WHEN the diocese of Liverpool put its independent evaluation of the Transforming Wigan (TW) project in the general public domain, it bucked a trend (News, 29 September 2023). Few evaluations of projects backed by the Archbishops’ Council’s Strategic Development Fund (SDF) have been published. The report laid bare the challenges that the project had encountered. The reconfiguration in 2020, which entailed the grouping of 33 churches in a single benefice of seven parishes, Church Wigan, had caused “considerable upset and dissatisfaction”.
The report recorded a fall in average weekly attendance from 1718. in 2015, to 1567, in 2019, and 1150. in 2022. A goal to show across the financial strength of the deanery proved ambitious: overall giving was 88.6 per cent of the 2014 total in 2019, and, in 2020, just one parish paid its share in full. Without diocesan support, the report noted, the variety of stipendiary clergy, already all the way down to 13, would have fallen to eight.
A vital aspect of the report was its careful delineation of the context by which the project took place. Wigan deanery had the bottom levels of giving within the diocese: a mean of £5.40 per member per week (compared with a diocesan average of £8.57). Only one per cent of the population attended a C of E service on a Sunday. The fall in clergy numbers — from 24 to 18 in 2013 — was a catalyst for, not the final result of, the project. But the authors also referred to successes, most notably latest worshipping communities and social-justice activities, by which parishioners had “worked together beyond the confines of a person, established church”.
Two years on, the critical response to the report — which served as something of a lightning rod for concern concerning the way forward for the parish — has clearly had an effect.
“We’ve carried that burden around with us, and the repute has caused us harm,” the Team Rector since 2020, Canon Neil Cook, says. “When you’ve got people across the country who’ve never been to Wigan saying ‘Wigan has failed,’ you say ‘How come there may be more growth on this deanery than almost another deanery within the county ten years later?’ But it takes time.”
There is now a special story to be told, he says, and the diocese is keen to have it heard. “The seeds that were sown ten years ago have taken this long to begin growing. Now you see the fruit.”
WE ARE sitting within the library at Marsh Green, a housing estate with high levels of deprivation. St Barnabas’s, just across the way in which, a big brick church inbuilt 1961, has been closed on health and safety grounds. An album from the Wigan World website shows a “walking day” in 1962: two men carry aloft one among 4 banners, proclaiming “We are ambassadors for Christ. God is making his appeal to you thru us.” There are other images of a vibrant parish community: a football club, Brownies, a choir, children from the estates attending a vacation club.
There are plans to show the constructing into supported-living flats and a latest faith and community hub. Under the ministry of the previous Vicar of Kitt Green and Marsh Green, the Revd Denise Hayes, quite a lot of support services were established. Today, the library is home to a pop-up food pantry on Wednesday mornings, and a monthly communion service. A craft group has also been piloted, and a weekly pop-up café.
The Revd Catherine Cosslett, Team Vicar within the Wigan Team Ministry, incessantly exchanges greetings with individuals who come into the library as we talk. Most of them are regulars on the gatherings that the church holds on the library, she says. “Some of those persons are individuals who would never, ever, have come to church had it not been that we began that something here on a Wednesday morning. And that each one developed from St Barnabas’s not having the ability to be open, us saying ‘How can we do church otherwise?’ . . . We’ve created a worshipping community on this place.”
There are currently seven lay chaplains who recurrently walk across the estate in pairs. “It’s really about ensuring that individuals in Marsh Green know that, although the church has closed, Jesus hasn’t left,” she says. “They are still loved and valued and wanted.”
AMONG the independent evaluation’s conclusions was that “missional and social justice activities have been the strongest element that has been nurtured through Transforming Wigan.” In 2021, “Lifted” was established to co-ordinate “social justice ministries” across the benefice, which now include seven food pantries. A 2021 study by the University of Sheffield estimated that a couple of in ten people in Wigan are anxious about not having enough food. Ms Cosslett leads the network.
