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Listed Buildings Advisory Committee
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The Committee
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The Synod’s Listed Buildings Advisory Committee advises both the Synod and the churches on matters relating to historic church buildings.
Historic church buildings provide particular opportunities for mission. To read more about them and see sources of information, help and support, please click here
If the building is listed, additional responsibilities fall on the church, particularly the Elders. For more information click here
Click here for a list of useful links and other contact information here
Click here to download information about the Listed Buildings Advisory Committee, the Committee’s latest report to Synod and other news
Contact us
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From Heritage to Mission
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Yorkshire Synod’s second historic buildings conference
‘It has come at just the right time for us’
‘Congratulations on yesterday! A very worthwhile event’
‘It was brilliant’
The three comments were made about the Synod’s conference at Silcoates School on 22 November, focusing on the church building as a community resource, which attracted participants not only from the Yorkshire Synod but from other synods - as far away as Wales - and national organisations, such as the National Churches Trust and the Historic Chapels Trust.
Partnership and toe-hold: United Reformed Church minister Andrew Mawson (Lord Mawson of Bromley by Bow) demonstrated the importance of partnership with the community in seeking to provide ministry to it. Thus the twelve elderly members of the church he joined in 1984 have been succeeded by today’s 35 members, and they provide ministry to thousands through a multi-million pound operation, with an employed staff of a hundred, based on the original 200-seat church,
It was recognising the value of retaining a toe-hold in a community from which ministry can develop that encouraged the United Reformed Church’s ‘Catch the Vision’ team to commission Andrew Mawson with Peter Southcombe to explore opportunities for the redevelopment of buildings to enhance the mission of the United Reformed Church. This resulted in ‘One church 100 uses’, the concept now being realised by the Church’s national agency for the creative transformation of churches. ‘Why sell the family silver?’ says Andrew Mawson, ‘when by careful and sensitive development it can be made to generate funding, enable the United Reformed Church to maintain a presence in a community from which mission can grow, while still retaining it as a capital asset.’
Offers of help: Diana Evans, Head of Places of Worship Policy at English Heritage, personifying the organisation’s positive approach to the churches, displayed a keen appreciation of the challenges facing property stewards as they seek to keep church buildings fit for purpose. She described a number of different programmes through which English Heritage is offering assistance to (mainly listed) churches, and made it clear that the starting point was always the wish to see churches maintained in their primary use wherever possible.
St James’s Warter: Where the churches give up, the community can take a hand. Faced with the demolition of the village church at Warter, near Pocklington, members of the community formed a trust, bought the church and graveyard for £1, raised £600,000 for repairs and turned it into a heritage and arts centre, with a buoyant programme and growing list of users. Rose Horspool is the Trust’s chair and former development officer, and through her case study gave many insights into what can be achieved with energy and commitment, and the costs and rewards of achieving it.
Feedback has been positive, particularly from those from other synods, who think that the Yorkshire Synod is very go-ahead, remarking that it must be an exciting place to be.
Let two participants have the last word:
‘I got everything I wanted from today: information, contacts, addresses.’
‘I came wondering what I was coming to; I am going really fired up!’
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