Wither forecast

SWEEPING proposals that would reduce the number of traditional Methodist churches in the Darlington area from 13 to three – including the closure of every village chapel as a place of Sunday worship – have been drawn up by church leaders.

In 1963, the same circuit had 39 churches and almost 3,000 members.

Now there are 860 members, many elderly, and a projection headed inexorably downwards. If accepted and replicated regionally and nationally, the plan would redraw the ecclesiastical map of England. “If we stand still, we wither on the vine,” it warns.

What now is the Methodist church was begun by John Wesley in the second half of the 18th Century. In the 21st Century, urges the plan, they need to take a radical approach to falling numbers. Its opponents, particularly in the rural churches, claim that 250 years of history would be thrown away.

“It’s a business plan, without consideration for the membership,” insists the anonymous church member who passed on the consultation document.

The quarterly list of preaching appointments is known in Methodism as the plan. This might be considered the Grand Plan. Under it, only the town church sites at Cockerton, Elm Ridge and Northland – in North Road – would continue to hold Sunday services. Pierremont and Eastbourne churches would remain as “outreach” centres, possibly with midweek services.

Harrowgate Hill and Haughton churches would probably be sold; the future of the iconic Bondgate church in the town centre, home to many other organisations, is also uncertain.

It could also be put on the market.

Village churches in Hurworth, Barton, North Cowton, Piercebridge and Gainford would all no longer hold Sunday services, though Hurworth – the best attended – would continue as a centre of “missional activity”.

The report hopes that village churches of different denominations can work more closely together. The small village of Gainford, between Darlington and Barnard Castle, presently has three different churches, while the other four have two. It also talks of a lack of grace, of “big bust-ups”, the need to hold fewer business meetings and for more house groups. Some of the village churches have congregations of no more than ten or so. Most maintain the traditional Methodist “hymn sandwich” order of service.

The proposals envisage that all 13 churches would close, possibly in September next year, with three “new” churches taking over the Cockerton, Elm Ridge and Northland buildings.

“We have not been very good at thinking or working as a circuit,” it says. “As the report shows very clearly, it is not working.”

THE document is based on a membership survey of all 13 surviving churches. “What was effective 50, 20 or even ten years ago is no longer as effective as it was,” it warns.

It identifies concerns about the quality of preaching – the circuit has five ministers and around 20 nonordained “local” preachers – and the lack of suitable music and musicians.

“Our tendency is to find people to fill roles, to continue activities that are not entirely effective,” it says.

“By concentrating acts of worship in fewer locations we shall ensure that the Gospel is proclaimed and is better proclaimed than at present.”

Church worship, it adds, should be a delight and not just a duty or an obligation to keep the church going.

“These challenges can either be seen as situations that cause us to throw up our hands in horror or they can be seen as situations that give us opportunities to be more effective at being God’s church in Darlington.”

SO a chat’s arranged at Elm Ridge Methodist church, a handsome mid-Victorian villa in Darlington’s affluent west end – the Reverend Selby White, the acting circuit superintendent; Bob Robinson, one of the Grand Plan’s chief architects; me.

It’s friendly, almost affable.

They’ve nothing to hide, they insist.

“Methodism has been nearing a crisis for some time now,” says Mr White. “Circuits all over the country are looking at their resources, at how they can be effective in mission.

“Most of the people in our churches are trying very hard but aren’t very effective at bringing people to faith and growing them. It’s moving people to faith from church-based community activities which is the hardest bit. There comes a point where people grow so weary they can’t go on.”

Bob Robinson says they’ve taken a long look back. “As churches we tend not to look beyond last year or next year, but we won’t do anything hasty or ill-considered. We want to be alongside the churches.”

They insist that the impetus isn’t financial, that all sorts of initiatives are ongoing – and so, impressively, they are – that concerns will be carefully listened to and that there may be a move to smaller groups in more informal settings.

“The best evangelism is one-toone,”

says Selby. “We mustn’t lose the focus.”

It’s possible that a decision will be delayed. “If the proposals are rejected,”

says Bob Robinson, “we carry on as we are.”

The chat lasts 75 minutes. There’d be rather more of it in print but, as the column is about to be written, an email arrives from Maranny Jones, an elder of Darlington’s United Reformed Church.

Some might call it coincidental, some serendipitous, others might have words of their own. “If you’ve a moment to spare this week,” she writes, “a visit to Pierremont Methodist church would be worthwhile”.

PIERREMONT’S in what Darlington folk call the Denes, amid long rows of terraced houses, a building that might most graciously be described as functional.

It’s one of those which would no longer have Sunday worship but continue as an “outreach location.”

This week, Tuesday to Friday morning, it’s fulfilling precisely that role – a holiday club for 35 primary school children. “The work done by volunteers has overwhelmed me, a small church with a big heart,”

writes Maranny.

So, exuberantly and imaginatively, it proves. The church has been transformed into Rocky’s Plaice, in the village of Wiggleington-on-Sea.

Rocky’s is a fish and chip shop.

“Chippy church,” says Chris Russell.

She’s a church steward and one of the holiday club leaders, was also a member of the circuit group which produced the re-organisation report.

“The response has been varied.

Clearly some of the villages aren’t happy,” she says.

