Kairos: Buildings
DO our church buildings help or hinder our mission and ministry to our communities?
That’s the question we’ll be asking ourselves in the next cycle of our diocese’s Kairos process.
This time, it will involve looking at the theology behind church buildings, auditing what we have, and then deciding whether to open new churches and church halls, revamp the ones we have and whether any should close.
But the key behind this process is how our buildings affect our own discipleship and mission. Tackling this issue will bring our understanding of what it really means to be a Christian into sharp focus.
Among the questions we’ll be asking are:
- What part do our church buildings play in our ministry?
- Does constant fundraising for our buildings exhaust our time and energy?
- Are our churches sacred spaces that are valued by our communities or irrelevant and dilapidated?
- Are there new solutions to the ownership and funding of our churches and halls that would release time and money for mission?
PRINCIPLES
The principles of Kairos remain the same as in the first phase of Kairos. Can we use our buildings to make our Church:
(a) BROADER - for instance, can we make a difference to our community by making our buildings available for the local community to use?
(b) DEEPER - for instance, how does the sacred space inside our church buildings make a difference in worship?
(c) LEANER - for instance, can we find new solutions to the issues of maintenance and ownership that will make our buildings less cumbersome to administer and cheaper to maintain?
TIMETABLE
The timetable is likely to be as follows:
January 2008: Information about the initiative will be sent to each worshipper in the diocese
Easter 2008: Deaneries will be able to choose to use the Kairos material from Easter at a time of their choosing.
PROCESS
The process each deanery or cluster of parishes goes through is likely to involve the following sessions. Please note: there will be a lighter touch to the process, as well as a less strict timetable, than the last cycle of Kairos.
1. EXPERIENCE:
One session to outline some of the problems associated with our church buildings
2. EXPLORATION:
(a) EDUCATION/THEOLOGY:
Four sessions to look at the theology behind sacred spaces, with practical examples showing the relevance and importance of that space in our largely secular culture.
(b) RESEARCH:
An update of the buildings audit from the previous cycle of Kairos, as well as research into the details of other buildings in the local community, including church buildings used by other denominations. The chance to explore how the life of the church building could be extended in terms of community use (BROADER), and spirituality (DEEPER) at the same time as looking at issues of maintenance and refurbishment (LEANER)
3. REFLECTION/RESPONSE:
The chance to respond directly to the bishop about the deanery's plans, in response to the Kairos: Buildings initiative. This is likely to involve a visitation by the bishop, and a celebratory Eucharist to commit plans to God.
4. ACTION:
Time to implement the plans.
THE HISTORY:
The Kairos initiative was initially launched by the bishop in February 2004 to address five issues: our ageing congregations, the national shortage of clergy, financial challenges, the cost of maintaining our buildings, and the lack of relevance of Christianity to many non-churchgoers.
Our eight deaneries developed five-year Kairos plans to help meet those challenges, which were presented and blessed in our cathedral in July 2005.
Some of those plans included ambitious projects to revamp buildings. Many sought to provide new models of mission and ministry, and many projects are still ongoing.
In a progress report to our Bishop’s Council, our Diocesan Kairos Group (DKG) concluded that the initial Kairos process had been both incredibly successful and yet fell short of the targets we had set ourselves.
The successes included better collaboration between parishes and an impressive array of projects that aimed to meet genuine community needs. Kairos appeared to be “embedded in the diocesan psyche”.
But at the same time, it had failed to impact significantly on the five issues that were initially identified. That’s why our Bishop’s Council has agreed that the next cycle of Kairos should specifically focus on one of those five challenges.
The Ven Trevor Reader, chairman of the DKG, said: “It’s important that people realise that the first cycle of Kairos was vital.
“By going through that process, we are now much better equipped to tackle things we couldn’t have done beforehand. Now we have fostered new relationships and considered different models, we’re in a much better position to take some bigger risks.
“And tackling the buildings issue is a sure-fire way to tune in to what is really important in our Christian faith. Buildings are both a blessing and a pain, and we’ll explore every aspect of that in our next Kairos cycle.
“One of the lessons that we’ve learnt is that it can be counter-productive to push parishes and deaneries through a very tight timescale.
“So the chances are that we’ll ask deaneries to decide exactly when is the right time for them to go through the next cycle of Kairos.”
