Peter Southcombe seeks the transformation of our church buildings
One Church, 100 Uses proposes the establishment of an agency, owned by the
United Reformed Church, that will deal with properties that are a burden to
Synods and local churches, surplus to requirements, or just no longer suitable
or viable.
The Catch the Vision Core Team asked the Revds Andrew Mawson and Peter
Southcombe to explore the possibilities of utilising our buildings in better
ways, based upon their track record of developing various church mission and
community projects in the recent past.
Southern, Thames
North and Mersey Synods contributed towards a feasibility study that was
duly completed in early 2006, in time for a presentation to General
Assembly. The study clearly demonstrated that the URC has a good number
of buildings, ‘hulks of yesteryear’, available for development and
possible transformation into mission opportunities. Our church is rich
in capital that is locked up in buildings and land, not used or
available for mission. Since then, Southern has voted for the principle
of the agency and is in the process of helping to establish it, while
completing further studies into possible projects.
The goal of the
agency is to:
-
Enable the church to focus on being the church rather than a property
manager
-
Enable a small non-viable congregation to continue possibly via an
ecumenical approach
-
Free up Synod time by providing a specialist team for such work across
Synods
-
Keep the property within the stewardship of the URC rather than selling off
the asset
-
Keep a Christian presence within the community
-
Access other funding streams not presently available to Synods.
Rather than simply sell these properties off, they will be imaginatively
redeveloped for a variety of community uses, all with the aim of progressing
mission opportunities and developing community.
There is no ‘blueprint’; each development will be sensitive to local needs and
opportunities. Projects will be high quality and sustainable, both
environmentally and economically. When completed and established, each
development will be handed back to a local church or Synod to manage and run,
and One Church, 100 Uses will move onto the next development.
This an important development in the life of the church and, up to now, some
Synods have been asked to explore possibilities, join the adventure by providing
some working capital to run and develop the agency, and by offering a building
or two for the agency to develop.
Many hours have already been spent on the legal framework to ensure that the
agency conforms to the URC Act 1972, as well as various Synod Trust deeds. The
agency will therefore be properly constituted and owned by the United Reformed
Church.
Andrew Mawson has been the minister and key figure at Bromley By Bow URC, where
he has totally refashioned the church and community through multi million pound
schemes. See
www.bbbc.org.uk for more details of the nursery, café, Doctors’ GP
clinic, training establishment and enterprise centre.
Peter Southcombe has enabled both urban and rural redevelopment to take place
within Southern Synod, and has established a number of social enterprises. As
Regeneration Development Officer for Southern, Peter has obtained Government and
EU grants for nurseries, IT training suites and environmental projects majoring
on renewable energy. He has recently led a pilot TLS Lite course introduction to
community development.
The history of our denomination shows that entrepreneurial approaches were taken
to develop new buildings in new settings as mission stations to the community.
The previous two centuries hold numerous examples of such activity. One Church
100 Uses hopes to recapture some of that strategic thought and action by
enabling the United Reformed Church to face the future with hope and excitement.
The Revd Peter L Southcombe is the Regeneration Development Officer in Southern
SynodContact details: 01634 899937 hitc@btconnect.com
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