Understanding Faith as a Community Asset

Worship spaces and their legacy as places of gathering

My role as the Faith Development officer at Wirral CVS is not a common one, and although there are many faith based infrastructure organisations, few are looking specifically at the nuances of how the faith sector fit within the wider civil sector. Those organisations are often concerned specifically with building capacity and supporting faith groups independently of the wider sector which is not bad by any means, but not my role here at WCVS. Being in an unusual position means there isn’t a handbook I can look to or a handy YouTube guide like there was when I needed to fix my dishwasher. I often stumble my way into deep rabbit holes unpacking complex questions around how and why faith groups work, before remerging with more questions than before.

On one of these recent wonderlandian trips down the rabbit hole it occurred to me that if I was having to work to unpick these questions, how much more so would any secular individual or organisation have to as well? Thus here we are at part one of a multi-part blog (Multiple parts not to intentionally generate engagement, but rather it’s a bit of big topic) on understanding faith as a community asset.

Before we get started there are two main sources that inspired this blog. The first and most important is from the incredible conversations that have come out from the Wirral CVS Faith Forum, which is an opportunity for faith leaders and workers to come together to have some of these unpacking conversations together and they have never disappointed. Each topic has revealed truly enlightening and insightful observations about the Wirral faith sector, and if this blog or that opportunity interests you click here to go sign up for the next one in September.

The second is a report by Theos, a Christian thinktank, on ‘The Church and Social Cohesion’ from 2020. This report was released mid-pandemic and deep dives (and I mean deep at 162 pages) the church's role in bringing people together. It’s interesting to see that the same questions from mid-pandemic Britain still roll around today and due to the cyclical nature of the civil sector will no doubt come round again in the future under new social contexts, but with that being said let's start by looking at an area that has held firm though many of these cycles.

Buildings

One of the indisputable facts about faith buildings is that they are recognisable in every ward on Wirral and have been present in our communities for generations. Birkenhead Priory and St Mary’s Eastham boasting formation in 1150AD but being pipped by a good 600 years by Holy Cross Woodchurch believed to stand on the site of a Saxon church from the 6^th century. Although times move on and societies change, faith spaces remain a consistent meeting place for communities. The same can not be said for our more modern institutions.

“More than 600 youth centres and clubs closed across Britain over the last six years, leading to the loss of 3,650 dedicated staff and 139,000 places on youth programmes; council-run community centres have also dramatically reduced in number.”

K. Robinson and R. Sheldon, ‘Witnessing Loss in the Everyday: Community Buildings in Austerity Britain’

“Between 2001 and 2018, the number of pubs fell by 26% (the UK now has more church buildings than pubs) and since 2005 the number of public libraries fell by 27%.”

The Sociological Review, 67:1 (2019) Onward, Repairing our social fabric, p. 14.

We can recognise in the years after these studies were published a good few more pubs, community centres, youth clubs and libraries closed. However nationally we have over 42,000 active worship spaces, the vast majority of these being Christian churches with around 2000 mosques,  400 synagogues, and a smaller number belonging to other faiths. Almost half of these active worship spaces are listed buildings with the number estimated to be around 17,500.

Through the Wirral Faith Social action audit, we identified 180 faith groups on the Wirral that span the length and breadth of the borough, providing a presence for most communities on Wirral and most importantly providing presence in isolated communities not served by statuary bodies. To provide just one example benefit of this, it removes the requirement for travel, which is a particular barrier to engagement for those with the most limited resources (for example those who cannot afford a bus fare, or with particular accessibility requirements).

Ultimately though a building is just a building and, without activity, it can’t be considered a community asset. Even a listed building, as beautiful as they can be, won’t benefit a community without intention. So lets examine how they fulfil that role, by seeing what they offer. Firstly worships spaces on the Wirral offer the facilitation of both bonding capital (Wirral specific examples include; youth groups, elderly social clubs and parent and toddler sessions, LGBT+ drops ins) and bridging capital (e.g. Community Café’s and coffee mornings).

Faith spaces on Wirral also look at tackling material need. They meet a specific and immediate material need which has a knock-on impact on local cohesion (e.g. foodbanks, homeless shelters, English language classes, pre-schools, asylum seeker and refugee drop-ins, addiction support, debt advice, community midwife provision and counselling). They also provide space to promote common endeavour, housing diverse groups gathering because of a pre-existing shared concern or common interest (e.g. art, philosophy and bridge clubs, dance classes, choirs and even art collectives).

Theos demonstrates this value by saying:

“None of these activities would happen without a place to gather, and each brings its own cohesion benefit – whether through combatting isolation and loneliness, ensuring the integration into wider society of those on the margins, or simply bringing people of diverse backgrounds together around something practical. Such gatherings are meaningful from a cohesion perspective whether or not they are responding to urgent material need, and in all cases – including those activities which focus on the bonding of an in-group but nevertheless draw people together along other differences – direct personal interaction is encouraged outside one’s immediate social circle. This is strongly associated with good cohesion outcomes on the basis of ‘Contact Theory’, whereby hostility between different groups is reduced through positive interpersonal contact. By taking a more pro-active approach, churches could maximise the cohesion benefits of existing good work even further with relatively little additional effort on their own part.”

Theos - The Church and Social Cohesion 2020

I feel it is important to point to the final paragraph of this quote with a caveat; We should not forget how and why these assets survive. These buildings survive because of the spiritual commitment of those who meet within them to worship, those who have taken on the responsibility of providing for their neighbours. Congregations invest significant time and money in making these spaces available for more than just their own religious use and the offer that they present does not come without financial burden. As generous as these opportunities are they should not be taken for granted.

Worship spaces serve a broad spectrum of local residents from those in immediate need to those who just need somewhere to gather together. They are not at the mercy of political rhythms, they stand firm through economic turmoil and have become so recognised as part of the local landscape their form is protected into the future. Any worship space has the opportunity to be a community asset given the intention of those who worship within it. Do you know what your local worship space is up to?

The next blog will explore networks, Asset Based Community Development and how connection between faith groups are assets in themselves.