Sir, You misrepresent the financial difficulties facing the Church of England (report, June 8), which is not considering a cut of 3,000 clergy. In fact last year we recommended 566 new candidates to train for the ministry.

The Resourcing Mission Group document considers how, in today’s circumstances, the Church can use more effectively for mission all the resources at its disposal.

Certainly there are substantial challenges to be faced, but the excellent performance of the Church Commissioners in recent years and above-inflation increases in the amounts given by parishioners mean that resources have continued to grow.

The support from the Church Commissioners for ministry within dioceses in addition to what they spend on clergy pensions has been increasing steadily for the past seven years.

While the Church Commissioners spend over £160 million (around £100 million of that on pensions), it is important to remember that total church expenditure is some £900 million a year. Two thirds of this comes through the parishes.

PETER PRICE
(Chair, Resourcing Mission Group)
Wells, Somerset

From Mr Nigel Holmes

Sir, Your report appeared the morning after I attended a deanery meeting on this very issue.

The concerns are real. However, they would be greatly eased were the burden of maintaining a sizeable slice of the country’s architectural heritage not to fall on so few shoulders.

On the Continent it is clear that the cost for supporting historic churches is shared much more by government. Why is that will so lacking here?

NIGEL HOLMES
(Member, General Synod of the Church of England)
Great Corby, Carlisle

From Mr Malcolm Bowden

Sir, If it is true that the Church has “allowed itself to drift apart from society” and that some parts are “little more than a club for existing members”, surely the last thing it should be proposing is worship “in the living rooms of believers”. Nothing could be better designed to accelerate the trend and turn our national Church into little more than a sectarian rump totally invisible to the world at large.

The Church of England’s glory, spiritual, cultural and architectural, is its buildings; it is they that make the Church visible and we lose them at our peril. Reduce the number of bishops. Get rid of archdeacons and dismantle all the secularly-inspired managerial structures that clutter up the organisation, but for goodness sake keep the buildings and the humble parish priest.

Otherwise in a generation, or maybe less, we shall have no Church.

MALCOLM BOWDEN
Northwich, Cheshire

From the Reverend Gordon Freeman

Sir, When the programme of evangelism is successful, and the house churches have outgrown the houses, they will need churches. Then what do they do?

GORDON FREEMAN
Ardara, Co Donegal, Ireland

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