St George’s crossroads

WITH an appropriately almighty crash, and missing the rector by inches – “If it had hit me, it would have killed me,” says the Reverend Paul Neville unambiguously – large lumps of masonry fell from on high last September inside St Laurence’s church, in Middleton St George.

A newly-married couple had just moved off to sign the register; the rector was showered with dust and debris. “It was pretty close,” he concedes.

It was a Thursday. The following day the insurers said that the 138- year-old church could no longer be risked and ordered its closure. Two days later, the first service was held at St George’s primary school in the village.

Last week they received the first report on the cost of repairs and restoration to the still-closed Grade II listed building. Though it’s not about to fall around their ears, they’re looking at £450,000 for structural work alone.

The good news – the quite remarkable and potentially seismic news – is that since the congregation moved from St Laurence’s church to St George’s school, numbers have increased dramatically.

“There’s been a huge explosion, there’s not a week passes when we don’t welcome someone new here,”

says Paul, and therein is crystalised an epochal dilemma not just for the good folk of Middleton St George or even for the Church of England but for churches throughout the land.

Do they spend huge sums on buildings, however historic, which may no longer be fit for purpose? Or do they divert limited resources to manpower, to mission and to mercy?

Paul Neville, himself reckoned a crucial ingredient of the explosive formula, confesses the quandary.

“We will do all we can possibly do to preserve the building, but it must have been a quiet day when it was listed.

“There are no real treasures inside the church. The treasures of St Laurence’s are its people.”

They do say that God moves in a mysterious way, even when casting the first stone.

ST George’s school is so new that I don’t even understand the signposts. There’s a Key Stage 1 playground and a Key Stage 2 playground – in the old days there were just boys and girls – and there’s a Foundation Stage entrance, too.

Maybe that’s what we called infants.

“Janine Gleeson, the head teacher, dropped everything to help us. She’s been tremendous,” says Paul. The folk are greatly welcoming, all meant to wear name badges. “Mine’s in my pocket,” says one chap, cheerfully. It may rather be defeating the object.

It’s a family service, back to school, the place literally crawling with admirably well-behaved and broadly beaming kids. Maybe the chairs are a bit Baby Bear-ish, but there’s not much can be done about that.

Though there are more traditional services, too, this one has “songs” not “hymns” and projects the words onto an overhead screen. Since it’s a school, the rector offers a gentle, headmasterly chiding to those who haven’t completed their annual meeting reports. It’s still the Church of England, too.

The impression is that it’s what label lovers call evangelical. “Evangelical”

is an ecclesiastical term which often seems a synonym for “successful”.

It’s what the Church calls Low Sunday, the first after Easter. Numbers tend to be lower, too. About 75 are present, all ages. These days at St Laurence’s it’s usually around 125, sometimes more.

“One of the real problems,” says Paul afterwards, “is that if we go back we’ll have to create a church which seats 250. Now it will only comfortably accommodate about half that.”

Edna Hugill, who declines her age but is (shall we say) among the older members, talks of the “absolutely wonderful” effect since they gave new meaning to Sunday school. “It’s really brought us together, transformed the place,” she says.

Trina Elms, a churchwarden, says that all she really misses is a place to sit quietly during the week. “I think that people can be daunted by churches, a place like this is more obviously informal and friendly.

“Here we have toilets, kitchens, room for the youngsters, accessibility, everything. It’s so much more family focused.”

Young mum Myron Clarke sums up the situation. “Part of me wants to go back because it’s the church, part of me wants to stay here because it’s more tolerant, less intimidating.

Whatever happens, we’re enjoying it greatly.”

PAUL Neville is a former independent financial advisor with the Bradford and Bingley on Teesside and was a curate at Chester-le-Street when asked to take charge of Middleton St George and the neighbouring parish of Sadberge, east of Darlington. They’d not had a rector for three years.

“The bishop said that Middleton St George was middle of the road Anglican and ready for take off,” he says, aptly, for Durham Tees Valley airport is also in the parish. The bishop was right, anyway.

Though hardly to be expected, crashing masonry may not have been a great surprise, either. St Laurence’s had been troubled for years with subsidence problems, partly believed to be caused by two large sycamore trees nearby.

A substantial grant towards restoration is likely from English Heritage. Many more stones may have to be upturned for the remainder.

“I’m between a rock and a hard place,” says Paul. “We wouldn’t want to see the building go to wreck and ruin, but we have to recognise that the growing community of Middleton St George needs a bigger church.

“If we had all the money in the world, we’d still have an issue about where to worship.

“I suppose that there are days when I think that the school could be the long-term solution, but we’re having to have weddings and funerals at Sadberge and that isn’t ideal.

“The church is a symbol of God’s presence in the community and, whatever happens, it will have to be a community project. I’d really like to use it for weddings, funerals and big occasions but not necessarily have it as our primary place of worship.

“It does raise all sorts of big questions.

What the answers will be, I simply cannot say.”