The Village Church Survival Guide: Ten Ways for Your Church and Community to Flourish

by Gill Ambrose, Helen Bent, Nick Edmonds

This inspiring and practical handbook draws on the wisdom of a wide variety of practitioners in ten key areas that enable village churches to 1 Extending a warm welcome 2 Making the most of Life Events 3 Using buildings creatively 4 Caring for God's Acre 5 Being the heartbeat of the community 6 Celebrating our heritage 7 Cultivating fruitful festivals 8 Welcoming more children 9 Reaching the isolated and lonely 10 Communicating effectively Packed with practical advice and inspiring case studies, How Village Churches Thrive will encourage and increase confidence in all who work or worship in a village church. All the contributors are active in supporting the growth of rural churches through their roles in the Church of England or through organizations such as the Arthur Rank Centre, the Churches Conservation Trust, Caring for God’s Acre and Praxis.

128 pages, Paperback

Published June 10, 2022

Reviews

[Soozee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely informative, well presented and easy to follow guide for parish churches in villages and rural settings - it covers all the key questions hitting us at the moment, from how to encourage a younger congregation to how to make the best use of your churchyard and benefit your local community. A great tool for any PCC member, but also for anyone in a rural congregation to understand why initiatives are being tried.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

This helpful guide offers clear next steps for the village parish looking to engage more with its community. This is a very UK oriented book with only some parts that translate to the United States as our county seat churches are almost never centuries old nor the main church in their rural community. But, I found this straightforward idea book helpful at sparking thinking about the specifics of our context, and that is always helpful.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended by my vicar. The ideas are simple and relatively easy to implement - tho’ an internet hub would be more challenging for some church congregations! It is well laid out, nicely illustrated and there are a lot of suggestions as to further resources. I ended up buying my own copy, which I’ve marked up, in pencil!

[Priscilla Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

.great ideas for building communities

this is a really user friendly book full of creative ideas and advice. The case studies are helpful too and will give many village communities opportunities to look out for each other at this challenging time.