IF this column has had a recurring nightmare these past seven years on its knees, it's that we'll turn up and find the service long since started - or finished - or that no one else is there, or the bailiffs have been in or that there's a notice on the great north door: "Gone away, key at number 32. No milk today."

It only happened once - at Bearpark, near Durham - when we had mistaken kick-off time and, reluctant to intrude, allegedly compiled a thousand word feature from a 50-word parish notice board.

And again, it appeared, last Sunday. The sound of music, clapping - happy clapping - and of great activity arose from St Andrew's in Haughton-le-Skerne, though the diary denoted 20 minutes grace.

False alarm, good intent. This was simply the choir, and others, rehearsing the farewell service for a much loved, short-lived, Rector.

The Rev Dr David Kennedy, 43, is off to become a residentiary canon at Durham Cathedral, leaving behind a vibrant, growing and very grateful congregation.

Those who suppose the Church of England to be dead, dying, moribund or simply down to the bones of its backslides, should hasten to the upbeat church of St Andrew, on the north-east outskirts of Darlington.

David Kennedy was born in South Shields, was a curate in Spennymoor and Kirk Merrington, spent nine years as a theological lecturer in Birmingham and returned, at the Bishop of Durham's invitation, in the summer of 1996.

"Since David came there have never been two Sundays alike," says Georgina Whitfield, the parish administrator. "It's a friendly church, a happy church, a church that's so full of life."

The rector also supports Newcastle United, though these days can rarely afford to go. Whether non- attendance is because of the absurd price of a seat in the St James's Park gods or the size of the stipend paid to a parish priest with a wife and three children to support, we omitted, alas, to ascertain.

"This church was set up when I came," he insists with characteristic humility. "All I had to do was not wreck it."

A unique man, they nonetheless insist thereafter, and there are unashamed tears at his departing.

St Andrew's is partly 12th Century, greatly restored in 1895 and now hung with the more restrained trappings of charismatic evangelism. (The thought sometimes occurs, incidentally, that if non-church folk are to read these columns - which most avidly is the intention - then really we should issue a glossary of terms. Perhaps the Bishop would care to sponsor it.)

The service is due at 10.30am, the church filling soon after the hour. By 10.20am a churchwarden is trying to squeeze more bodies into the 17th Century pews, like the little old ladies with torches did when there was no room in the one and three pennies.

The choir's in front of the chancel steps - guitar, rattly things, organ by no means discordant alongside. The empty shell of one of those party popper things lies beneath the pew. For what purpose can someone have been pulling its string?

Traditionally vested, the rector introduces Peter Sinclair, a St Andrew's sponsored ordinand - if not a glossary term, then one foreign to this alien spellcheck - who's back from clerical work experience in Ferryhill ("fantastic" says Peter) and becomes curate of St Cuthbert's, Darlington, in October.

It's a family communion service, modern liturgy, lots of joyful singing, more smiling faces - as a Newcastle United fan might say - than Scotswood Road on the morning of Blaydon Races.

They are marked, says David in his valediction, by much more than their exuberance. They are a congregation which cries together and not just celebrates together. They should be triumphal but not triumphalistic.

(The address, he says, will be "non-popular" - to which end the bairns are given crayons and things to colour. None of the adults asks for a crayon.)

The communicants' queue seems endless, like an ecclesiastical magic porridge pot, those returning directed through the vestry in order to avoid congestion.

A good idea in theory, in practice they are so greatly blinded by the sun that there is a danger of dancing cheek to cheek with the choir or, perhaps yet more alarming, being beheaded by the lectern. The symbolism is compelling.

At the end we sing the St Andrew's anthem - Rejoice, Rejoice - file out to where David Kennedy and his family await for the last time.

He is anxious to give the credit to his predecessors - Charles Marnham ("a very gifted man") and Canon Alan Lazonby, now 81, the rector for 27 years before that - and to the present congregation.

"We have very much a shared message approach here," he says. "People use the gifts they have been given very generously."

Others rush to acknowledge his own role. "David's built on it and taken it further, does so much behind the scenes," says Reg Page, who'd celebrated his golden wedding the day previously. "He's taught us how to worship, very much so. The whole family have been wonderful," says Jean, Reg's wife.

At Durham Cathedral he will be part of a larger and (arguably) more high powered team, denies that his arrival will herald great upheavel. "I don't foresee any radical change, that would be improper, but I would hope to strengthen the life of the cathedral," he says.

One last time in the beautiful and historic church of St Andrew's, he leaves on a high note. Ancient and modern, perhaps, and, unlike the good church of St Edmund, Bearpark, an occasion not to have been missed.