So what does a churchwarden DO?

So what does a churchwarden do? That question has been hovering around in my little black churchwarden's notebook since I started this job. Wikipedia starts helpfully: "Churchwarden:  This article is about lay office. For smoking pipe, see Churchwarden pipe". The hyperlink continues, "They have the added benefit of keeping the user's face further away from the heat and smoke". Clearly there is a deep truth concealed therein.

It appears that the office of churchwarden dates way back to the 14th century, perhaps originally concerned with keeping animals out of the church (hence the long stave of office), and generally tasked with maintaining good order in the churchyard and the church, and having a care for the church fabric.

Unsurprisingly, the role has developed somewhat over the centuries.

These days at Holy Trinity Coventry the churchwardens are most visible as people who stand at the back of church[*] in a major service, and who occasionally process up to the front with their staves, leading a small column of people carrying the bread and wine, and the offertory. Early in this blog I've written about what it feels like to be performing this role, very much in the public eye, observed by up to a score of previous churchwardens who will know if one puts a foot wrong. Fortunately they are a forgiving lot, who have not forgotten what it feels like to be up at the sharp end all on one's own.

But in reality being that kind of public monument is a very small part of the job. In practice one is part of a group of four (the full complement of wardens at Holy Trinity Coventry) working in a team with the treasurer, the parish secretary, the vicar and the curate, and several others. There are legal responsibilities, and trusteeships of charities, and specialist roles for each of the four wardens, but perhaps the main task is to try to understand what is happening in the wide and complicated world of Holy Trinity, and collectively to seek to contribute towards the end of making it all run together smoothly and well. So this weekend, for example, I've been doorman at our beautiful parish centre for Coventry Heritage Weekend, helping make it available to the people of Coventry so that they can see it and learn about its history through a guided tour; I've stood at the back of Play for Pakistan and applauded players of horns and oboes and musical saws; discussed practical issues of minor building works; counted money (and checked, and re-checked, and got a fellow-warden to check my checking); and been teased mercilessly by my friends on the sound-desk because I wear a suit when doing the warden bit. (I find the suit helps. Don't ask me to explain why; I've never needed to wear a suit for anything else; it probably is something strange and personal, but it works for me.) Fortunately for my bad memory, if there is a face in the congregation that I don't know then I can ask the verger, or the congregation leader (I think we are calling them congregation lay pastors now). Usually if there is a job to be done then there is a person who is doing the job, so my first thought should be to figure out who is that person, and how to smile and say thank you to them.

So what's the big task for a churchwarden today? My current best working description for myself is, I watch. I am there to watch out to see that things work together, and to try to help when they don't. I am there to try to look ahead to guess how things might develop in the future, and what we should be doing now to get ready. That can be prosaic (when should we start thinking about the next Coventry Heritage Weekend so as to be ready when the Council asks what we are going to do?), or challenging (every year people finish their terms on our vital Parochial Church Council; so isn't it already a good time for our church people generally to begin to think about who might best replace them?). In the end, as always, it's all about people,

and their Maker,

who (as was pointed out in the sermon this morning) is always several steps ahead of us ...


[*] I mentioned the back of the church. But in a cinema this would be thought of as "front of house". What Would Jesus Say? perhaps our usual terminology for churches is all back-to-front!