Birmingham Central Hall.....Hidden Space or Living Heritage?

Today my lunch break from work was spent wandering around the old Methodist Central Hall in Birmingham, where Birmingham's Hidden Spaces are holding an exhibition until tomorrow.

I hadn’t been in there before, but I had heard about its history. There are various outlets around it and back in the day it had been a big rave venue. These days it has been a club, but it has lost it's licence and a recent appeal and so it's future is yet again up in the air. I knew it wasn’t in great shape, but I was shocked by the level of disrepair within there. There is a major investment needed in this building which is grade 2 listed as you will see from the pictures I took in there.

Wandering around this building that the Methodist Church had sold some time ago I was deeply moved. There was an emotional reaction which I wasn’t expecting.

As I looked around there was something within me which was trying to make sense of it all. This was not just a building, this was the former spiritual home of some of those I worship with and some of those who sit in congregations I preach to when I am fulfilling local preacher appointments. It is also the building that I pass every day on my work in a university chaplaincy which is on the campus which lies in the shadow of this great building.

In an effort to make sense of it all I turned to the work of Rev Dr. Joanne Cox-Darling and a paper within the Holiness Journal, which Wesley House, Cambridge produce. The article I turned to was Mission-shaped Methodism and Fresh Expressions. Now, before I start I want to make clear that I am aware chaplaincy is not a fresh expression, as such. However, as Kate Pearson identifies within her chapter in Ross and Baker (eds) Pioneer Spirituality: Resources for reflection and practice there is an overlap between chaplaincy and pioneer ministry.

Within her article Cox-Darling has a section on Central Halls which she quotes one minister as identifying as “the Fresh Expressions of their day.” She goes through and identifies some key aspects of their theology and ecclesiastical practice which were important and went beyond the buildings.

As I read through this article and reflected on what I had heard a guide in the Central Hall say with regard to what she thought had contributed to the demise of the central hall I was conscious that within our work we need to recognise far more the inheritance we have and the link to those who were there before, sometimes in the same physical area.

Cox-Darling talked about Central Halls having their own standing orders and legal status, giving a flexibility. When I compare my role and place as a chaplain, who is not ordained and is answerable to an ecumenical management committee of whom the Methodists are a part to my husband and the world he is entering as a student presbyter I appreciate that I do have a freedom others don’t. I do have far more flexibility in my ministry.

The guide at the exhibition had explained that the physical geography of the area had changed and that contributed to the decline of the Central Hall. In the early twentieth century the area was an urban one on the edge of the city centre, surrounded by houses where the universities now stands. For the Central Halls, Cox-Darling argues, “the context is the primary focus of mission and ministry, not necessarily to the original inhabited congregants. “

 

Today chaplaincy exists not only within the university where I work but also amongst the retail community in the city centre. There is also a Methodist Deacon who has a city centre focus within the area. Reading Cox-Darling reinforced something that has been there in various ways all year as I have thought about our proximity to the old building, we in those roles are in a very real way the current incarnation of the Central Hall.

She goes on to talk about the way in which “the missional theory of Central Hall ecclesiology maintains a focus on contextual appropriate service to a local community and a relevant vehicle for authentic and passionate communication of the gospel.” This acts as both a comfort and a very big challenge to me. This isn’t about proselytising, that is clearly not something we can (or wish to) do in this context. It is about being there and being honest why you’re there and sharing God’s love in a way which is real and passionate.

For the most part, as I explained in a recent piece for the circuit bible study material linked to Holy Habit on service, that translates to those things which get built upon filling or emptying the dishwasher and setting out chairs. It is the hospitality and being about which builds relationships and it is through them you not only get to support Christians but most importantly to come alongside and share God’s love with those who are unlikely to set foot in church and learn from them as they to show God's love too (even if they would not name it as such). Put like that, I think that a lot of what was going on in the central hall probably isn’t too different from what we do in our context.

So whilst the building might be crumbling I would like to think the spirit of Central Hall is still there and yes, it is there in fresh expressions and inherited church but it is also there very much within chaplaincy.

My understanding of the heritage I have as a chaplain in the context within which I work has grown as a result of the visit to this space and the wrestling which accompanied it. I still have questions relating to what I saw today and am still disturbed by aspects of it but thanks to the insight of Cox-Darling I am not despairing rather I am humbled as I realise that it is my turn to hold their baton for a season.