THE challenges facing almost every church congregation hardly need enumerating, particularly not in a specialist newspaper like this one: how you can engage with people who find themselves ‘”spiritual but not religious”, busy with sport or shopping on Sunday mornings, disaffected with institutions and traditional establishments.
Added to this are the unique difficulties of the tiny, rural church: elderly congregations, few in number; crumbling, unheated churches; rapidly rising costs; and one weary priest, staggering from service to service, wheels spinning, surplice flapping. All this paints an image of despondency and despair. Broken congregations mutter darkly about being “one generation away from extinction”.
And yet there may be hope: there still survive quite a few market towns and village communities which might be vigorous and engaged; the British countryside is outstanding in the sweetness and variety of its landscapes, plants, and animals; and an increasing number of individuals are starting to see the benefits of rural environments — to go to, if to not live in.
Nor are our churches completely doomed. For every mouldy, locked constructing, regularly crumbling into the bottom — “grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky” — there are dozens of optimistic communities, small in worshippers undoubtedly, but committed in prayer and motion to the upkeep of a constructing “proper to grow clever in” and a faith that transforms lives.
How, then, to bridge the gap between believer and uninterested passer-by? How to supply a glimpse of the wonderful everlasting to the earthbound sceptic? How to inform a latest story, not of failure and decline, but of relevance and joy: an offering of space and peace, community and belonging? There are a mess of approaches available, but pilgrimage offers one path along which small, rural churches particularly can journey with only a modicum of effort and outlay, and that may bring affirmation and connection.
A PILGRIMAGE is, broadly speaking, a spiritual journey to a sacred place. Rural parishes have the sacred space, and might create the fabric to make the journey to and from this space a spiritual one. Creating a “pilgrim path” is just not the work of 1 person or interest group alone, but gathers individuals with various gifts and skills, offering a chance to work on a joint project for the advantage of the entire community.
This, in reality, is the primary task — to bring together everyone who could be desirous about such a project: walkers, writers, artists, route-makers, map-creators, booklet-designers and -printers. They don’t all should be committed Christians: pilgrimage is a liminal activity, which allows individuals the space and time to reflect while occupying restless bodies with the activity of walking, in itself an aid to creative and productive thought. By being offered this space and time, it’s hoped, pilgrims will encounter that “Other” that, Christians imagine, is God, and thus begin, nonetheless tentatively, their journey of religion.
Seek participants from local history groups, walking and rambling organisations, and inventive communities, in addition to from throughout the church community itself: it’s surprising how many sorts might be brought into such a project.
The first task for the newly convened group is to plot the walks. The variety of walks planned ought to be proportionate to the variety of enthusiastic people whom you may have in your group. You have to be ambitious, but not overly so: ore than one walk is a very good idea, but have too many and you would easily be overwhelmed.
Actually plotting the walks is an easy operation: unfolded a big Ordnance Survey map on a table, and get everyone to indicate their favourite walk. There should be sure guidelines: the walk ought to be based at a church, and the route ought to be circular, to avoid transport issues.
If you’ll find a walk that comes with a visit to a different church throughout the parish, benefice, or deanery, this is right, but don’t compromise on length to incorporate one other church. Your walk ought to be between 4 and five miles — any shorter, and other people feel that it hardly counts; longer, and people with less energy (including families) are excluded. The average walking speed on such pilgrimages is 2 miles an hour. A two-hour trip is nearly right.
DECIDE what form of literature you ought to accompany your pilgrim routes. Will it contain route directions in addition to reflections? Will you wish illustrations and maps? Be careful about copyright. Sketch maps by members of the community are by far the simplest, as are illustrations by artists out of your group.
At your first meeting, while everyone is stuffed with enthusiasm for the walks and the project, attempt to get individual volunteers to commit themselves to specific tasks. Fix the time and date for the following meeting, and share your expectations of what shall be achieved by then. If you may have web access and might upload your literature, that’s marvellous — but nothing beats a booklet that might be picked up from the church constructing itself, or taken on the walk without the concern of an intermittent phone signal.
THERE is at all times the danger that individuals will pick up the project and “run away” with it. In your group meetings, attempt to get agreement on what the literature will appear like, how much information shall be included, what the word count ought to be, and what number of illustrations. It is great if each guide reflects the character of the church and the character of the landscape, but there ought to be an overall style and approach inside which variations can occur.
Pick a date in your launch and check out to follow it: deadlines are excellent for encouraging progress. If you do not need the capability to supply a daily programme of guided walks along your pilgrim paths, then an initial walk to launch the project is a very good compromise. Tea and cake at the top is at all times welcome, and offers the chance for involvement by those that may not have the ability to undertake a walk.
Try to keep up the energy for the project: introduce latest routes; offer the occasional guided walk; be sure that information is present in all of the churches near by. Don’t let your posters get too damp and battered, and take away overly wilted leaflets. Pilgrim paths can energise a complete church community and enable its members to supply to the broader community something that it may need forgotten that it needed.
The Revd Dr Sally Welch is Vicar of the Kington Group within the diocese of Hereford.
