raise an interesting question of the argument of keeping a building open even when the congregation is too weak to sustain it. Is there a case for a circuit mission that uses the building in a new way with a mission focus? How do we enable such a mission? Who staffs it? Who pays for it? Does it have to have a regular worshipping community or is it ripe for something new?
What would you do?
If you were to keep the building and its function as a community facility how would you fund it and make the most of the opportunity?
