The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, has launched a campaign to conserve 100 treasures in Anglican churches, and the Church of England hopes to raise £3m for their conservation.
Church Care, the central Anglican organisation that runs the campaign, points out that caring for over 16,000 churches in England is an enormous burden. Repairs to buildings cost a total of £115m a year, “to keep them watertight and fit for the 21st century”. Too often, there are simply no funds left for conserving works of art.
When one becomes a member of the Church of England and many other Anglican churches as well, one is enrolled as a museum curator and donor.
It is an enormous privilege and spiritual benefit to worship somewhere which has been a house of prayer and Christian center for our ancestors for centuries, but it can be oppressive and daunting, and so often the needs of the fabric committee become more pressing than evangelism and sometimes one just wishes the whole wretched thing would fall down and we could start again. Our churches seem largely to be unsuitable for modern needs and kept going for those who want a picturesque wedding on one of the very few occassions they will enter a church, and for the community who never come to it, but take an inordinate interest in you keeping it standing while never themselves coming in or contributing.
That said, I do know some churches which have never been in better condition and whose monuments and treasures have been lovingly restored. They however have put evangelism and service of their community first, and in so doing, their congregations and income has risen, enabling them to care for the buildings.
If we keep doing the main thing faithfully rather than fretting about raising funds for museum maintenance, God blesses us and sends us people to look after, knowing He can trust them to us – and the rest will take care of itself.
Ministry and evangelism first: conservation second.