To think that the church of england should shut down half of their churches

[ReallyTired]

There aren't enough priests and many churches are in completely the wrong locations to support a congretation. A lot of quaint churches are expensive to maintain.

I feel that some really quaint churches in villages could be made into wedding venues rather than parish churches. I would like to see a situation where anyone can choose to get married at the really pretty church in the lake district with no working congretation.

Even in towns there are too many churches in a short distance. I feel that existing buildings could be used in more imaginative ways that would support the entire community.

Here's an idea: we could use them as churches.

Radical, I know.

"Here's an idea: we could use them as churches."

Doh! but they have no congretation. Who is going to pay the bills?

Churches used as churches - Amen to that, LRD (pun entirely intended!)

Have you read the links, really?

Does it really require links to know that the church of england is decline?

If you really NEED links to show the blinking obvious

www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2014/01/16/decline-in-young-people-attending-church-study-reveals-the-factors-for-growth-for-church-of-england

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8970031/The-return-to-religion.html

Church attendence in the UK has remained constant. However the church of england has seen a decline and newer churches (ie. the happy clappy type in a warehouse) have increased.

The methodists have drastrically reduced the number of churches they have for similar reasons. It sad that churches have to close, but a religious organisation has to remain solvent.

You didn't ask about the Church being in decline. You asked where the sources of funding were.

I find this whole thread pretty disingenous. As soon as anyone disagrees, you change your argument so that you can carry on having a go at a Church you claim to be a member of. I just don't see what you get out of it?

It's a thread with some really beautiful posts from people talking about faith ... but all you seem to want to talk about is how crap the C of E is. Yet no-one is forcing you to be a member.

C of E parish churches are some of England's most beautiful buildings, with the most beautiful architecture and ornamentation, and are entirely free to the public to use and enjoy, within reach of hopefully most of the UK's population. As such, they have no real equivalent - okay, people can go to beautiful buildings in big cities but in every village? Nothing like a parish church. Besides the whole God thing, our country would be massively culturally poorer of they were privatised / commercialised. It would be an absolute heartbreak to lose these treasures.

I spend a lot of time in churches. I ring the bells. Earlier on this evening, I travelled out to a remote village from my town with our band ringers to ring the bells in a very special church in the village.

We are a visiting band and we rang bells over 340 years old that were made by hand in pits dug in the church yard. The Timbers in the roof were immense. It must cost a fortune to maintain this church.

Sadly the regular village band of ringers are all over age 60, there are 20 of them in the band in total but they have to ring the bells in 11 village churches in the area. There just are not enough ringers. Many bells now never get rung.

Its symptomatic of a general decline in village life. The decline of churches reflects a decline in sense of place and of community. Very sad sitting talking to the old man who let us into the church and showed us around. He said sometimes people want to get married in one of the churches and they just cant have bells rung - an English tradition is about to die out.

our church is bang smack in the centre of a town, and we can't get enough ringers to have bells on a Sunday.
they are literally only rung by special request now (basically weddings)

I feel very lucky that my church has bellringers (it is in the centre of town). I moved house last year, and it's the first time in my life I've not lived well within the sound of church bells ringing - and that is because the little church in the village doesn't have regular ringers.

I'd been going back to my old one (it's only 15 minutes away) but this thread is giving me the push to be brave and go to this one.

Once a bell ringing band dies it is impossible to start a new one without a few experienced ringers.

Our band is very new because our tower was damaged for a few years and old the old ringers either died or went elsewhere.

Once the tower was repaired a new band was formed of complete beginners and we have 21 in the band and we are the newest band in the whole country but its ringers are still very inexperienced. At the start we had a few Cathedral ringers helping out. I joined later having been trained in our Cathedral.

That means after 2 years we are able to sustain ringing at a simple level on Sundays and weddings. It takes huge effort to get a band going though.

nickelbabe and LRD you could find a local band and ask if you can learn. If people don't learn now, then in 25 years time no bells will ring in this country expect in the biggest churches on a few special occasions.

I went ringing with a band of Cathedral ringers tonight who were teaching me. Tomorrow I will be back with my band - teaching them. I am 50 years old and in 25 years I might be the very last person to climb the tower, cut the ropes down of the wheels to leave the bells hanging dead and lock the door. That happens every week somewhere in the UK.

You're tempting me to do it. I do love the sound of it - I used to live a few doors down from a church where they practised in the evening, so you'd sit out in the sunset with the bells ringing. And I do think it made people keener to go, because they knew it was a 'live' church, if you know what I mean.

I am not sure I will try it (because I am cack-handed and so on), but I take your point we should think about it.

You must be feeling sad about it all.

LRD - don't be tempted, just do it.

You are no more cack handed than me. I ring left handed!

I am sad about it.

In our small city there are three towers in the centre that either never ring or only a few times a year as there are no ringers. One other tower (the one I rang at tonight) the Cathedral uses as its practice tower or only hosts ringers for special events but has no band of its own to ring on Sunday. My nearest tower has new bells we rescued from a church in Liverpool but is still struggling to get a band of beginners together after 6 months. I should go and help them out but I ring 4 days a week already.

This is city with a famous Cathedral with what is acknowledged to have finest set of bells in the world. We should have ringers aplenty but we have very few indeed.

Oh ... I am properly cack-handed, but you are right, I should try and it is important.

to you for doing it.

Btw, can children do it, or is it only adults? I am asking because I have a friend who goes into schools talking about ways our historic churches are interesting, and I think she would be interested in bell ringing if it's something children could do? Near us they can't as it's considered too heavy/dangerous, but I don't know if that's the same everywhere.