Over at St Stephen’s, Whelley, volunteers are helping to establish the weekly JEDS food pantry (an acronym taken from the 4 churches within the North East parish). Members of the pantry pay a £5 annual membership fee for access to a weekly food shop that costs £3 for 15 items. A café run on a “pay as you’re feeling” basis can also be run. Around 90 people come every Tuesday.
Dean Kearsley, the Reader who co-ordinates the pantry, is stuffed with enthusiasm for the work — something he’s taken on since retiring as a schoolteacher. “My belief was that the church was now not the centre of the community, and we would have liked to do something about that,” he says. “The community now see Tuesday as their church.”
Once a month, he leads a 15-minute “Espresso service”: “All I do is a Bible reading, after which a mirrored image on that reading, after which now we have prayers. It’s simply enough for people . . . one other opportunity to come back and worship God.
“It’s all right having the pantry — you’re feeding the physical — but people have a mental side, a spiritual side, as well,” he says. “For the primary yr, it was amazing to see people coming over the brink of the church, because they’d never been inside a church for years, they usually were so amazed.” Some have began to come back to church services, he says. Relationships with other mainstays of the community’s life have also grown. Last yr, when the church’s boiler broke, it was local individuals who funded the alternative, through the pub and bingo nights.
While the 2023 evaluation praised the “thriving” latest worshipping communities and social-justice activities, it also identified “a tension that established churches have been neglected and traditional activities are less valued”.
Mr Kearsley believes that, within the early days, “a few of the leaders weren’t listening enough from the bottom level, from the roots, by way of what they wanted.” But, he suggests, “we at the moment are on the proper line. We now listen, and we’re being guided by the Spirit.” Since TW, “people have gotten responsibilities, they’ve got ownership now of something they need to see occur in Wigan. And they understand that there’s a shortage of vicars, that there’s a shortage of cash, that we’ve got big buildings here that individuals can’t afford to make use of any more.”
There’s a must “face honest facts”, he says. “But, at the identical time, God knows persons are still clinging to buildings. I’m considering, ‘It’s not the constructing you have to be clinging to, it’s God, it’s Jesus, the Spirit of God.’”
AT THE outset, Transforming Wigan envisaged the closure of 20 per cent of the benefice’s 33 churches, but only two were closed, and one was repurposed. The delay in grappling with the query was one reason behind anxiety.
The Right Buildings Review (RBR), commissioned by the Joint Council and PCCs that make up the governance of Church Wigan, began in January 2023 (News, 4 October 2023). Its report, published nine months later, warned that, with £1 million a yr spent on the benefice’s buildings, reserves were “under pressure or exhausted”, and a few parishes were “now not financially viable”. The 31 buildings could seat 8500 people for worship, but, on Sundays, normally hosted fewer than 1500.
Six church buildings have been proposed for closure, 4 of which require consideration by the Church Commissioners for consultation and determination. Implementation may take one other two to 3 years.
MADELEINE DAVIESSt Stephen’s, Whelley
Jimmy McCarrick, churchwarden for the North West parish, has been worshipping in the realm for greater than 20 years, mainly at St Francis of Assisi, Kitt Green, a part of the identical parish as St Barnabas’s, Marsh Green. As we sit around the table on the library, he recalls attending all the Transforming Wigan meetings.
“To be honest, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the way in which it was presented,” he says. “I do think it’s probably the one workable model we’ve got, and I feel good will come out of it, if people put their hearts to it as an alternative of pushing away. . . Things must change, and now we have to be a part of that change. Throughout the country, there are usually not enough clergy, they usually can’t do the whole lot, can’t be in every single place day-after-day.”
There stays “frustration that we don’t have the clergy we used to have before”, he says. Some who went to St Barnabas’s “don’t go to church now”, although some have relocated to St John’s, Pemberton. For individuals who have been going to church for 40, 50, or 60 years, “it’s their church: that’s how they see it.”
But “some persons are coming on board and changing their views,” he says. The chaplaincy group has been “church on the streets. . . Most are from down here, they usually really get on with the local people. They reach more people than they did just having the services.” One positive final result of TW is that “I do know lots more Christians in Wigan now,” including other churchwardens. “If everybody does get on board, I feel it’s massive. You’ve got so many Christians in Wigan who don’t know one another.”