Pierremont doesn’t have a Sunday School, but runs a monthly, weekday, young people’s service called Zone.

“Most people still have a Christian faith but do other things with their Sundays. It’s up to the church to move with the times,” says Chris.

She’s leading the event with Mark McKnight, a paid youth worker.

For the purposes of the week, she’s Milly and he’s Billy, though Mark’s also Old Sea Dog Bill – retired pirate, chiropodist and comedian.

“What’s brown and sticky?”

“A stick.”

It’s a very Methodist joke.

Planning started at Easter. “It’s very much a team effort, worthwhile because the kids absolutely love it, though they yell the place down,”

says Chris.

“We’re passionate, mega-passionate, about kids. Children have all sorts of problems, all sorts that messes up their lives. It’s up to us to show that God loves them to bits.”

The emphasis is on fun, though the church isn’t forgotten. “It’s about sowing seeds,” says Chris. “The church tends to focus on bricks and mortar when we should be focusing on people. If Pierremont church closed down completely, we’d still do what we do now, but find somewhere else to do it. We need to focus on where Jesus wants us to be.”

All sorts is happening, the kids clearly loving it. Rocky’s rocks.

Mark, an American, has spent several years working in Africa.

“I’ve seen schools, good schools, that meet under a tree. I’m not saying that Pierremont church should meet under a tree in the middle of winter, but we need to look at different ways of doing things.

“That’s what the new proposals are about it. It’s time to think afresh.”

Hundreds and thousands

BELLERBY’S a small village in Wensleydale, near Leyburn, probably best known for its derring- do ducks.

Coincidentally, it was also in the Methodist chapel there – harvest festival, October 2007 – that I met Mrs Dorothy Walker, then the village’s second-oldest resident. She was 101.

Beattie Tupling, by all accounts just as sprightly, was a few months older.

Mrs Tupling died, aged 103, in February last year. In March this year we attended one of the parties – there were several – to celebrate the remarkable Mrs Walker’s 104th.

Still she lives independently, still washes her own windows. At 99 she won £150 and some dog food – the dog food was never fully explained – in Take a Break magazine’s crossword competition.

But did you see the classified deaths in Tuesday’s paper? They included the passing. peacefully at home and aged 104, of Mrs Joan Mary Thistlethwaite of Boroughbridge – “formerly of Bellerby”.

Clearly there must be something in the water. Clearly it’s the best place in Britain for those wishing to achieve ripe old age – but had Mrs Thistlethwaite not left home, would Dorothy Walker still just be the second oldest person in the village?

AMID all the talk of Methodist chapels closing, there’s a call from Tony Elliott, still battling to reopen one.

Tony’s in Lands, near Cockfield, in west Durham, where the chapel suddenly closed three years ago. “We were bypassed. It was done in a terrible way,” he says.

“The church should still be there for the village. It’s awful to see it empty.”

They’ve taken legal advice, the case now with the Charity Commissioners.

“We used to get between seven and nine, which was pretty good,” says Tony. “We’re hopeful they’ll let us start again.”

LAST week’s column on the Reeth Reccies – the Reconnaissance Corps when on parade – brought an encouraging response but a small rebuke from former Trooper 14419454 Robson T.

We’d talked of Chieftain tanks on the wartime roads around Reeth.

Chieftains only came into service in the late Sixties, says Tom.

Former sergeant Jimmy Bell – Ding to his comrades-in-arms – was so taken by it all that on Tuesday he travelled up Swaledale for an hour’s chinwag with parish councillor James Kendall, who’s helping to promote a village plaque in memory of those days.

Jimmy, now 89 and in Hartlepool, served under Major John Parry, who – it may be recalled – brought a pack of beagles with him to Reeth.

“Major Parry would charge up the fellside on horseback, waving his sword and with the beagles running behind,” recalls Elaine Paskins, Sgt Bell’s daughter. “He was a great officer, but mad.”

FOLLOWING last week’s note on Marisse Whittaker’s attempt to raise an online petition to retain the bus pass age – Bob, her husband, was once familiar on Tyne Tees – we bump into veteran former Darlington councillor Pat Buttle, in her time the best of the bunch. “I’ve just got the pensioners mobilised,” says Pat. “If they try to do it, we’re blocking the motorways.”

Good story. “When it happens,”

she promises, “you’ll be the first to know.”

ONCE familiar on the BBC Tees breakfast show, and for the daily Headline Game encounter with his betters, Graham Mack turns up at BBC Wiltshire and in the Corporation’s staff magazine, Ariel.

In his first week in Wilts, he says, he went to the British Legion club in Penhill to try to chat to a few folk.

Ever the enthusiast, Graham shoved a microphone beneath an elderly lady’s nose and asked her to name three things she particularly liked about the county.

“One, our friend Marje who died recently,” she said.

“Two, we all went to her wake.

Three, you’re at it.”

Yew and me

HAMSTERLEY Methodist church blossoms, or at least it will on the weekend of August 13 to 15 when a flower festival is held to raise renovation funds for the chapel and Sunday School building.

The “gala” preview is on the Friday evening, featuring a magician, local musicians and singers and drinks in the Millennium Yew Garden between 6.30pm to 7pm. The official opening’s at 7pm – me again. Tickets, suggested donation £5, are available from 01388-488164 or 01388-488557.