Hello,

I was born and brought up on the east Suffolk coast, in a village called Kessingland, nestled anonymously between Lowestoft and Southwold, in turn the most deprived and most affluent towns in the county. One of the features of that coastline is that it is changing shape over time, sometimes dramatically overnight during a storm, sometimes almost imperceptibly at each high tide. One of our traditions as teenagers was to race down to the sea at midnight on New Year’s Eve to greet the waves in the way that hopefully only teenagers do. The distance was anything between 10 metres and 0 metres, as the waves crashed up against the sea wall at high tide. My brothers and I did it again in our early 30s and only one of us made it without stopping, as the sea was now 100 metres further out, as the sand washed up from down the coast had built up against the groynes.

A few miles walk along the beach is a village called Cove Hithe. In 1672 the parishioners decided that they could no longer afford to maintain the 14th century church building and so got permission to re-use the stone to build a smaller chapel within the old walls. I didn’t realise this until last week when I watched a programme called Kate Humble’s Coastal Britain on My5. To be honest I hadn’t given it much thought at the time and just assumed that the building had collapsed over the years and something smaller built inside. But no, the parishioners (and by that it may only have been the few who probably attended) made an active choice to change what they saw as church.

Today, 340 years later, the church still has a service every week, served by a House for Duty priest who has three other churches. She will retire in December and what will happen then is unknown. The Churches Conservation Trust own the ruins and the Tower, so it is only the small nave chapel which is owned by the Diocese. People gather from up to 25 miles away to keep worship alive.

In 2022, St. Andrew’s, Cove Hithe faces an even greater threat to its existence than affordability. The sea is encroaching at a rate of 3 metres every year and the church sits just 100 metres from the cliff. The path I walked along as a youth has been washed away. What will the churchgoers do once the actual building no longer exists? Will the gathered church gather at another church nearby, or individuals go to their local church? Will that particular church community still choose to worship together as a house church? What will ‘church’ be in 30 years’ time when the stones and mortar have washed up onto Kessingland beach?

What inspires me about this story is that 340 years ago churchgoers made an active decision to remain ‘church’. They made a realistic decision about what they could afford and used what they had (the larger building) to make something new.

We are facing questions about our existence today, partly because of COVID but also because of a fall in church attendance over many decades and overly ambitious church building over several centuries.

What decision will we make as individuals, as individual churches and as an Area? How can we try and ensure a community of faith exists in our villages in 340 years’ time, due to decisions we make over the next few years? How will the people ensure that ‘church’ remains where they live? Because in the end it is the people, not the Church of England governing bodies who will be church. Priests come and go, as do bishops, but in the apocalypse, when Synods and diocese no longer exist, it is the people on the ground who will have power – if they have the courage – to be a community of faith.

This is not a letter championing the closure of churches. Indeed, that is not what happened in Cove Hithe. This is a letter championing brave decisions, imaginative and realistic thinking and local people making local decisions both for themselves and for generations to come.

Peace and prayers, Joe

Rev Joe Cant, Team Vicar UAP.