Use your building for mission

Your building is just one part of a wider picture of who you are as a church, the passions and gifts God has given you, and the shape of your community and its needs. Your mission plan will have identified your priorities as a church – the things on which you believe God is calling you to focus right now. Once you understand your priorities, it will be much easier to consider how your building helps or hinders you.

If you don’t yet have a mission plan for your church, or it was written some time ago and needs to be reviewed, then start by getting an up-to-date plan in place. The Mission Planning Toolkit has resources to take you through the process of discerning and writing a mission plan. You can also use the questions below to help. Mission plans are a critical element of community outreach and service and should be adopted and implemented across the Connexion. These plans should make clear how the sensible use of property will support and facilitate mission and ministry.

As well as considering your church’s mission plan, consider your circuit and district plans. Your church is part of a bigger picture of God’s mission in your part of the country. Your circuit and district are there to support and equip you - find out what priorities they have discerned. The Strategic Guidance for the use of Property in Mission can help guide your thoughts. District Mission Enablers can also offer further support in creating mission plans.

Property development plans (led by Circuits and Districts) are a subset of mission plans and should include all existing Methodist property (churches, manses, ancillary investment properties) and demonstrate how each property will contribute to delivering agreed mission plans. The Sample Circuit Mission Plan 1, Sample Circuit Mission Plan 2 and our Mission Planning Workbook may help you.

Consider the role our older, traditional buildings can play in your mission. Historic places of worship are important to our place making, a focus for identity and give a sense of place and well-being. They are visible symbols of our living Christian faith and depositories for memories, shared experiences, human endeavour and of our local stories. We should actively encourage effective use of our listed buildings and build on the current work to advocate for, conserve and modify them for continued and sustainable worship and community use. Careful consideration should be given to preventative and cyclical maintenance as well as conservation management planning to:

• Identify future and current constraints
• Assess significance at a local and national scale by completing a Statement of Significance or, for our high graded buildings, a Conservation Management Plan. (This should inform the scope for change and mitigate against any harm to the building’s significance as well as inform the church on the best way to implement their Mission Plan in a historic church)
• Develop proposals for sustainable change; particularly for our higher-graded chapels and churches and those with complex and complete historic interiors
• Investigate new ways to put your church at the heart of the local community, and identify the perceived and actual barriers to using your building
• Reflect on whether you can use your building’s historic value as a tool for mission, for example by engaging with schools, faith tourism, pilgrimage and heritage trails, or the annual Heritage Open Days event
• Consider whether the adoption of insightful, inspiring and practical training and resources in digital skills could help encourage engagement with our mission and your building
• Develop a plan to sensitively adapt older buildings to meet the demands of climate change
• Develop sensitive and sympathetic proposals to make historic buildings accessible, inclusive and welcoming to all
• Adopt an effective maintenance plan for your building, ensuring the production of useful and accurate Quinquennial Inspections reports and the adoption of an annual maintenance plan.

We hope that a ‘Taking Stock’ exercise (a national survey of our listed buildings) can inform and provide a useful tool for Districts and Circuits as they oversee alterations or refurbishments of their listed buildings.

Further Guidance about Listed Buildings is available, as well as inspirational case studies about churches that have been regenerated:

• The Wesley Church Centre, Chester
• Pentre Llifior Methodist Chapel [Leslie this hyperlink was broken, could you enter one if there’s one that’s relevant about its regeneration?]
• The Wesley Centre, Malton
• Victoria Methodist Church, Bristol
• The New Room, Bristol
• Four Oaks Methodist Church

The Methodist Church will continue to embrace partnership working, in recognition that there will be times when Our Calling will be advanced by working in collaboration with others. Partnerships are not to be entered into lightly. True partnerships can be time consuming and unless there is an early agreement on common purpose, they can be fraught with difficulties that can endanger any or all of the partners.
Therefore, the Connexional Team will support Circuits and Districts to explore which potential partners are most likely to share objectives with Our Calling. Partners may have Methodist roots, but this is not essential. They could be ecumenical partners, third sector bodies focusing on community engagement, Christian charities focusing on helping the Church to engage with society and specialist charities such as Methodist Homes (MHA). The types of projects may include, but are not limited to:

• partnering in redevelopment for social purposes
• imaginative experiment and ecumenical co-operation
• sharing a building for other social mission
• sharing a building for worship
• partnering in redevelopment for commercial purposes

There may be like-minded groups locally who would love to partner with you. Consider whether there are other churches who might be interested in sharing the use and upkeep of your building with you. Perhaps they don't have a building, or their building is in a less suitable location than yours. Discuss their dreams and visions and see how they might chime with yours. Pooling resources and committed people might make it possible to use your building for mission in ways you couldn't manage with just your current congregation.
Or perhaps there are local charities or community groups who need a space from which to operate, and who share some of your values and aspirations for your community. If they could provide some of the community networks and expertise it could really make a difference. Rather than simply hiring out space for them to use, consider how you might work together.
• How could your church take an interest in and support their work?
• How could their work enrich the life of your church?

