Safeguarding courses for flower arrangers? The Church of England is heading for oblivion

Yahoo

28-03-2025

It's a church that dates back to the 12th century. St Andrews, handsomely cast in limestone and rebuilt in the 14th century, stands proud in the village of Pickworth in Lincolnshire. And it's like so many churches across the country; centres of the community, which, for centuries, have gathered folk to rejoice, mourn, pray and sing among the wooden pew seats.
At least, that was until recent decades when the presiding Church of England set itself on a path to empty its churches rather than fill them.
In its bid to modernise, to become relevant, most churches have dispensed with those nice old prayer books, bound in black, that you often find on shelves by a church's entrance. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer which, along with Latin, has influenced and merrily tortured generations of children, can now mostly be found gathering dust in secondhand bookshops. And in its place are bits of paper, hastily printed, distributed and invariably blown by a gust of wind when the big door opens, fluttering like a wandering angel over the altar.
Then there are the nice old vicars, now kicked out at the age of 70 (which was the new 60 when I last looked), who – with no leader in the midst – see further dwindling of congregations.
And there's the enforced secular informality, which to me removes the charming mystery of religion, its poetry and its charming obscurity. When the machinations of church are made as obvious as the rules of a Saturday night TV gameshow, it becomes less, rather than more, appealing. For isn't the very challenge of church stimulating, my view being that to earn your pre-Sunday lunch sherry, you need to sit through a sermon. Which is especially the case on Christmas Day; no pressies in our house 'til you've done church.
And now, I hear – from the charming village of Pickworth – there's a more dreaded axe falling on parishioners.
'I was approached about becoming a church warden for my church,' a local tells me, 'something I thought might be worth doing for my community.'
Church wardens help to organise services, care for the buildings, support the priest and are often the first faces you see on entering a church, welcoming one in, handing out those bits of paper. There's a shortage across the country of such volunteers and without them a church literally cannot function. Without them a church might have to close.
But, my correspondent tells me, 'having expressed strong interest I was privately told, 'It's not worth getting involved.''
And why? You might ask. Safeguarding, of course, specifically the courses all volunteers are now expected, nay must, attend, online or otherwise.
'I was immediately put off,' the villager tells me. 'One course I was told I needed to take catered for safeguarding in care homes, which I couldn't fathom as being either relevant or appropriate for a church warden role.'
He then added what seemed a final hammer blow: 'It seems flower arrangers have to do it too.' And, indeed, Church of England policy is now that all such volunteers must undergo safeguarding training. For which there is, of course, an online learning portal.
So, not so fast Grandma, with your secateurs and cuttings, your vases and your Oasis floral foams. Before you tackle the old front door with its dodgy, clanking bolts, you need to get yourself in front of a computer, then wail that familiar cry for help as you look about you for that username and password.
The Church of England's National Safeguarding Team tells those steeling themselves for the course that: 'The resources and training you can access here will equip you and your church to engage positively with the protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults in both a practical and theologically informed way.'
Now, of course, these learning portals are being brandished in the faces of well-intentioned country folk following safeguarding scandals, specifically that involving the prolific child abuser John Smyth, a barrister who ran Christian summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s and who committed physical, psychological and sexual abuse against more than 100 boys and young men. A scandal that, following a report published last November, saw the resignation of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury.
But as an ancient prep-school headmaster thrashes the entire school as retribution for a single misdemeanour, so the Church of England relishes its chance to wield power, abandon common sense and set in a metaphorical stone tablet an eleventh commandment even: 'Before thou ironest the altar cloth or polisheth the silver, thou shalt complete an online safeguarding course.'
So flower arrangers and church wardens pay the price with these ludicrous demands to undergo courses which, believe me, will simply – as with my correspondent from Lincolnshire – dissuade them from such honourable efforts.
And, doubtless, if an abuser wants to inveigle their way into a church, they'll master the online portal anyway. These barriers will only ever stop the innocent. While recent figures show an increase in Church of England attendance following Covid, the general trend is sadly of decline (falling from around one million in 1990 to 693,000 in 2023).
And, free of flowers, of friendly welcomes, church attendance will dwindle further.
While modern priests, attempting to entice a new generation, proffer a guitar at the entrance, advertise 'messy church' and treat congregations like school assembly or a Christmas panto ('How are we all? I can't hear you. Once more with feeling!'), the actual congregation cringes, yearning for some good old-fashioned high church matins, a sermon brimful of complex theology, a Nunc dimittis, some psalms to struggle through and a good hymn as reward.
Meanwhile, the humble volunteers are shown not the path through the church yard but an internet portal. The only get-out clause being they can't access the internet anyway as the Lincolnshire district of South Kesteven has some of the slowest broadband speeds in the country.
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