Ship of Fools: All Saints, Teversham, Cambridgeshire, England

The Mystery Worshipper

Ship of Fools: All Saints, Teversham, Cambridgeshire, England

A warm welcome, and the eucharist celebrated with deep faith, on a very cold Sunday morning

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here

angloid

3000 is a sizeable population for a rural village. Many 'towns' are smaller than that. It is sad that only twelve people out of that number managed to show up. I hope they can keep going.

Bishops Finger

It does seem a bit thin. Perhaps the cold weather was off-putting for what may be a largely elderly congregation?

Our Place's parish has a population of 6000, and our average Sunday crowd (post-pandemic) is 25 - so about double that of Teversham - but there are many other churches in the area. Most of them are not exactly packed to the rafters, though.

ExclamationMark

Teversham isn't a village any more but part of Cambridge. Unfortunately there are plenty of church choices with active congregations a couple of miles away. Around Cambridge, village churches were always considered (snootily by the University in particular) as being very poor relations to the "real" stuff happening in the City.

Bishops Finger

Thanks @ExclamationMark - that chimes in with what I supposed might be happening, and which is also typical of more urban areas.

Full marks, therefore, to Teversham's rector for *doing* the service so well.

angloid

Yes I didn't mean to disparage what they are doing, in particular the rector whose prayerful approach is what is missing from so many acts of worship these days. I hadn't grasped how it isn't really a 'village' any more: the photo of the church was misleading.

Bishops Finger

The website contains the information that the rector lives on a new estate - presumably one which has *linked* the village with Cambridge.

They provide a variety of different styles of worship, although I guess their resources (humanly speaking) are limited.

ExclamationMark

Bishops Finger wrote: »

Thanks @ExclamationMark - that chimes in with what I supposed might be happening, and which is also typical of more urban areas.

Full marks, therefore, to Teversham's rector for *doing* the service so well.

A good friend from school lived in Teversham - it was the 1970s and the village was being swallowed up by Cambridge even then

Alan29

I wonder what the rationale is behind keeping such churches open.
Maybe that is a thread for a different section.

Bishops Finger

Alan29 wrote: »

I wonder what the rationale is behind keeping such churches open.
Maybe that is a thread for a different section.

Yes, it probably is - suffice to say that the legal problems involved in the closure of a C of E church are manifold...

Pomona

Alan29 wrote: »

I wonder what the rationale is behind keeping such churches open.
Maybe that is a thread for a different section.

It's legally very difficult to close Anglican churches in England.

Bishops Finger

Yes, and I have had some (peripheral) experience of this IRL, when TPTB tried to close down one of Our Place's neighbouring churches.

As far as Teversham is concerned, they (and the other churches in the group - two more AIUI) are trying hard to maintain a witness in their obviously very challenging area. Hopefully, their finances are OK - it's when the £££ begin to fall away that TPTB sit up and take notice...

ExclamationMark

The Teversham side of Cambridge was once the poor end of town not far from the artic wastes of Coldhams Common where if the wind was in the East, it blew through not round you. Like pretty much all of Cambridge and the surrounding villages it has now become gentrified and house prices are far out of reach of those with even average national wages.

In 1982, when working for a building society I sold an abandoned house in Warren Street (3 bed Victorian Terrace) for £12,500. They now make upwards of £400,000.

Large churches in central Cambridge operate as spiritual hoovers. It's also true that the "locals" who were the backbone of village churches are dying out and no-one wants to take on the jobs anymore even if they attend.

Then, there's the impact of the Diocese who used to post their more "unusual" clergy into the villages. Even in the recent past there were Vicars around Cambridge who rode to hounds (wearing hunting clothes under clericals) or who were both Vicar, Landlord and Landowner of a village). There were also a few of the Sea of Faith School of thought who no one knew quite what they believed. The past has impacted CofE churchgoing very strongly as working people were not welcomed by clergy who were focusing on the rich farmers and landowners. Our local Vicar wouldn't even come to my Grandmother when she was dying.

