Church of St Thomas, Lancaster

St Thomas’ Church in Lancaster, affectionately known as St T's, was where the posher members of my school Christian Union tended to worship. It was known for its large and thriving congregations, its popular vicars who all seemed to publish books, and its excellent, central location, right within the city’s heart. Looking at its website’s ‘Our Team’ page, I was interested to see that I know three of the photographed faces, one of which belonged to my third-year Maths and GCSE Chemistry teacher. Miss Wilson, as she was then known, must have been blessed with excellent quantities of patience, which must currently serve her well as a curate of the Church of England.

St Thomas’ began in 1840 and had its steeple added in 1852. The curate of the town’s main parish, St Mary’s (known as the Priory from the inter-war years), was unhappy with the Vicar of Lancaster’s sympathy for the emerging Anglo-Catholicism, known as the Oxford Movement, and successfully sought the creation of a new, evangelical parish church in the growing town. Designed by the ubiquitous local architect Edmund Sharpe, it was built to house a thousand folk, such was the confidence of the Victorian evangelical.

My grandmother recalled attending in the 1950s, but considered it rather cold and unwelcoming. This seems to have been a tough time for the church, with much of the parish being cleared of its slum housing, which had likely furnished it with many parishioners. In the 1970s, its congregation was affected by the so-called charismatic renewal, as its own website reports:

…Many of its members were touched and filled by the Holy Spirit. New spiritual gifts were exercised alongside new ministries and worship styles, as well as a re-energised commitment to mission and evangelism.

Charismatic Anglicans will have decisions to make in the years and months to come as their wider denominational leadership slides further into apostasy regarding marriage and sexual ethics. This church was founded as a response to theological error, and the leaders of St Thomas’ people of the 2020s will likely have similar, tough choices of their own to make. The real test of charismatic renewal is whether it causes one to obey the Holy Spirit's words recorded in scripture. Time shall tell.