THE local church I attend is threatened with closure. The property is in good order, the bank balance in credit, and there are no plans to build a ring road through its car park. But the congregation has simply shrunk to the extent that there are not enough people to do the work to keep it open or to fill the front rows at Sunday worship.

I have been trying to work out why this should bother me so much, why the prospect of closure should feel so like an impending bereavement. It is hardly the first church to find itself in this position.

To be sure, the future of chur-ches in Britain is not as bleak in reality as is popularly thought. In some parts of the country, such as London, church attendance has risen in recent years. A proportion of Britain’s local churches, some 20 per cent, are growing. But a larger number are living off their fat, and there are always some, like my local congregation, that struggle to survive.

If the Church were a business, we would close the “loss-making” outlets and concentrate on our successful out-of-town centres. But there is more at stake in decisions about church closure than efficient strategy. Half the members of my local church have worshipped there since childhood. Some belong to families who have worshipped there for several generations.

And though I am new, it reminds me of the chapel I grew up in. Is there a danger that this sense of local tradition and of gratitude for the faith of our parents might be blurring our vision of the future? Is there any more to it than sentimental nostalgia, like a fondness for home baking or a yen for the music of our teenage years? Looking at it rationally, closing my local church would not deprive its members of the opportunity to worship God. There are three thriving churches within half a mile.

And if like me, other members feel committed to living their Christian calling in the context of their particular church tradition there is a healthy Methodist church within a mile. Closing the church would release valuable resources that could be redeployed elsewhere.

Some have made just this case, arguing that “the mission of God in this place is now complete — it is time to shake the dust from our feet and move on”. I take the point, but I also wonder if there may not be some element in this argument of unwillingness to accept failure, a very British attempt to dress up a Dunkirk retreat as a plucky victory?

My church is situated in a densely populated area short on public buildings; it should be capable of sustaining the kind of community church its building is perfect for. Even if closure in these circumstances is the sensible thing to do, it will be difficult to see it as a shining gospel success.

I take seriously the sense of obligation to those whose energies and faith have been bound up in this local church. But a dead church cannot be allowed to hold the living Church to ransom. When I think it through I find that if we are to give my local church one last chance it must not be as a way to keep its past alive, but because of the fragile possibility that it might have a future as a community of faith and as a centre of service to its local community.

There is nothing inevitable about either church decline or church closures; there is too much evidence to the contrary. Yet we cannot keep any church going merely to honour a debt to our parents, it must be to honour our obligation to maintain the Church’s life of worship and service so that our children may grow in grace and in the knowledge of the love of God.

The Rev Dr Stephen Plant, a Methodist minister, is senior tutor at Wesley House, Cambridge