Even the once strong congregationalism has dwindled as to be almost non existent. No working person I knew ever had a good word for the "parson" but the chapel ministers were well spoken of as many had once been working men too (one I knew was a market gardener). Changing to URC was the beginning of their decline.

Bishops Finger

Not an easy situation, by any means. I wonder, however, if the fact that the rector lives on one of the neighbouring new estates is a possible indication that the Diocese hasn't given up yet, but wishes to establish a presence in that area.

It may not be so - FatherInCharge doesn't live in Our Place's huge vicarage, next to the church, but in a small, modern house (bought by the Diocese to house him) some 10 minutes' walk away. As he doesn't own a car, he is a familiar figure walking the streets of the parish (there are several alternative routes between house and church!).

ISTM that most churches, of whatever denomination, are finding it hard to encourage people to do the various duties required to keep the place going. We need two new churchwardens, but they have not yet appeared...

Thank you @ExclamationMark for providing such useful information to back up an excellent MW Report.

ExclamationMark

Bishops Finger wrote: »

Not an easy situation, by any means. I wonder, however, if the fact that the rector lives on one of the neighbouring new estates is a possible indication that the Diocese hasn't given up yet, but wishes to establish a presence in that area.

It's more likely given experience in other Cambs villages - although I don;t know for sure here - that the Diocese sold 3 large houses and bought one estate house, pocketing the proceeds.

I expect the house is in one of the more nicer estates and not on Barnwell Road.

Bishops Finger

Well, I can't comment on that. Suffice to say that in Our Place's case, the decision was made to rent out the Vicarage (to a large family - the house has 5 double bedrooms!), and to buy a smaller, modern house which suits our singleton FatherInCharge, but could also suit a married couple (with no children still in the nest!).

We (the PCC) thought this was a positive move forward, ensuring that any new priest-in-charge would have somewhere in the parish in which to live. Should we become part of a united benefice, or team ministry, the house would be available for a priest, or other minister, or could even be rented out.

I guess we're getting a bit off-topic here, but (you will know the geography better than I) it may be that the rector is at least centrally-placed within his area of ministry - three churches, I think, as well as the estate(s).

ExclamationMark

Bishops Finger wrote: »

Well, I can't comment on that. Suffice to say that in Our Place's case, the decision was made to rent out the Vicarage (to a large family - the house has 5 double bedrooms!), and to buy a smaller, modern house which suits our singleton FatherInCharge, but could also suit a married couple (with no children still in the nest!).

We (the PCC) thought this was a positive move forward, ensuring that any new priest-in-charge would have somewhere in the parish in which to live. Should we become part of a united benefice, or team ministry, the house would be available for a priest, or other minister, or could even be rented out.

I guess we're getting a bit off-topic here, but (you will know the geography better than I) it may be that the rector is at least centrally-placed within his area of ministry - three churches, I think, as well as the estate(s).

Thanks! I haven't been to that area for many a long year. Mrs M's very elderly and frail parents live 4 miles away but the other side of the city. IIRC the housing estates are at one end of the group of parishes with Fen Ditton being pretty much on the river. Rowed round Ditton corner a few times and bumped in the gut (technical rowing speak).

Amos

The new Rector has moved out from St Andrew's Chesterton (warm, thriving etc etc) to this much tougher benefice. I'm glad to hear he's doing so well in holiness if not yet in numbers. He's a very good egg. The FIEC congregation that meets next door in the school must be a particular thorn in his side.

Bishops Finger

MW Reports are meant to be a simple snapshot of a one-off occasion or service, and it sometimes happens that the MWer turns up on a Bad or atypical Day!

It would be interesting to read another Report in (say) a year's time, to see how the new Rector and his tough benefice are getting on...

Gee D

FIEC - French and Indonesian Episcopal Church?

Nick Tamen

After some googling, I’m assuming Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. But I do wish shipmates would remember that many of these acronyms are not universally familiar.