There could be local businesses or social enterprises who would be interested in working with you for your mutual benefit. For example, churches have formed partnerships with building companies and housing associations who are looking for sites on which to build. It may be that there is a business or organisation whose 'mission' fits well with yours, even if they do not profess overtly Christian values.
There may be a local entrepreneur who would love to open a café on your premises, giving you the connections with your community and sparing you the difficulty of running a business. The Plunkett Foundation campaigns for the placing of community business in rural places of worship - consider asking them for advice.

Discussions should be held with such potential partners so that a broad framework for co-operative working can be agreed. This could then be used by Districts, Circuits and local Churches in a proactive way, remembering that good ideas may come from our partners rather than us. The key to enabling the best partnership opportunities will be the strength of mission and property plans which will guide the location, type and size of property required to fulfil Our Calling. Probity in procurement is important. In all cases, proper procurement rules should be applied.

Even if the building is not currently meeting your needs, it may be that it is in a prime location to reach a particular group of people with God’s love. You could consider the following questions:
• Is your church building on a main road, for example, with lots of footfall, or in a densely populated area?
• Is your building in an area of outstanding natural beauty, popular with walkers?
• Is there any new housing near your building?
• Does your building represent the only Christian presence in your area?
• Is your building the only community space available in your area?
• Does this church building have heritage significance? (see tab below)

If your building is not in a strategically significant location, consider whether there are other locations that would better serve God's mission.
• Are there other buildings you could use that are more central, or perhaps near an area of new housing or an estate with no other Christian presence?
• Could you hire a space, perhaps, or even consider selling your building and buying another in a better location?
It is also worth considering the local authority development plans as set out in strategic planning policy and the neighbourhood development plans. The National Planning Policy Framework may help you.

Property development plans should also include locations where a new Methodist property would be advantageous, or where partnerships with another Christian community should be explored. Work should be undertaken to ensure that decisions about property are taken in the context of the whole Circuits and Districts, reflecting where Circuits wish to prioritise Methodist presence and resources to achieve their mission plans.

This work should be integrated with the God for All strategy, which identifies matched-funded financial resources to help districts and circuits start New Places for New People (NPNP) and Churches at the Margins projects. The Methodist Council may appoint a new town or new area commission where an expansion scheme to house a population of 20,000 or more is planned by a local authority. The Methodist mindset should be to provide facilities for communities rather than a worship building for ourselves.

At the heart of our vision is to plant new Christian communities that reflect the world in all its beauty and wonder. It may be that you would like to fulfil the vision of discovering a New Place for New People God is leading you to begin. It may be that there are people in your congregation who have the energy and vision to start something new using your building.

Or maybe there are others in the circuit or wider Methodist Connexion who have the energy and the vision, and who are looking for a building to use as a base. A NPNP project may be particularly appropriate if your building is in a strategic location near a group of people who are not currently being reached by existing churches. Find out about the next NPNP Hub gathering to explore possibilities with other churches who are asking the same questions.

If you would like to consider a NPNP, it might feel daunting, but don’t worry, you are not on your own. There is plenty of help to get started, drawing on the experiences of pioneers, planters, circuits, and leaders who have been where you are right now.

Beginning a New Place for New People will be different for every context, but there are some common practices that will give your project the best opportunity to become fruitful. Read through the How to start a New Place for New People Guide for more information .

If your building offers the only community space that's available locally, or if it is in a prime location, consider how it might become a community hub. As well as cafés, church buildings have housed post offices, preschools, a GP surgery, arts centres, charity shops, even soft play centres - there are many, many possibilities for offering services and spaces that local people need. Consider the rich relationships you might develop with your community by serving it in this way. 