Would he rewind the clock ten years and undo the whole lot? “To be honest, in case you’d asked me five years ago, I’d have slightly gone back. Now, I feel moving forward, yes, we don’t have the clergy we had, but they do an awesome job. And I feel the long run is working together as Church Wigan.”
ALSO around the table in Marsh Green are Brenda Seddon, Jean Kinsey, and Margaret Brookes, three laywomen who’ve worshipped at St Catharine’s, Scholes, for many years. A Commissioners’ church, inbuilt 1841, it’s of 4 churches within the Wigan Central parish, and one among two really useful for closure.
In The First 150 years of St Catharine’s Church, Wigan, Bill Bithell records that, in 1860, it was discovered that the church had been built on a geological fault, which extensive coalmining in the realm had moved, taking with it the west end of the church, including the spire. Instead of demolition, a strategy of “continuous repair and maintenance” was agreed, and native colliers were approached for help. In 2012, lottery funding of £600,000 was secured, enabling the spire to be taken down and rebuilt.
Ms Kinsey, a Reader, reports that this left the church’s funds in a “fragile” state. Despite the expense, the constructing, which may seat 600, has continued to deteriorate, while the congregation has fallen to about 20.
There has been “little or no dissent” concerning the closure from the congregation, says Brenda Seddon, the lay chair of Transforming Wigan and vice-chair of the PCC at St Catharine’s. The constructing has required spending a “heck of lots”, she says. “And that’s not what we must always be doing. It’s beautiful, it still looks fabulous from inside, but it surely ain’t protected. It’s a no brainer.”
“It’s been a really upsetting experience to say that your church is closing, because I even have been to that church, as has Brenda, since we were little girls, and suddenly to let it go, or must let it go, is in a way heartbreaking,” Ms Kinsey says. “But, on the opposite side of it, it’s grow to be increasingly more of a burden to us, and we spend increasingly more time talking concerning the constructing, and never about other things that are more essential, in a way.
“But people at all times hold to that constructing, wherever they’ve moved to. It’s at all times ‘my parish: that’s where I used to be born.’” The congregation is “very loyal and really supportive”, she says. They are currently meeting within the hall, which has the advantage of being warmer. Relations with the local primary school remain strong.
Ms Seddon agrees with Mr McCarrick that TW has reduced isolation: “You feel a part of a church, versus a constructing, the entire of Church Wigan.” Both women agree that this has entailed a “huge” cultural shift. “We went to the church school, we went to Sunday school, our social life was there,” Ms Seddon says. “We were just stuck in St Catharine’s. Now the world’s your oyster.”
LIKE others, Ms Seddon highlights the early communication of the project as flawed, including the title itself: “You’re going to rework it? No, Wigan’s been here for the reason that Romans.” The pace was also a challenge. “The pressure to realize things was unrealistic,” she says. “ Such a project “ought to be allowed to maneuver, not be forced to maneuver. It was being pushed.”
Canon Cook is ambivalent on the purpose. “Decline, particularly in Wigan, wasn’t like a plane in a nosedive: it was losing a number of hundred feet every couple of miles,” he says. “We never once paid our parish share as a deanery for the reason that first records I could find in 2006, and it was happening. And lots that was being paid out of reserves. . . There was a necessity to assist people confront the difficulty, which they weren’t possibly being forced to confront, which was painful, and I reckon we could have done it with higher language.”
There was a necessity for “more relational constructing, constructing more consensus”, he says. “But the fact is, I do think you possibly can’t get round that shock to the system, ‘You must understand’, ‘Wake up and smell the coffee.’ . . .That’s at all times going to be painful for people to listen to.” The vital work of constructing relationships can also be difficult when there are few clergy, he says. “It’s really difficult to do change if you don’t have a number of resource.”
