West Kirby Church

The village of West Kirby on the Wirral is a Norse settlement (“Kirkjubyr”) meaning 'village with a church’. It is hard to imagine today a village without a church or chapel. On the other hand, so many of them have closed in our ‘post-Christian’ times, and the ones which remain open are so spiritually anaemic, that even churchless towns are no longer hard to image. St Bridget’s website proclaims itself as

‘…an Inclusive Church, a Fair Trade Parish and an Eco-Congregation’

-so readers can judge for themselves this partucular church's level of vitality.

I was grateful that its doors were left open (quite literally: a most pleasant breeze blew through the one and out of the other) and the inside was not uninteresting. Though much of it was rebuilt, traces of the older building remained, notably the tower. A hogback grave marker rested in one of the sides, doubtless attempting to keep alive the memory of a great one, long gone, and long forgotten. Yet the church’s most helpful feature I found to be a nineteenth or early twentieth centre carving on the south porch.

Beneath an image of Jesus, which I would normally disdain, were the words:

I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE

Sometimes, buildings are a distraction from the gospel and the church’s real mission; other times, they are its clearest testimony.