Do come in, but perhaps you won't find what you're expecting...
Not everyone knows the real answer to this question. And sometimes it’s tempting for us to do something worthy but low down on our priority list in order to help people who think the church is really a sort of extension of social services.
That was my temptation earlier today, when local social services telephoned us. The lady calling didn’t introduce herself, but asked if we had a room available for a parent to have contact with their children. They needed two hours, twice a week. I answered that our church hall was available to hire if they were looking for space.
But that wasn’t what this lady wanted. She was after space that was free. Or was there somewhere else? Perhaps the Vicarage? ‘Because churches want to support families staying together.’
Well, obviously, that is something the church wants to support. But we are a small congregation in a deprived area. So we can’t afford to let people use our rooms for free. And you all know that the Vicarage already has plenty of people in need passing through its doors. And, when we consider what we’re really about, our mission is not social service, to keep families together (for example), just because that is a good thing. Our mission is to help bring people out of the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son. And stronger families are a result of that, not an end in itself. We need to keep the main thing the main thing, otherwise we could spend all our time in worthy, but ultimately fruitless, activities.
I was interested that they thought the church would help (which we might have been able to do I guess, if we were a wealthier church with a church hall that was open anyway). There is still a perception that churches care about people and their troubles. I can’t imagine Richard Dawkins gets many calls asking him to make his living room available for use by families in crisis.
Incidentally, I wonder if this is part of a new plan for councils to reduce their spending? Perhaps they are looking to the church to provide free facilities for all their other activities as well. Will we be getting a call from their finance department asking if we’ve got space for a few of their accountants? Is this an initiative that Grant Shapps has launched?
The Vicar's Wife 
hmmmm. interesting. rather cheeky of the council I do agree, but actually what is the role of the church in the community? I mean there was no established church as such in Jesus’ time so we can’t look at the bible and say ‘well the bible says…’. BUT I rather think that in times gone by the parish church was a place of refuge, a place where people could come who needed help, a place to seek sanctuary – is this perhaps what this family needed? I think that the church is losing its way within society and perhaps a return to being the centre of the community would help? in my experience many parish churches are rather inward looking and actually if they went out into the commmunity or provided a haven from the bustle of every day life, and not just a place to seek Jesus, then perhpas ‘the church’ would grow once more?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should have offered your house or the church hall, but it does make me think!
redx
Hi Jules. I can see what you’re saying here. The thing is, we’re already at the centre of our little community here, with plenty of folk in crisis to help. We are very much a community church, centred on our church school and the housing that surrounds the church and Vicarage.
So we have to prioritise, and I think it’s better to help those we already know, who live in the parish and with whom we can build meaningful relationships. This was just a request for provision of facilities, not a request for people to get involved. If we’d been asked to help the family in a relational way, that would be different.
We’d love our building to be open all day every day, but sadly, with a small and mostly aging congregation, we’re not able to do that just now.
This could be an “initiative” from Social Services who will be trying to prove that churches – in fact anyone other than themselves and their budget – cannot what they claim are essential services. If you analyse it, the caller made no attempt to establish a relationship, itself very unprofessional indeed downright rude or incompetent if s/he failed clearly to say who they were and where they were based. They are paid – particularly the senior managers – substantial sums to get that right.
Then you have to ask – why is a room necessary twice a week? If a Court ordered it, then the expectation must be the LA would provide a space ( room in a school out of hours, a LA meeting room – by definition already paid for by Government and the Council taxpayer). Have the Council got the children in care, in which case they must have funds allocated or space available. On the other hand, they may want the Church to be involved, and a safe calm environment, but why not say so and try and set it up in a friendly way? Is anyone, anyway, involved a parishioner?
I would always ask for name and status – full name and job title – and if they won’t give it, with their DEL, put the phone down. The call could have been, just could, from a researcher or journalist trying to set up an “Big Society won’t work” story, with the sub-plot “churches only interested in the money”……..
Did you do 1471?
Hi GG. The number was withheld. But that’s always the case with social services. I don’t think they like you to call them.
All sounds very cheeky. No doubt if you had offered they would have required anyone in the building at the time to have a crb check and agree to hold back from reading/teaching the bible within a radius of 500m!
There are council-run places called Child Contact Centres for just this purpose, so parents can meet their non-resident children in a safe supervised environment and I’m sure WB must have some – it sounds highly dodgy to me, especially if she didn’t give her name.
When I had responsibility for the community centre in Greets Green we had a number of these take place and we always charged – and were well paid. This was because the cases that we had were quite often children fostered in the area (some where in Sandwell) with parent(s) from outside. It does not follow that children are fostered where they live – it depends on the fostering. We used to provide a room with w.c’s and another room for the supervising social worker. No other hirings were allowed at the time and our staff member was not supposed to see who the client was in case they knew them. It is all very sensitive.
The Big Society (which seems to be all about Big and not a lot to do with Society) has a very Victorian view on charity. It is something that ‘people’ do – without defining who people are. There are all sorts of discussions going on at present regarding “welfare” and this is that sort of case. Huge central government cuts on the way and an expectation that some one else will do the work for no money at all. Perhaps when Messrs Cameron; Osbourne and Hurd can arrange for ‘some one’ to pay the heating bills; the insurance costs; the care repair costs for the hall and may be even find some one from their own ranks to volunteer to volunteer to open and close then perhaps the Third Sector (including Churches) may be able to afford to participate in the Big Society experiment. In the meantime we have to worry about the effect on the poor;oppressed and vulnerable. That was where Jesus ministered as well as with the rich and it is my understanding that the well off supported the less well off.
There is no right answer, but if it had have been me I would have said yes in order to assist the child and taken it up with local councillor as a matter of urgency. There is Sandwell Council of Voluntary Organisations who can also take this up on your behalf. Ask them about ‘The Compact”.
Hope that this ramble helps
I think if we had a hall that was open anyway, I would probably have offered it, NS, but we’d have had to arranged hall opening and closing (four visits a week). This is really too much to ask our congregation to do.
We’ve just had 4 weeks (2 more than expected) of opening and closing up early and late for the local nursery which rented (very cheaply) the building whilst they were having redecoration work done.
And our house is really too busy and noisy to have more people needing quiet and space for that long. Like I said in my post, we already have so much to do for the community here, I don’t think we need extra ‘community’ needs imposed on us by Social Services, whose agenda, although overlapping in some places, is not that of the Kingdom.