Nevertheless, he is confident that the fruits of TW’s work are starting to emerge, including the transformation of a few of the “biggest protesters” into partners. A procedural approach that permits for a five- or seven-year timeframe doesn’t work on this context, he suggests. “What we’ve at all times understood is that transformation, culture change, is a generational shift. You must stick at it. I feel, sometimes, we’re being judged on the outcomes of the primary five years, whereas actually, ten years later, we’re still only embryonic in some ways; but now you possibly can see more of what has happened.”
THE diocese of Liverpool is keen to focus on these results. In December, it published Moving on From the Transforming Wigan Evaluation. This states that the unique evaluation included “some undercounting”: 12 churches didn’t return attendance data in 2022. The updated estimate is that average adult weekly attendance in traditional churches declined from 2265 in 2015 to 1807 in 2023 (2.5 per cent, compared with 3.5 per cent between 2015 and 2019 within the diocese as a complete). In 2023, these churches had an extra 271 under-16s attending, exclusive of college services.
MADELEINE DAVIESSusan Gaskell and Diane Harris-Bolton, at Annie’s Pantry, St Anne’s, Beech Hill
Church Wigan also has 21 “Fresh Worship Communities” (of which just one existed in 2015) that meet a minimum of monthly, with attendance of greater than 500 recorded in autumn 2023. Overall, including Fresh Worshipping Communities, the diocese estimates that 2023 attendance stood at between 2000 and 2150 adults, and 450 under-16s. Not included are 32 “mission activities”, defined as “meeting a minimum of monthly, but don’t display all of the marks of the church”, akin to the food pantries. These gather an additional 900 people every month.
On the financial side, it calculated that Wigan would pay parish share in 2024 of £47,000 per priest (much like previous years, but 35 per cent lower than the parish share ask). There is now a plan — “Target Twelve” — to “move Church Wigan towards ‘joyful sustainability’ where resources match ministry needs”. By 2028, it’s hoped, a ratio of two buildings per stipendiary priest might be achieved (24:12 once the six buildings are closed). This can be a fall from the 18 incumbents in place firstly of Transforming Wigan, and the 15 set out in the unique plan.
Canon Cook observes within the document that “the danger is overstretch for clergy within the interim period — more energy is required to guide into growth while still overseeing the massive existing infrastructure. There continues to be an enormous need to significantly think through clergy well-being — and lay leaders just as much.”
WHILE highlighting examples of “bounce-back” in traditional churches, the Right Buildings Review acting as a catalyst for the creation of “realistic and owned parish mission plans”, the Moving On document reports that “many of the growth potential is from latest worshipping communities and latest mission initiatives.” It mentions the pantry network of about 2500 members, and Wigan Next Generation (WiNG), whose work amongst 11- to 30-year-olds includes latest worship communities meeting at churches throughout the week, and a team of youth mission enablers at work in three high schools.
“We’re talking a couple of thousand individuals who don’t come to church, they usually’re getting involved in that movement to explore faith,” says Canon Cook, who has served in parishes in Wigan since XX. “It’s not quite church, but it surely is unquestionably moving towards church. But I’m unsure the top goal is that all of them resolve to show up at St Stephen’s, Whelley, at a nine-o’clock. It is perhaps they proceed to satisfy on a Tuesday.”
The focus is on “How will we make disciples?” he says. “That just isn’t any different to what most persons are saying, I assume, but, in ten years, I feel the experience we’ve got is that you will have to be a bit of bit elastic in where you think that you’re growing those disciples. It’s a piece of the Holy Spirit you begin seeing grow up in certain areas, and, if we try to force them right into a certain traditional view of stuff, I feel it’s not going to work.”
One of the findings of the Chote review of the SDF programme as a complete was that the definition of latest disciples “varies considerably between projects and the numbers of reported latest disciples don’t at all times reflect the fact on the bottom” (News, 11 March 2022). Both the number of latest disciples and “fresh social motion” were “very hard to measure accurately and consistently”, the review said; “people’s journeys to faith might be lengthy and sophisticated.”
Differences of measurement are evident across the 2023 and 2024 evaluations. The former listed 63 worship communities (including existing ones) “engaging over 12,656 people in missional activities”.
