Kendal Closing

Regular readers will know that the good people of Salem Chapel have begun praying about starting a new work in Burnley, the larger, industrial town to our south. To this end, sixteen gathered at my home on Friday evening. Although churches already exist in that place, its Christian witness is smaller than one might expect for the size of its population. God willing, and after several months of prayer, we shall look into times and locations of a new church or proto-church. The work at Hetton is in its early days, and still requires much to do. We are learning lessons which we shall take forward to other places.

With this in mind, I was interested to read an article in the Westmorland Gazette headlined:

Kendal: Gateway Church closes after 'impacting lives' for seven years

The church’s own website is yet to share this sad news, and cheerfully implies business as usual, even giving a new venue for meeting. Gateway is, or was, part of the ever-expanding Free Methodist denomination (or ‘movement’ as it prefers to call itself) which wants to claim 100 churches by the 2030s. Whether Kendal’s closure will still count toward this target, it is too early to say. If the website speaks nothing of the planned closure, the Facebook page is more up to date, if still somewhat ebullient:

ANNOUNCEMENT:

After 7 years of serving the community of Kendal, Gateway Church will be closing. Since planting the church in 2018, we have seen hundreds impacted through community engagement, lives changed, people finding faith, baptisms celebrated, and so many incredible moments of God's provision.

Gateway was always about helping people find their way back to God — reaching those who didn’t yet know Him, rather than gathering those who already did.

In the last 18 months, many from our church family have moved away, and after prayerful discussions and exploring other options, the trustees have made the difficult decision to close Gateway Church.

We are so thankful for all that God has done and for the many lessons learned during this season of ministry.

‘Hundreds impacted’ and people ‘finding faith’: this sounds like a small revival to me, which makes its closure the more remarkable. If some regulars have moved away but the church was never primarily about existing believers, one wonders why the doors must close. Yet no-one closes a church carelessly, and there will be good reasons. ‘2018-2025’: seven years is not a bad innings, but then again, it is only short space in the wider scheme of things. Those who lead it, the trustees along with the pastor and his wife, must know that they are accountable to the God whose work we do. In the meantime, Kendal’s gateway is now locked.

Opening a new church is hard; keeping one going, is harder, and seeing it take off and thrive, harder still. It is like planting bedding flowers in hard, dry soil. Most die, some seem to survive, but even fewer bloom and reproduce. Would a Martin Top church plant in Burnley fare any better? After seven years (or less), would we be posting upbeat and triumphally worded announcements of closure? By the grace of God, no. Yet we are no wiser than they; our values little different to theirs. I even suspect that their music and overall style was more convivial to visitors and the 'unchurched' than ours are likely to be. We are too few in number, too poor in finance, too unskilled in personnel. It does not look promising...but we do have a great God who will supply all our needs, and that is more than enough. Little is much, if God is in it.

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Psalm 127, King James Version