James in the City

The Church of St James in Liverpool’s Park Road is remarkable. Although a standard looking Georgian building from the 1770s built in a somewhat Norman style, it closed its doors in 1974, joining the long and ever-expanding list of redundant churches. Yet it re-opened. Not as a carpet showroom. Not as a community centre. Not as a mosque. It opened as a vibrant, Anglican congregation, renamed St James in the City. The building was in such a poor state that they had to erect a marquee inside the building to keep the congregants dry. By 2021, the restoration was complete. It has a good website, which details its varied ministry as well as its youthful and energetic staff workers, including two vicars, a curate and an associate pastor.

Isn’t it refreshing to find an old church reopened? There are many more closed, and closing, churches and chapels. Let us pray that the Lord re-opens them as faithful, gospel churches, so that their original mandates and purposes can be fulfilled. Congregations ought to be outgrowing their buildings, never the other way round.