Canon Cook says that he’s talking about “people who find themselves actually engaging in faith. . . It’s an abnormal one who is growing of their knowledge of Jesus, growing of their character like Jesus, and growing in deed like Jesus.” A worshipping community entails fellowship, leadership, discipleship, mission, and worship. Yesterday, he attended the eucharist at Lifelines, a school-based community within the benefice, where young people were servers, read the Bible, and said prayers.
“It’s really essential that we’re really clear on not dumbing down what church is,” he says. “It’s so essential that we don’t say we’re making disciples when actually all we’re doing is gathering people to activities.”
WHILE praising the energy poured into social justice and mission, the 2023 evaluation noted that the addition of the brand new missional communities didn’t result in a rise in giving. This stays a challenge across the Church, by which the national strategy for a financial turnaround is based on mission and growth.
The journey from exploring a church or “latest thing” to becoming an everyday giver can take years. while the diocesan secretary in Gloucester has warned that “the present model of ministry funded principally through giving could also be unsustainable in lots of places” (News, 31 January). Of the ten,000 latest worshipping communities proposed by 2030, it’s hoped that 2000 might be in income-deprived communities.
In Wigan, the funding for the Lifted network and youth work just isn’t covered by giving; so it relies on other sources, including grants.
MADELEINE DAVIESCanon Neil Cook, Team Rector of Church Wigan, outside The Deanery C of E High School
In future, more motion is more likely to be expected from lay people, a lot of whom are already critical to the delivery of social-justice ministries, along with serving as Readers, church officers, worship leaders, and more. The 2023 evaluation noted that TW was “seen as a permission-giving environment”, encouraging lay people to set things up and lead them.
At St Anne’s, Beech Hill, one other church within the Wigan Central parish set to shut, Diane Harris-Bolton and Susan Gaskell, are running the weekly food pantry within the church hall. Launched within the wake of the cost-of-living crisis in 2023, it now has 201 people on the books, a few of whom are sitting at tables set out like a café beneath the rafters and bunting, including a young mother with a baby and toddler. The women describe it as “like an clan. . . We’ve laughed with them and cried with them.”
Both have been attending St Anne’s for greater than 50 years. It was “thrown up” as a single-skin constructing in 1953, to exchange the wood mission church because the population expanded. Much of the cash was raised by the people of Beech Hill, who were encouraged to “buy a brick”.
The closure is “heartbreaking”, Ms Gaskell says. But there are hopes that the vicarage could grow to be a church and community centre. The pantry is “badly needed”, the ladies indicate.
A MILE away, within the centre of Wigan town, is Deanery C of E High School, the diocese’s largest school, taking pupils from every postcode in Wigan. Its partnership with Church Wigan is one among the successes reported within the 2023 evaluation.
Martin Wood, who arrived as head teacher in 2019, has been a teacher for 28 years. He can also be a parent and worshipper in one among the parishes, and is stuffed with praise for Church Wigan. “I definitely haven’t seen any relationship as unique, as dynamic, as powerful, as impactful, as what now we have with Church Wigan,” he says. “It’s transformational.
It is a “deep relationship” evident in the whole lot from governance to prayer support. The Revd Helen Deegan, who joined as school chaplain last yr, describes how all Year 7 pupils (aged 11 to 12) do the Youth Alpha course on entry to the college, delivered by volunteers from local churches. This yr, 250 of them attended an away-day at Way Church, the massive free church that occupies impressive buildings near the train station and has grow to be a key partner for Church Wigan. Alpha “helps our students understand what’s underpinning our faculty values”, Ms Deegan says.
The chapel is open every break and lunchtime, and serves as a “shelter” for some pupils, she says. Opportunities to interact with faith include the “Encounter” after-school club, and an outside chapel. “It could be very difficult to get young people into school on a Sunday, however the young persons are here, and it’s for us to go to them,” she says. “I feel that’s what this partnership does.”
The Church currently funds a counsellor at the college, Stella Hannam, who receives greater than 200 referrals a yr. She describes having the ability to discuss faith as a welcome liberation, as compared with other skilled settings: “There’s that freedom to explore that with young people as a part of their holistic well-being.”