LRD - children are very good candidates as potential ringers.

Children learn much faster than adults and the best and most experienced adult ringers typically learned as young teenagers many years ago.

Bells are extremely dangerous if handled incorrectly but children can ring with supervision and we have a set of good young ringers in our city who are teenagers of various ages. Usually the earliest you can start to ring is about age 10.

We often invite Cubs and Brownies and Scouts and Guides to our tower to get them interested. All the people in our tower who hold an official position are CRB checked for this reason. We can't let them touch the bells on their first visit as a group but many bands do try to connect with local schools. We have 2 teachers and a Guide leader in our band but none of their young charges have started with us yet! Your friend should contact a local church with a band and ask if they can arrange a visit when the bans is there. We have video cameras high up in our tower to show the children how the bells move when we pull on the ropes.

Our current Tower Captain started at age 10 but is going to university in September. He is our most experienced ringer. I will probably be taking over from him in September.

Sadly this is quite common, many teen do learn become quite good and then give up when they become young adults and have a family or they move with jobs and so on. I hope our Tower Captain will keep ringing when he gets to university - and come back and visit us too.

Good to know!

I guess if enough people learn, even if they move around, it wouldn't matter. But perhaps that's wishful thinking.

But thank you for explaining, and I will pass it on.

My mum, dad and brother used to ring the church bells for years. Mum stopped about 15 years ago due to health problems and dad only stopped about 5 years ago when he had heart surgery at the age of 79. My brother moved to a part of the country where there don't tend to be bell towers so ringers not needed.

He took me up as a child to see them and to feel the tower swaying! Amazing and terrifying He took his grandchildren in their turn too.

There was a full peal for my wedding. Dad was itching to take part but had to do his bit on the church.

Good upper body exercise!

Just as an alternative reason why CinW Churches may be poor..

I live in a large village, one fo the schools is C in W, there is a lot of support for the Church.

But as with many other similar villages, there is an indie Church, a Baptist, a Methodist and a catholic to serve our community. The congregation is far bigger than anything back home in England, but spread thinly.

this however is people's choice and it's up to them, if they are keeping the building afloat then nobody from outside gets to tell, them how to run it surely?

Just as an alternative reason why CinW Churches may be poor..

I live in a large village, one fo the schools is C in W, there is a lot of support for the Church.

But as with many other similar villages, there is an indie Church, a Baptist, a Methodist and a catholic to serve our community. The congregation is far bigger than anything back home in England, but spread thinly.

this however is people's choice and it's up to them, if they are keeping the building afloat then nobody from outside gets to tell, them how to run it surely?

DH would love to go back to ringing bells, used to do it competitively in his youth. hard to fit about work atm though.

"LRD - children are very good candidates as potential ringers."

Thats interesting. My son was told he had to be eight stone to ring the bells. He is hoping to be a bell ringer when his voice breaks. Prehaps this is an area where electronics could assist young bell ringer rather like powered steering on a car.

ReallyTired - it depends on the weight of the bell or more precisely the ratio of the bell weight to the ringers weight. A perfectly balanced bell will swing with a gentle tug on the rope and a small child could ring it but in reality you need a certain amount of strength and weight to make them swing.

The practice tower I went to last night has unusually light bells and children routinely learn there as well as on practice simulator bells at the cathedral which are exactly as you say electronic and have a very small weight but a real rope.

Big bells require a certain amount of strength. The tenor bell I ring is about 800kg which is 10 x my weight. It is also partly about height. You can stand on a box but you still have to be tall enough to hold the bottom of the rope when the bell is fully up on the back stroke.

Generally, small people find it easier to ring smaller bells.

As I explain to people, there is a moment in time when I am ringing the tenor bell where I am in effect holding a rope attached to an object that is heavier than and accelerating away from me than a Formula 1 car leaving the starting grid.

Please do encourage your son. We really do need teenagers to learn and he can do it anywhere when he gets older. There is a tradition of welcoming visitors and newcomers to a tower even if its for one practice night.

"
Please do encourage your son. We really do need teenagers to learn and he can do it anywhere when he gets older. There is a tradition of welcoming visitors and newcomers to a tower even if its for one practice night."

The plan is that my son will take up bell ringing when his voice has broken and he can no longer sing the treble line in the choir. Hopefully he will be a bit bigger then.

Sometimes I'm not sure I can see the point in them either, but if they're not claiming public money for them I'm not particularly fussed.

One of the more inventive conversions that I've seen was a climbing centre undercover-rock.com/wall/default.aspx

morebeta
our ring leaders still come to church every Sunday. they just can't get a band together. they have ringers who live elsewhere which is how they can get enough for weddings.
I can't ring because I'm in the choir and can't do both (but I don't think i want to learn to ring anyway. not least because my rhythm is crap, I can't hold my hands above my head for any period without bein g dizzy and I'm no good at joining new things due to my chronic social awkwardness). another 3 of our ringers also still come to church. one is in the choir, one is a churchwarden and the last can no longer get up the steps to the chamber.
that means they'd have a max of 4 ringers on a Sunday, and it'd be a lot of running around.

oh, ReallyTired. that makes me sad :(

as a chorister, we find it incredibly hard to get new members, even though we don't require the skill or strength that belringers do!
the hardest thing is getting male adult voices.
boys so often leave a choir when.their voice breaks instead of keeping at it amd learning an adult male voice.

trebles and soranos are so easy to get, but tenors and especially basses are like golddust!