Well, hopefully your Father NewPriest will be as willing to listen as ours is!
I suspect that, in the sort of damp, dark, but not particularly cold, Uklandish winters we seem to get these days, a Warm and Light space would be a welcome respite (with, maybe, hot SOUP, souls for the refreshing of).
When I was involved we kept the church open and it was surprising how well it was used. We even had people on duty to keep it open when the organ was being cleaned.
Our place is open every day, unmanned, and people do drop in. There are toilets which are open too, but no refreshments. There are several cafes within a short walk.
St Sanity is open and unstaffed 7 days a week in daylight hours. After some sad experience, the toilets have to be kept locked.
Could you not have the toilets fitted with a lock which can be opened with a radar key (a key which provides access to disabled toilets)? Many people have conditions which mean they cannot wait to use a bathroom (myself included) - having an accident in church would be really humiliating.
Our place is open every day, unmanned, and people do drop in. There are toilets which are open too, but no refreshments. There are several cafes within a short walk.
Nothing about there being cafes nearby would stop you from providing a jug of water and some paper cups, and a bowl of fruit. Food and drink in cafes, of course, costs money and the people who need open churches the most usually don't have money. It costs barely anything for churches to provide some very basic refreshment.
There is a huge crossover between this and the healing ministry thread in Purgatory. To my mind, the Church in general, and in particular the congregation mentioned in the OP is suffering from the cataclysmic anxiety attack which is currently pervasive throughout many churches at the moment. No disrespect is meant to the person whose idea this was, or indeed to Puzzler, but it sounds like an outbreak of the guilt syllogism: we must do something - this is something we could do - therefore we must do it.
There are other cultural reasons why this syllogism is so pervasive, especially the activism that I see as being endemic to evangelicalism and released into the wider church, of England at least, via the obsession with its central bodies with gathering statistics regarding measurable activities.
There is a healing wisdom in not doing anything unless and until you are clear what needs to be done, and indeed for the church, there is a definite liberation in being acknowledged in its state of uncertainty, even anxiety. In this, the church would be following the example of the crucified Christ, in the tomb invisible until he was released by resurrection. Being seen uncertain and without visible activity is definitely not comfortable for the church, but it is I think significant that those churches which sit open, even unattended, have a number of visitors during any given day. There is no activity, no active welcome or engagement coming from the church or its members, but people come in to engage with it, knowing that they will not be met with anything in particular other than the building itself.
When it comes to the church as a community, this is even harder, because it waits in agonised inactivity for a need to present itself. However, I believe that the waiting is a necessary and healing process for the church, to see what it already doing, what spare capacity it has, if any, and how its current activities define it. If it is of the mind to do so, it can even set them aside and see what it is when it simply waits. None of this is easy, but I believe it is the path to resurrection for the church.
I shall have to take some time to think about it, but thanks @ThunderBunk for some profound remarks.
One or two of our PCC tend to agonise over what we must/should/could do in the immediate/long term future, when what we should be concentrating on (IMHO) is what we are doing now.
St Sanity is open and unstaffed 7 days a week in daylight hours. After some sad experience, the toilets have to be kept locked.
Could you not have the toilets fitted with a lock which can be opened with a radar key (a key which provides access to disabled toilets)? Many people have conditions which mean they cannot wait to use a bathroom (myself included) - having an accident in church would be really humiliating.
The toilets are open on Sunday and through the week while services are being held. They're also open when the hall is being used for other purposes - ESL, gym and dance classes for example.
Comments
I suspect that, in the sort of damp, dark, but not particularly cold, Uklandish winters we seem to get these days, a Warm and Light space would be a welcome respite (with, maybe, hot SOUP, souls for the refreshing of).
Could you not have the toilets fitted with a lock which can be opened with a radar key (a key which provides access to disabled toilets)? Many people have conditions which mean they cannot wait to use a bathroom (myself included) - having an accident in church would be really humiliating.
Nothing about there being cafes nearby would stop you from providing a jug of water and some paper cups, and a bowl of fruit. Food and drink in cafes, of course, costs money and the people who need open churches the most usually don't have money. It costs barely anything for churches to provide some very basic refreshment.
There are other cultural reasons why this syllogism is so pervasive, especially the activism that I see as being endemic to evangelicalism and released into the wider church, of England at least, via the obsession with its central bodies with gathering statistics regarding measurable activities.
There is a healing wisdom in not doing anything unless and until you are clear what needs to be done, and indeed for the church, there is a definite liberation in being acknowledged in its state of uncertainty, even anxiety. In this, the church would be following the example of the crucified Christ, in the tomb invisible until he was released by resurrection. Being seen uncertain and without visible activity is definitely not comfortable for the church, but it is I think significant that those churches which sit open, even unattended, have a number of visitors during any given day. There is no activity, no active welcome or engagement coming from the church or its members, but people come in to engage with it, knowing that they will not be met with anything in particular other than the building itself.
When it comes to the church as a community, this is even harder, because it waits in agonised inactivity for a need to present itself. However, I believe that the waiting is a necessary and healing process for the church, to see what it already doing, what spare capacity it has, if any, and how its current activities define it. If it is of the mind to do so, it can even set them aside and see what it is when it simply waits. None of this is easy, but I believe it is the path to resurrection for the church.
I shall have to take some time to think about it, but thanks @ThunderBunk for some profound remarks.
One or two of our PCC tend to agonise over what we must/should/could do in the immediate/long term future, when what we should be concentrating on (IMHO) is what we are doing now.
The toilets are open on Sunday and through the week while services are being held. They're also open when the hall is being used for other purposes - ESL, gym and dance classes for example.