All our buildings are potentially ‘heritage’ assets for mission: historic, listed or not, to brand new, they have been built or acquired to respond to our calling, and to do so within the Methodist tradition, so that the Methodist story of faith can be told, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ be proclaimed. New buildings and more recent worshipping communities may have old roots, which go back several hundred years and in some cases stretch out across the globe. The deep heritage of Methodist witness needs to be identified during the mission planning process or during a property review, as a valuable opportunity to explore rootedness, authenticity and purpose.

Stories, as we know from the Bible, are powerful, and our churches can be effective in keeping stories alive and creating attractive and safe spaces that inspire deep, authentic and powerful faith sharing. This can be true even when it is part of a process to let go of a building. The Heritage Committee works with the PDC to encourage the active engagement of districts, circuits or local churches with such stories and explores the mission opportunities they offer, maximising their potential to widen the church’s community and draw people into encounters with God.

We should aim to enable effective use of listed buildings, taking account of current policies in respect of planning legislation as well as the need to make bold decisions about the application of finite resources. This should build on the current work to advocate for, conserve and modify our Historic Places of Worship, for continued and sustainable worship and community use. Careful consideration should be given to maintenance and conservation management planning to:

• identify future and current constraints
• assess significance at a local and national scale
• develop proposals for change, particularly for our higher-graded chapels and churches and those with complex and complete historic interiors

It is hoped that a ‘Taking Stock’ exercise (a national survey of our listed buildings) can inform and provide a useful tool for Districts and Circuits as they oversee or think about alterations or refurbishment of their listed buildings.

Churches in rural areas should consider a variety of options in developing their mission plans. Rural churches often have a highly distinctive character, so it can be helpful for them to engage where possible in strategic partnerships with neighbouring churches, circuits, local housing associations, ecumenical contacts and local authorities to develop missional opportunities. This may involve extra support from Districts and the Connexion. It may also help to contact the National Rural Officer of the Methodist Church and the Arthur Rank Centre, who are well equipped in supporting rural Churches to explore their mission and purpose.

In all matters relating to property, serious consideration should be given to the Church’s commitment to addressing a zero-carbon agenda in the context of climate change, as expressed in the Conference Statement, Hope in God’s Future. The 2010 Conference directive stated that Circuits should endeavour to use model trust money to put in place high standards of energy efficiency and provide smart meter devices in manses.

All developments should as far as possible be funded by ethical investors with the principles of the Joint Advisory Committee on the Ethics of Investment being applied to funding packages wherever possible. You could also research Carbon Reducing Opportunities and examples of good practice

At times, selling will be the best option to further our mission. This is not a failure but a recognition that the world evolves, and we need to respond in new ways for the time we are in. Our priority will always be to make the best use of our property.

When all other opportunities to use our buildings for mission have been explored and exhausted, the redundancy of one of our buildings should be embraced as the closure of a chapter of a Methodist story faithfully told. We will ensure the memory of that story is preserved and that the next chapter is commenced in ways that remain faithful to the story so far, and to the Gospel.

Sales will often occur when a Church society ceases to meet. If a property is no longer required for its original purpose, given the details of the Circuit and District Mission and Property Development Plans, it may well be conceivable that the property could be redeveloped (possibly in partnership with others) for an alternative local community use. Equally, Circuits and Districts should endeavour to formulate their Mission and Property Development Plans to identify areas where fresh mission and community outreach are possibilities and it could well be that the sale of a redundant property could help fund such developments. There are some key questions to be considered when a property is to be sold.

When disposing of the property or working in partnership, we will be mindful of charity law, the model trusts and the objectives of the Methodist Church in Great Britain. Within those criteria, priority will be given to final uses that enable or are consistent with our mission. Purposes may include worship by others, social buildings such as affordable housing, social mission or pioneering expressions of church.

While the primary aim of any sale will normally be to secure market value, under-value sales may be allowed in accordance with the requirements of the Methodist Council, normally with covenants securing additional value achieved in any future sales.

The proceeds from sales will be distributed in accordance with the policies for the time for the Methodist Church in Great Britain, with priority given to the following objectives:

• investment in sustainable programmes and projects that achieve our mission goals
• reinvestment in capital assets that support mission
• investment to provide sustainable income streams for missional work
• paying off existing debt

Professional property advice will enable all Trustees to maximise the value of a site, for missional and/or financial purposes. This may involve gaining planning permission prior to sale and agreeing overages and restrictive covenants. External professional advice should therefore be sought prior to all decisions to sell Methodist property.