Sheila Maxey, a former Moderator of General Assembly and retired minister, recently spent a week in the refurbished manse at the Keld Centre in Swaledale. As the first in a series of "ministers in residence" she has written some reflections on the experience for the own church magazine, and has allowed us to share them more widely here...
The changing face of mission in KeldToday Keld is a hamlet of 18 houses high up in Swaledale, Yorkshire. However, as late as 1970 it had two chapels – one Congregational, founded in the 18th century, and one Methodist, established in the 19th century. It had a school , established by the Congregationalists in Victorian times which in the 1930s had 30 pupils. It had an Institute, also a Congregational establishment. Although Keld village was probably never much larger, the farms round about had larger work-forces and larger families, and there was also lead mining nearby. The mission of the two chapels was to serve that community.
By the 1970s there were only four children in the school and it closed. Today, the Methodist chapel is derelict and the institute and the school stand empty. The Congregational chapel, now Keld United Reformed Church, has 6 members and a normal congregation of 10 – 12 at the fortnightly afternoon services led by the Dales minister who lives in Barnard Castle 25 miles away. What is its mission today?
During the 1980s and 1990s the school and the institute, plus the manse which adjoins the chapel became the URC Keld Centre, a Northern Synod youth centre. It had very basic accommodation for do-it-yourself weekends, with the only paid staff being a caretaker. Many URC people from the north, now no longer young, had important experiences in their Christian journey there. They have fond memories of the chapel where they would often offer to lead the weekly worship. Keld chapel members may have been few, but they were neither turned in on themselves nor set in their ways and they were encouraged by the youthful enthusiasm. However, the centre fell foul of new health and safety legislation and ran out of money so, in 2003, it closed.
The proper future use of the school and the institute is being explored, but the manse has been completely refurbished so that it can, on the one hand, bring in money as a holiday let and, on the other hand, be used for church-related purposes. It will be available as a place of respite for burnt-out ministers and other church workers. For three peak holiday weeks this year the synod is experimenting with placing a ‘minister in residence’ there – and I was the first, for the Easter week.
The mission of Keld URC is partly what it has always been, a place of worship for the local community – but of the 6 members, one lives away and another has just moved away. However, the community love the chapel, which is kept spotless by someone who never attends and is not paid. It has a humidifier on much of the time, and someone else empties it and keeps it going – again not a member or even attender. It has a bell which is rung before worship, so the whole village knows when worship is taking place.
But changing times have brought a different group of people to Keld – the long-distance walkers and the hardy campers. The Pennine Way and the Coast-to-Coast path cross in Keld and as I sat in the manse sitting room I watched so many laden young (and not so young) people passing the door. Over the years many have looked into the chapel, which is always open day and night, and quite a number have signed the visitors’ book. As ‘minister in residence’ my task, for one week, was to explore ways in which the chapel, part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, might engage with these walkers and campers. I decided to hold morning and evening prayers and Kees produced leaflets with information and my name and spread them around the B&Bs, the camp sites, the café, and all the homes. I rang the bell each time. Kees was usually the entire congregation, but two campers, one long-distance walker, three church members and two other local people came once each.
We put a large welcome notice on the chapel door in an effort to get more people to go into the chapel: Inside, I put the visitors’ book in a more prominent and convenient position – and three times as many people signed it as had done so in any previous week since the book began in January 2007. I made a prayer corner at the back of the chapel and encouraged people to write down prayer concerns which could be taken into the daily services – no-one did. And I loitered! I sat in the sun or weeded the front garden so I could talk to people as they passed. I talked to people in the café, and people I met along the road. I found that quite exhausting.
I kept a daily diary for the committee and to pass on to the next ‘minister in residence’. I also made a few suggestions for simple practical kinds of outreach for the chapel, for example a clear, permanent notice saying ‘Welcome – the chapel is open’ and a glossy leaflet on the history of the chapel and its present mission to offer beside the visitors’ book. I suggested they might like to persevere with the prayer corner in order to encourage visitors to sit for a while in quiet reflection or prayer before moving on.
This kind of mission cannot be measured and that makes it hard to do or to justify financially. I was heartened by something a man from Bedfordshire wrote in the visitors’ book: “Good to talk to you, rev”.
Sheila Maxey
May 2009