Worldwide, the UK Church already does an enormous amount to help the poor: everything from famine relief in Africa, to foodbanks here in the UK. In recent years I’ve come across churches running community nursing projects in UK urban areas, building homes for the homeless in Mexico, funding orphanages for children living on rubbish tips in Kenya, and feeding the hungry everywhere from Zimbabwe to Southern Sudan. I’d be surprised if there was a non-government organisation in our nation that does more to help the poor.
However there is still a perception that the church is wealthy, sitting on huge assets, and that maybe it could do more with them to help the poor. How true is that perception?
Well let’s consider how it from the perspective of the nation’s largest denomination, the Church of England. Broadly speaking, you can divide the assets of the Church of England into three chunks.
First, it’s fixed assets, ie buildings. In its efforts to maintain a presence in every community, the Church of England has over 16,000 church buildings in its 13000 plus parishes all across the nation. And at a time when government services such as hospitals are being pulled out of communities into larger regional centres, we’re all very aware of the value of the “local”. Imagine having to travel to Worcester for a regular Sunday service, or a wedding, baptism or funeral? Just as with hospitals, there is benefit in the local!
So if we’re committed to maintaining a presence in every community then radically reducing the number of church buildings to raise capital to give to the poor isn’t an option. It’s also unlikely to produce much hard cash – over 75% of church buildings are grade 1 or grade 2 listed, meaning the government recognises them as being of exceptional history or architectural importance. So they can’t easily have their use changed, and are therefore hardly an attractive option to a property developer (and let’s face it, who would want to live in a graveyard?)
Even if buildings were saleable, the church’s complex ownership arrangements make them very difficult to sell because no one owns them! The Church Council (PCC) is responsible for repairs and maintenance. The Churchwardens technically own the building’s contents (but can’t sell it), and legally no one owns the building. If that sounds absurd, I couldn’t agree more! But then the whole legal structure of the Church of England looks like something that has been designed by Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey to ensure paralysis and indecision at all levels.
The second chunk of assets the Church of England has is the £7.9bn investment fund held by the Church Commissioners. The principal purpose of this fund is to fund clergy pensions, with any surplus going to fund the church’s work across the nation – so the Church Commissioners are already one of the UK’s largest charitable givers. Short of “pulling a Maxwell” and robbing the pension fund, it’s hard to see a way to use this money except for clergy pensions!
The third chunk of assets the Church of England has is its “day-to-day” working capital. The money that pays clergy salaries, keeps the lighting and heating on in church buildings, and funds thousands of projects across the country. However this chunk of assets isn’t a single chunk, instead, it’s 13000 small chunks – each Church of England parish is a separate charity in its own right. Whilst clergy salaries are paid centrally, individual parishes receive no money from the centre. In fact, the reverse is true, each parish contributes a portion of their income to the centre (known as ‘the parish share’) to pay clergy salaries.
So to take a local example, Upton Parochial Church Council (PCC), has the financial responsibility for maintaining Upton Parish Church, and the work we do here. In 2016, Upton Parish Church had an income of just over £20,000. 75% of that came from weekly giving by the 25 mainly retired regular attenders. The remainder came from events and fees for funerals and weddings.
Expenditure in 2016 was £28,000. 31% on clergy costs (parish share & expenses), 25% on building and churchyard maintenance, 20% on insurance, and 10% on heating and lighting. The £8000 deficit was met from our not very substantial reserves. (Please note, this isn’t a plea for money – though if anyone wants to help our work, whether on a one-off basis, or regularly, or even by leaving a gift in your will, do get it touch with our treasurer, in confidence).
You can multiply that story of Christian witness and buildings maintained on a shoestring budget all across the country. But despite the stretched nature of the finances, the church still does a remarkable amount of good: nationally over 80,000 volunteers and around 2,700 church staff (plus 20000 clergy) provide support and activities for children, young people and families, and over 100,000 children and young people participate in activities connected to the church each year.
Arguably that statistic highlight’s the church’s fourth and main asset, which isn’t buildings or investment funds or working capital, but it’s volunteer workforce. The Bible is always very clear – the church is not a building – it’s a gathering of people. And our people give sacrificially of their time and money to maintain the organisation and its mission. Every year they also pour millions of pounds into charities worldwide in their own names. Could they give more? That’s up to their consciences. Could you?
To sum up – could the institution of the church give more to the poor? Probably. But the cost in terms of cuts to staffing (and therefore the work we do in our communities) or to our buildings (and therefore our presence across the nation) make it difficult. To do more, the Church of England would need a thorough overhaul of its structures – change on a par with Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries combined with Isis’s desecration of historical sites in Syria. And in a heritage-mad nation like the UK, that seems very unlikely to happen!
First published in the Bridge Magazine, 2017