Thankfully the rain clouds were moving eastwards overnight, and by the time I got up at seven thirty a drier day seemed possible. I ate breakfast in haste before Kath, Adrian and Kate came down to join Clare. By twenty to nine I was on my way to Caerphilly to celebrate the Eucharist at St Catherine's, and arrived just after nine. It's forty years since I last visited the church and wondered if I'd recognise its exact location as the old 1905 building was demolished and rebuilt in 2000.
It's situated in the middle of a long road of Victorian terraced houses, so fortunately its red brick exterior stands out and looks new and was easy to find. The church entrance and adjacent hall are now in a side street and there's space for half a dozen cars to park outside. The whole building is almost square with a rectangular worship area that has the altar on the longer east side wall. It's quite simple, with icons and an image of our Lady in the south corner.
There were thirteen of us, all past retirement age. The usual congregation is around twenty, but with the school holidays just starting, and some parishioners on pilgrimage to Walsingham, numbers were reduced. It was the same at St Andrew's with twelve in the congregation, of whom four were under retirement age. In both churches a couple of people remembered when I served my first curacy there, all others of that generation have long since died.
I enquired after Mary, a young mum in my day with a little daughter called Amanda, and was told that she died fifteen years ago, but Amanda I learned, was ordained to the priesthood in Llandaff Cathedral a month ago. That was amazingly good news. Over its sixty years of existence as a mission church on a former miners' council housing estate, St Andrew's has produced half a dozen ordinands, a remarkable record.
Clare and I with baby Kath were the first family to live in St Andrew's Church House at the other end of the plot of land on which the church stands. It was newly built during my diaconal year. Sadly, It's been sold recently, as there are no longer enough clergy to warrant holding on to the asset. Very much a sign of the times. The plot of land around the church has been developed as a colourful garden with shrubs and flowers, with a modestly sized tree outside. So different to how it looked when we lived here over fifty ago.
The interior of the church has been renovated with the stage area converted into a meeting room, new toilets and a refurbished kitchen, and glass entrance doors. It all looks lovingly cared for. Being there awakened memories of a different era in my life's journey, when the threat of declining support for the church was no more than a shadow and much effort went into community outreach and pastoral care. As I began in ministry the numbers of men training for ministry (men only in those days) was starting to drop. Church attendance was already diminishing gradually, and the rate of decline increased decade upon decade, and no new initiative seemed able to change the trend.
For those of us who studied social change, we could see this happening from early on in our lives of ministerial service, but soon realised we were helpless to do anything about it. It was never a reason to give up, but rather to try and understand what God calls us to be and to do in different ways, and recognise that we're no in charge of the number of faithful people. It's God who gives the increase as and when we're ready. And not on our terms. As long as there are people to minister to, no matter how few, there's work to be done.
By the time I'd chatted with people after the service, drank a coffee and driven home, it was half past one. Kath was just driving out of the street as I arrived, going to fetch Owain from the station. We had a light lunch and then went out to walk for a couple of hours. Clare cooked us fish pie for supper, and afterwards we sat around and chatted. Jasmine emailed over sixty photos of her European road trip with her dad after she left us. We looked at them, and at Kath's photos of their Norwegian coastal cruise. A lovely family evening together, with lots to share.
When Kath arrived yesterday she told us of her latest news - two Arts Council grants for performance projects she's working on currently. It's amazing to see how her creative and organisational skills come together. Being at St Andrew's today brought back memories of returning from hospital with her, a few days old to the church house we'd just moved into. None of this we can remember as we were only there eighteen months before moving to Birmingham. The first of a dozen moves and different experiences in our family life.
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