The Forgotten Role of the Church: A Place of Refuge, Still

There’s a quiet knock at the door. It’s late afternoon, our Tuesday service has long finished, and the heating has just clicked off. But someone’s standing in the porch, unsure whether to come in.

They step inside hesitantly, as if unsure they’re still allowed. They’re not here for worship or history or heritage. They’re here because everywhere else is closed and they don’t know where to go.  

Our church, like many others across the country, when open seems to become the safe space for those society has forgotten. We might not have huge events or even big congregations but for many we are the sanctuary they need.  A place that simply says: Come in. Sit down. You’re not alone.

Over nearly a thousand years, our church has seen it all. Pilgrims, the poor, the grieving, the joyful, the desperate. And still, today, people walk through our doors with nowhere else to go. Sometimes the local mental health centre is closed, sometimes the chemist next door has just shut and sometimes someone in town has just beaten them up. Sometimes they’ve tried everything else, and sometimes  they don’t know what they need, only that they need something.

We don’t often talk about it, but churches have always quietly filled in the gaps. When support systems fail, when services are closed, when loneliness becomes unbearable people still turn to the Church, whether or not they consider themselves religious.

And yet in every new conversation about community care, mental health strategy, cost of living, homelessness plans, addiction support and so many other challenges we are so often left out of the picture.

Why?

There are thousands of church volunteers across the UK who aren’t trained social workers, counsellors, or medics and yet they show up, week after week, dealing with some of the most complex and heart-breaking situations simply because someone has come through the door needing help.

Not because we’re the best equipped. But because we’re there.

This isn’t about praise or pity. It’s about remembering something vital that we seem to have collectively forgotten; churches are not relics. They’re still working buildings, living communities, and often the last light left on when everything else has shut down.

We’re surrounded by services. Some are brilliant. Some are overstretched. But few realise that when those doors close at 5pm, ours often stay open. Or that on Sundays, when no one else is working, someone might find a listening ear and a welcome seat in spaces that have seen hundreds of  years of human hurt and hope.

We have to stop missing the Church out of the conversation. 

If you’re building policy, planning community services, writing funding strategies, thinking about social care please, look again. There is an ancient structure still quietly holding people up, and it’s often just up the road from you.

If you’ve not walked into your local church lately, come and see what happens. 

If you’re involved in shaping our communities, remember this; the Church has never stopped showing up and never will. 

Let’s start putting the Church back into our vision of community support not as a nostalgic afterthought, but as a living part of the answer.

This article was written by Sarah Newton and reflects her opinion on this matter. Other opinions within the church and the wider Church of England may differ.