The last amen

DOUBTLESS all of them were familiar with the biblical verse about two or three gathered together.

Catterick Village Methodist church sometimes exceeded it. Though there might be as few as three, sometimes there were as many as seven.

So it was that, at a bitter-sweet service last Sunday evening, another untenable chapel closed doughty doors forever.

In 1933, the year after the Primitive and Wesleyan Methodist churches united, there were 14,522 churches and 839,019 members. Today there are around 5,800 churches and 265,000 members.

At Catterick they wanted a Songs of Praise, a high note on which to go out, but in truth it was like one of those funerals which they try to call a celebration of life, but at which they still weep buckets, nonetheless.

We sang Great is Thy Faithfulness but The Day Thou Gave Us Lord is Ended, too. They live, they trust, to fight another one.

For the Methodists, perhaps more than most Christian denominations, the occasion – and the story – is lugubriously familiar. The older folk die off, few young ’uns – despite valiant and oft-imaginative efforts – come forward to replace them. Another village chapel becomes a desirable residence.

“All sorts of people have said how sorry they are to hear it’s closing,”

said Sheila Pender, “but they still don’t come through the door, do they?”

Catterick’s in North Yorkshire, better known for its great Garrison.

Keith Jackson, a retired minister from Reeth, a dozen miles west, counted out five chapels – Marske, Hurst, Low Row, Muker and Keld – that have closed in recent times and wondered (jocularly) if it might be something to do with his preaching.

Even in the dale, traditionally nonconformist, only the chapels at Reeth, Arkengarthdale and Gunnerside remain. “They’re cathedrals, palaces,” said Keith, “but they’ll all be for the high jump unless we do something; you do wonder where it will all end up.

“We have to use them for the community.

We can’t just open the doors on a Sunday.”

Even the Methodist church at Colburn, in the Garrison’s shadow, has ceased services, though a group of Fijians from the base still holds ownlanguage worship there.

Ken Howcroft, assistant secretary to the Methodist Conference, remains upbeat. In Britain, he said on Thursday, they have regular contact with 800,000 people. In the wider world, membership totals 70 million.

“We’ve always been a people on the move, opening and closing churches to serve the changing needs of society.

God hasn’t finished with us yet.”

ACHARMING and clearly cared-for little place, the church in Catterick Village was opened in 1912 and extensively refurbished about 12 years ago. Selling the school room out the back helped pay for it.

There’s a pub next door and pubs, too – though not necessarily that one – are having hard times. These columns should collectively be renamed Endangered Species.

Rob Johnson, a friendly local preacher and former chairman of Richmondshire District Council, was asked ten years ago to help at Catterick church when its difficulties became apparent. “People don’t know that the church is in the midst of them,” he says.

“They have all the material things, the BMW on the drive, and they think that that’s enough. The congregation just dwindled away; we had to look at the finance and maintenance of this place. It was dependent on the few, and the few became fewer.”

A hard decision? “Oh it was terrible,”

says Rob. “It’s going to be a very emotional night.”

The church, predictable irony, is chocker. Folk have arrived from churches throughout the Richmond circuit. Among them is the Reverend Jane Harris, based in Reeth but for six years responsible for Catterick, too.

“I take away many memories,” she says. “For those of you who know my memory, that’s pretty remarkable.”

Joyce Buckley, the usual pianist, has her arm in plaster after a fall but still manages to help with the drying up after the service. “I’m very upset, of course I am, I’ve loved it here,” she says.

“We tried everything to keep it open, we really did, but it’s become so expensive for so few.”

Particularly they think of the late Eric Bell and of his wife Pat, not sufficiently well to attend the last amen.

“This place was the love of their lives,” says Rob.

Alan Coustick, the superintendent minister, speaks of the need to do things differently, to face new challenges, about Catterick in its new form. “God hasn’t abandoned us and we haven’t abandoned God,” he says.

They’ve yet to make a decision on what happens to the church next to the Bay Horse, the church council meeting postponed until the difficult final service was over.

“We may no longer be worshipping here, bit I still hope that this place will have a role in the community,”

says Rob Johnson. Catterick may have lost the battle, but still the fight goes on.

All embracing

WILLIAM Hague, Richmond MP and deputy leader of the Conservative Party, will be in Keld – top end of Swaledale – next Friday morning to launch an innovative project embracing URC and Methodist churches.

Though the United Reformed church remains open for worship, the manse has been converted into a holiday let and a base from which visiting ministers can work with both locals and tourists.

It’s expected that further stages will involve a resource centre for the remote community and an “interpretation” centre for visitors.

“It’s to reinforce what there is in Keld, it’s very exciting,” says Dr Peter Clarke of the URC.

The project will be open to the public from 11am to 3pm next Friday.

AROUND 7,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses from the North-East and Cumbria are expected to attend a conference this weekend with “the end of the world” as a theme.

“The programme will present an analytical and reasonable, as opposed to a fanatical approach,”

they say. Based on biblical research, the Witnesses expect global change “in the very near future”.

CELEBRATING its 250th anniversary, the glorious little Methodist chapel at Newbiggin-in- Teesdale – the oldest in continuous use – stages an exhibition called “Together travel on” from 11am to 4pm today and tomorrow.

Admission is free.