Mr Wood says: “Young persons are very open and receptive. It’s us which are over-thinking it. They need to discuss stuff like this. They are far more open-minded than people give them credit for.”
The cost of Ms Hannam’s job is currently being met by Wigan Deanery Trust, established in 2019 as a charitable trust and company limited by guarantee to undertake “core services” on behalf of the Church Wigan parishes, including finance, buildings management, safeguarding, and funerals co-ordination. One component of its work is fund-raising for the social motion undertaken, including a Christians Against Poverty debt centre. The 2023 evaluation concluded that it had “provided efficiencies through developing and running a centralised funerals service; saved around £58,000 on constructing insurance; and increased churches’ health and safety compliance from 25 per cent to 75 per cent (now 94 per cent)”.
Lesley Hughes, who chairs the trust, is one other example of the strength of CW’s volunteer base: she was previously a head teacher and head of Ofsted inspections for the north of England. “You will get a number of flak, and that’s hard, and it’s easy to be defensive, but you’ve got to place your big-girl or -boy pants on, really,” she says. She describes being in tears after someone who had been hard to persuade praised the support of Support Services, recently. Leaving Wigan station, I notice that among the many “Wiganese” murals painted in swirling lettering within the tunnel is “Gerrumonside” (”Get them on side”).
TRANSFORMING Wigan was the very first SDF project within the Church of England. Those involved are acutely aware that they were breaking latest ground, serving as “guinea pigs” in pioneering one approach to a set of challenges evident across the Church: falling congregations, financial deficits, buildings in need of repair, clergy and lay leaders under strain.
In the diocese of Liverpool, the challenges are acute: it has the bottom historic assets of any diocese — estimated to amount to an overall difference in income of £5 million when put next with the typical diocese. TW was just the beginning. As a part of the Fit for Mission strategy, it’s hoped that, by 2028, 80 per cent of parishes may have joined latest and bigger parishes (News, 10 May 2024), as the entire variety of parishes potentially falls from 250 to 25, or fewer. On 20 March, the brand new parish of Christ Our Hope, Liverpool, bringing together seven former parishes, was launched.
Drawing on the information from the Moving on Evaluation, the diocese regards Church Wigan as a successful model that’s “clearly showing that through constructing a fringe now we have individuals who we will engage with and deepen the discipleship of”. While attendance figures within the diocese are lower than 2019 (all-age average Sunday attendance fell by 18 per cent), the expansion within the diocese’s “worshipping community is, it says, “evidence that the plans we put in place to speculate in parish ministry through Church Wigan and Fit for Mission are bearing fruit”.
In Wigan, Canon Cook’s perspective is that “we’re definitely in a special phase now. . . There’s a way of hopefulness, not despair.” Our tour features a visit to St James and St Thomas, Poolstock, within the Wigan West parish, where the Lifelines Choir, which incorporates individuals with dementia, is in advantageous voice, led by the music director, David Goulden. They are singing one among his own compositions, “Come, Holy Spirit”.
The Revd Alison Brown, a particular deacon, has been attending the church since she was a bit of girl, in 1962. She first became a neighborhood missional leader, in response to TW, with a vision “that St James’s can be open lots greater than on a Sunday morning and that a number of other people could come and interact with us”.
One of her favourite quotations was from a young woman who visited on a Tuesday throughout the school holidays, when the church helps to feed local children. Ms Brown mentioned the religion café on a Saturday, and the food pantry. “She checked out me, and said, ‘I didn’t know that this was here.’ So we’ve got this huge constructing that appears like a bit of cathedral, and he or she didn’t know that it was here. What she really meant was, she didn’t realise what was happening inside, and I feel that’s the difference.”
Those who’ve attended the café have asked “But what do you do on a Sunday?” she says. “My own personal evaluation for all of that’s, it’s the birds of the air that intend to make the nest within the trees. Whatever we do is so attractive that individuals are within the trees. Not quite within the thick of it, but they’re within the trees. . . They are considering ‘What’s happening?’ I like that.’”
