Elissa Callahan and her family moved to Snake Valley, population 800, in western Victoria last year. Their new home overlooked the local Uniting church.
“Our back kitchen looks out on to the church spire,” Callahan says. “I’d always loved the building and the feeling around it but never felt like there was an opportunity to go inside.”
Six months ago, it felt like that opportunity had been lost for good. The synod instructed the church be fenced off to protect the community from the danger of falling masonry from a crack in the spire of the bluestone building. It was earmarked for closure due to safety concerns and inadequate funds, caused by a very small congregation.
Membership of the Carngham Uniting church was down to just 14 people. The synod had begun the administrative process of preparing the building for sale.
To Callahan and other locals, fencing off the church became a call to action. She attended a local meeting and has been involved ever since.
Since that meeting in May, the number of church members has grown to 73 people – almost a tenth of Snake Valley’s population.
The community rallied together to move the fencing closer to the spire and continues to organise events and celebrations. Volunteers keep the op-shop running and ensure the everyday maintenance and operations of the church. Plans for the upcoming Christmas carols are in full swing.
‘We feel a huge sense of betrayal’
The Uniting church functions as a series of councils – congregations, which are local; presbyteries, which are regional; synods, which is the state council; and a national assembly. The Carngham Uniting church council interim designate chair, Kaylene Baird, has been a congregant for more than 22 years. She says members have been taking responsibility for the maintenance of their church since it was first built in 1893.
“When we found exclusion fencing on the grounds we were totally shocked,” Baird says. “We had been doing due diligence and were aware there was a small crack in the spire but had a number of reports and were reassured the building itself was structurally safe.”
A Presbytery of Western Victoria document seen by Guardian Australia identified Carngham Uniting church as one of five churches set to close within 12 months due to existing safety concerns and/or inadequate funds.
The other buildings were in Neill Street, Ballarat which closed in February and is on the market for $2.95m, as well as at Ballan, Learmonth and Trentham.
Churches in Meredith, Blackwood and Skipton Street, Ballarat have also been identified as requiring action within five years.
“We are under no illusion that the synod wants to sell churches to support their other missionary work and to employ other chaplains, in particular in Ballarat,” Baird says. “But there’s a lot of sadness associated with what’s happening. For the members of our community the moral injustice and burden is just awful.”
Carngham is currently governed by an administrative body called the Beaufort cluster model, which Baird says leaves it vulnerable to closing at any time. Members are now fighting for congregational independence.
“We have complied with all aspects asked of us in terms of having our congregation recognised but have continuously had the boundaries changed without consultation,” she says.
“We feel a huge sense of betrayal. The trust is broken and the only way we can move forward is to resume congregational status and continue to work towards maintaining the building and church and providing a place for worship and community celebration.
“We are custodians of the church. We take our role to preserve the heritage of this building as our place of worship very seriously, and we feel very much obliged to retain it and care for it.”
‘Surplus to the mission’
In a statement, the Uniting church synod of Victoria and Tasmania said the Carngham church building had “several issues that are the responsibility of the users of the building to address, including buttresses that have in some instances moved away from the wall they are supporting and the obvious movement of the upper part of the steeple”. It added that the “funding, planning for and undertaking of these works now being considered by the community presently making use of the church”.
Synod moderator, the Rev David Fotheringham, says no decision had been made about the future of the building, and that “formal membership” of the dozens of people who either support or claim membership of the church has not yet been established. Attendance at the monthly Sunday worship is 25 to 30 people, he says.
“It is important to note that being recognised as an independent congregation requires, among other things, demonstrating the capacity to attend to the important maintenance issues of the building,” Fotheringham says.
“I certainly recognise the strong community work the congregation is involved in and am very much appreciative of that.”
Fotheringham says like many faith organisations, the Uniting church was facing issues around staffing, resources and finances in Victoria and Tasmania.
He says the outstanding works at Carngham would cost between $40,000 and $90,000, not including ongoing maintenance.
“Church buildings are bought, built or sold as appropriate to the current needs and abilities of the particular congregations and locations,” he says. “Sales may occur in places where congregations are shrinking and costs of maintaining older buildings to appropriate safe standards increase.”
Profits from the sale of property deemed “surplus to the mission” is reinvested in church activities, he says.
In 2016, there were about 11,400 churches in Australia, according to the National Church Life Survey, a decrease of about 1,200 since 1991. Just over half were located outside major cities. The cause of many of these closures, particularly in regional Australia, has been dwindling attendance.
While Baird says it makes sense to sell churches that are no longer fit for purpose, she does not believe this applies in Carngham’s case.
“We have a supportive, enthusiastic congregation and community,” she says.
“The ministers are the ones supposed to grow their flock, yet we are the ones growing our flock and providing a service to our community. We’re the ones embracing the social connections and looking after one another.”
For Callahan, the building has symbolised a connection to something greater, and has become an anchor point for the rest of the town.
“The community has been a congregation for the last 100 years,” she says.
“The other day as we were cleaning the building up for one of the services, making sure we were caring for it, it made me think of all the other generations in town that had done this. This site helps facilitate a spiritual connection to this community.”
