August 16, 2019--Have More Fun In Church

In England, church affiliation and attendance are plummeting.

Membership in recent years has declined by more than 50 percent. Down to 14 percent in 2018 from 31 percent 16 years earlier. And obviously related, attendance at Anglican churches in Britain fell by 15 percent from 2007 to 2017.

So, they have problem. What to do?

Some years ago my ex-wife and I spent two months driving around the English countryside in an attempt to visit as many cathedral towns as possible. There are about 50 of them and we managed to get to more than half, from Salisbury to York to Canterbury to our favorite, the Norman-style one in Durham.

If the diversity of the settings and the Romanesque and Gothic architecture that reaches back in the earliest ones to the 11th century doesn't attract worshipful crowds is the situation hopeless? 

Desperate, in an increasing number of cathedral cities they are trying a new tack--fun and games. In the churches themselves. 

As reported in the New York Times, inside the Norwich Cathedral they have installed a 55-foot-tall waterless slide, known as the helter skelter (no relation to the Beatles or Charles Manson) that wraps itself around the 12th century stone columns. It allows those who risk it to, in the words of the church's canon, "engage with our cathedral." There is also a two pound charge to climb to the top and slide to the bottom.

Canon Bryant says that by "sharing" their cathedral this way "lots of new people are having conversations about faith."

At Rochester Cathedral this summer one can play a round of miniature golf in the church's medieval nave. The nine-hole course has a bridge theme, which church leaders say was intended to spark conversations about "spiritual bridge-building."

From the Time's report it is not clear how much they are charging in green's fees.

Rochester Cathedral