Gee D

Thanks for your comment. Not sure about the acronym though, as a quick google says that that Fellowship is a grouping of independent churches. Perhaps I should have said Flemish and Indonesian, rather than French, given the colonisation of Indonesia by the Netherlands - do you remember the old maps talking of the Dutch East Indies?

ExclamationMark

Amos wrote: »

The new Rector has moved out from St Andrew's Chesterton (warm, thriving etc etc) to this much tougher benefice. I'm glad to hear he's doing so well in holiness if not yet in numbers. He's a very good egg. The FIEC congregation that meets next door in the school must be a particular thorn in his side.

Why would they be a thorn in his side? I agree that they would be very different from him based on the report (and if Chesterton is still like it once was - rather aloof) and from what I know of FIEC churches.

Bishops Finger

Nick Tamen wrote: »

After some googling, I’m assuming Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. But I do wish shipmates would remember that many of these acronyms are not universally familiar.

I think that's right.

As @ExclamationMark implies, the FIEC place next door is likely to have a different ethos, and to appeal to different people, than a C of E place which is apparently of the Middle-Of-The-Road variety - not that there's anything wrong in that! Horses for courses...

ExclamationMark

Bishops Finger wrote: »

Nick Tamen wrote: »

After some googling, I’m assuming Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. But I do wish shipmates would remember that many of these acronyms are not universally familiar.

I think that's right.

As @ExclamationMark implies, the FIEC place next door is likely to have a different ethos, and to appeal to different people, than a C of E place which is apparently of the Middle-Of-The-Road variety - not that there's anything wrong in that! Horses for courses...

Yes I agree. It still means that there's a big gulf in church aimed at the Cambridge middle classes and provision for the urban poor. The last attempt at the latter by the CofE ended in dismal failure as they didn't resource it like they resource church in the nicer areas. It's the same attitude in my old neck of the woods where a church plant was aimed as families and young people - throwing masses of resources at it while deprived areas with struggliong churches got zilch. Nothing.

Pomona

I believe @Heavenlyannie has personally experience of such things in this area. I am however myself acutely aware of the big gaps in provision that often happen when places are considered posh and therefore not needing any support - the rural poor get even less than the urban poor here unfortunately.

Heavenlyannie

We live on a council estate in what was once the south Cambridgeshire village of Trumpington but is now a suburb of Cambridge. But we no longer attend the parish church since the infamous church split 19 years ago that made headline news.
My New Frontiers church does a lot of community activity in the local estates (we are based in a warehouse in an industrial part of town off Newmarket Road), some of this is jointly with the other local churches, and we are very welcoming to those with disadvantaged background, including those with mental health challenges or alcoholism, some of who have had negative experiences elsewhere (I have bipolar disorder myself so I am all too aware of how manifests itself). We are an international church and host a small local Eastern European charismatic church. Yet we are still majority middle class.

Nenya

This is kind of drifting away from the subject of the report. Just saying.

Nenya - Mystery Worshipper Host

ExclamationMark

Heavenlyannie wrote: »

We live on a council estate in what was once the south Cambridgeshire village of Trumpington but is now a suburb of Cambridge. But we no longer attend the parish church since the infamous church split 19 years ago that made headline news.
My New Frontiers church does a lot of community activity in the local estates (we are based in a warehouse in an industrial part of town off Newmarket Road), some of this is jointly with the other local churches, and we are very welcoming to those with disadvantaged background, including those with mental health challenges or alcoholism, some of who have had negative experiences elsewhere (I have bipolar disorder myself so I am all too aware of how manifests itself). We are an international church and host a small local Eastern European charismatic church. Yet we are still majority middle class.

Newmarket Road is rather different from the days when a relative of mine when to prison for performing illegal abortions in the area,

Nenya

Dons Hostly Mitre

So my hostly hint above wasn't clear enough. Please keep this thread to the subject of the Mystery Worshipper report and take discussions about other churches, practices and areas to other threads in other places.

Nenya - Mystery Worshipper Host

Doffs Hostly Mitre