Catriona Gorton joined Hugglescote Baptist Church as leader in 2004. Within 6 months an insurance inspection led to their building being closed.

Change was now inevitable but what? Was this to be a question of survival or could the pain of closure open up new opportunities and possibilities?

Our story begins in 1749 when a New Connexion of General Baptist preacher began to hold meetings in a farmhouse in the heart of the village. From this a congregation was born and in due course an independent church emerged. In the 1800’s the congregation founded a successful day school, and towards the end of the century a large building was erected in the heart of the village to house both this and the worshipping congregation. The growth of state education in the early twentieth century saw the Baptist school close. Improved transportation meant the road on which the chapel stood was demoted to a side street, the little shops closed and the Baptists found themselves right at the edge of the village, now subsumed into the wider district of Coalville, a mining town. The twentieth century saw a steady decline in membership, from a reported figure of 234 members and 385 scholars in 1905 to 42 members and 14 children and young people in 2005.

I joined the church in 2004, and within six months an insurance inspection revealed numerous issues, which eventually led to us deciding to close the building. For two years we have held most of our services in the local primary school, where I am now a community governor, and have changed from the traditional 10:30 and 6:00 services to a single service at 3 p.m. Most people have adapted well; we have lost a few who found the venue or time too difficult, but gained a couple of new people and have seen more casual visitors than when we had our own place. Our service style has developed to retain the best of traditional worship but with a more contemporary feel.

The biggest change has been in our approach to mission, and we have worked hard to get more engaged with the local community. There are really three strands to this, PLUS+ a lunch club for senior citizens, special events at Christmas and Pentecost, and COMPASS a new initiative based in a pub.

PLUS+ meets monthly. We collect around 50 people in a coach and take them to the restaurant at a local independent garden centre. The total membership is 70 and growing. The Christian element is low key, though we are overt about who we are. I say grace and we always pray for members who are unwell. A good number of folk respond to invitations to our special services. We visit members in hospital and I have conducted one or two funerals. Perhaps we are now ‘the church they don’t go to’ – progress of a sort!

In 2005 we hosted a Real Christmas carol event, preceded by a free tea and around 120 people came – three times our normal carol service congregation. Building on this, in 2006 we organised a Pentecost Party – a free village fete that attracted 200 to 300 people – and an open air Pentecost service. For Christmas 2006 we invited Anglican and Methodist friends to share in putting on A Cracking Christmas – a tea and a homegrown service, which attracted around 130; we also hosted a Radio Leicester Sing Christmas carol event in a local pub. We are intending to repeat all of these in 2007 – largely because people are asking for them!

COMPASS is a new venture launching in May 2007, based in the lounge of the pub where we had the carol event. This will be monthly and is aimed at people who won’t come to church. There are three themes – enjoy, engage and encounter. We see friendship and openness as central to this venture – people must be valued whatever they decide about Christianity. Engagement with real issues – faith-and-sport, faith-and-politics, faith-and-you-name-it - seems appropriate at this stage. We will invite specialist speakers to facilitate honest discussion in these areas, offering not ‘the Christian view’ (there’s no such thing) but demonstrating how Christianity is relevant to real people in real life. After about three months we plan to try an encounter event – think multi-sensory, think creativity – with a space for people to explore their spirituality, encounter God or just chill out.

Alongside all of this, we are actively involved in discussions with another small Baptist church a mile away about the possibility of merging to form a new church. This process has been running for about 18 months and has seen deepening of relationships between the two fellowships, though is nowhere near making a decision.

All of this is incredibly exciting – but it is incredibly precarious because we are a small, mainly elderly, HMF supported congregation. As a minister, I find it exhausting and rewarding, and at times terrifying. A lot of the work is done by a very small number of people and I spend a lot of my time both encouraging people to get involved and making sure that events not only come to fruition but are of a quality worthy of God.

There are inevitably lots of questions that arise…

• What is the relationship of PLUS+ and COMPASS to the church as a whole – especially people who will come to faith at COMPASS but would not cope with our traditional Sunday worship? Can we be one church with three expressions?
• Where does the ownership lie? Is this my vision or does the church own it?
• Is the work sustainable? What will happen when I sense God is moving me on, or when any of the current leaders stands down? The PLUS+ committee has recently appointed two new members to ensure a degree of succession planning but also to give greater congregational ownership. We partner with Social Services to fund PLUS+, are there issues lurking around the corner?
• If the merger happens, how can we incorporate this work into the vision and mission of a new church?
• But if not this, then what? We are a small, mainly elderly church, what is the alternative to trying something radical with and for God?