Parish Profile St Giles, Camberwell

St Giles, Camberwell, is a 'high' church - it's worship is Anglo-Catholic with that almost 'theatrical' symbolism, awe and mystery which other worship traditions somehow seem to lack; it's a lofty church, high vaulted ceilings, a magnificent three-quarter length east window and it has possibly the highest spire in south London and can be seen for miles in any direction!

It's a large, and interesting parish, with many contrasts - and the church itself, it's past and present, is a reflection of its surroundings. Camberwell was once a very 'fashionable' place to live. Big houses and a big impressive church to match. But fashions change and for many years Camberwell has been largely a working class community - council estates and the big houses turned into flats. Only a few years ago the parish was 19th in the UPA deprivation list, with around half of its 15,000 population living below deprivation levels.

St Giles Church also suffered - a grade 2 listed building, it was consecrated in November 1844 replacing an earlier parish church which had been destroyed by fire. (There has been a church on the site since Saxon times and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book). The Victorian St Giles was clearly a wealthy, well-supported church reflecting prosperous Camberwell. But the twentieth century mainly saw neglect, caused by lack of money and falling congregations.

 
The present Vicar, Canon Rodney Bomford came to the parish 23 years ago - and while he would never admit it, has clearly turned its fortunes around, by a combination of spiritual and commercial acumen. He's undoubtedly an accomplished theologian - with books to prove it - but a few minutes listening to him also suggests that the nearby Greenwich Dome could do with his management skills!

Those 23 years have seen many changes in Camberwell itself - signs of 'gentrification' with many bigger houses going back to one-family occupation, new homes being built, some costing upwards of half a million but with still some of the poorest estates in London (50% of housing is in Council flats). It's a mobile population with a very high turnover among both the rich and poor. The church has reacted to that change. Worship at St Giles is formal but inclusive, accessible to even the most erratic worshipper.

"When I came here the parish was a model of a close, almost closed, community" said Rodney. "Worship was fairly 'high' but quite congregational - difficult for an outsider or occasional visitor to break into. We have tried to remove the 'thresholds' - the Mass is a public act, not a club activity. We have a minimum emphasis on membership and aim to be a church for the whole community, those who come occasionally as much as the regular worshipper."

The Mass is the focus for worship with just two services on Sunday - a low Mass at 8am and a Parish Mass at 10am. Non-Eucharistic Sunday services don't happen - unless there is no priest available, and that's unusual. In its heyday St Giles' had up to seven Curates - but even today, in addition to Canon Bomford, there are two stipendiary curates, Stephen Sichel who is Curate in charge of the second church in the parish, St Matthew's, and Timothy Foreman, ordained as a Deacon last year; there are also two NSMs - Roger Smith, a teacher who also 'helps out' at the Millennium Dome, and Harry Potter, a barrister who recently moved out to Eltham and divides his time between St Giles and his new local parishes; and looking ahead there is one OLM in training Pat Alden with a second, Isoline Russell, due to start training this year.

The congregation is very diverse - "People come from a variety of traditions and backgrounds" said Rodney. "We have ex-Roman Catholics and an 86 year old lifelong Baptist (now on the PCC). We have people born and bred locally, those who came thirty years from the Caribbean and more recent arrivals from Nigeria, the Seychelles and a flourishing group from and a flourishing group from Sierra Leone for example. Our worship needs to be accessible to people who may still be struggling with the English language; it needs to involve but not demand - the Mass with its formality and structure, inbuilt awe and mysticism meets that need. So-called 'modern' colloquial language worship would not work!"

There are two Sunday school groups with up to forty children each week in two age groups - they meet during the 10am service, returning for the Communion. St Giles's have practised Communion before Confirmation since the 1970s - one of the first 'pilot parishes'. There is also a Mass on Wednesdays - a daily Mass wasn't supported and Evening Prayer is said most evenings. Masses are also said in local hostels and residential homes for the elderly.

Contrasting with the formality of the mass there is a growing meditation group, which meets every Saturday evening for half an hour or so, and more recently a 10 minute slot for silent contemplative prayer has been introduced into the Parish Mass about once every six weeks.

St Giles's engagement with the community is part of being the church for everyone. Forty years or so ago the parish set up the St Giles Trust which now has some 40 full time staff working with homeless people. In its early years the Camberwell Arts Festival was focused on the church. In both cases the church no longer has any formal link but is still very involved. And of course, St Giles was the inspiration and is still the base for the Camberwell Choir School, which began when a choirmaster was looking for singers, saw the success of the Greek Orthodox Saturday schools and tried it out in Camberwell. Now more than 100 children attend its weekly sessions.

"The choir school isn't just about learning to sing or play - it is a way of getting the Christian faith under children's skins!" said Rodney.

A second factor in the community engagement is money! It's not a rich congregation and 'direct giving' just about meets the parish's Fairer Shares quota - around £20,000 a year. "Finance would be impossible without our commercial income" said Canon Bomford. The crypt has a pub and entertainment licence with a Friday night Jazz Club and private functions on Saturday nights. Rodney Bomford and a former churchwarden are the licensees and the church gets the bar profits. The Church Hall and the St Giles Centre opposite the church are both profitable 'enterprises' - the latter has a number of ex-curates' flats, meeting rooms and offices. Rents and charges are pitched at a level which makes them attractive to users, but at the same time a valuable income to the church.

As a result the parish has been able to begin to reverse a century of neglect. Over a ten year period around £2 million is being spent on the church building and the money from the 'business' activities not only meets day-to-day maintenance and small improvements but also provides the 'self-help' element which many grant-making bodies demand. The spire, which was probably faulty when it was first constructed, has had the top 70 ft taken down and rebuilt. That has cost about £1.1 million - mainly funded by grants from English Heritage and the Lottery. The church is being floodlit, thanks to Southwark Borough Council and the next stage is to rewire and renovate the interior, and restore the organ. The restoration work and tapping into funding sources is handled by a 'Friends' committee - one of several groups who meet after Mass on Sundays to organise the work and witness of the church. They tend to go for big one-off fund raisers, events like an Opera in the church which raised over £5,000. It keeps the 'fund-raising' separate from the church's main agenda.

Nowadays for a priest to stay in one parish 23 years seems unusual. But Rodney Bomford is all for it! "It takes at least five years to decide and make the changes you feel necessary, and possibly another ten before the changes really take effect. A rapid turnover of clergy means lots of hurried changes every five years or so - and that isn't good for the parish"

He also clearly has no plans to move. He's looking ahead to the possibilities of new worship centres on the estates and an increase in work in the parish's residential homes, especially once the OLMs are fully functioning.

St Giles is a parish of contrasts - the wealthy side by side with the very poor... the ex-Baptist worshipping with the ex-Roman Catholic... new homes and run-down estates.. the public performance of the mass alongside the private, personal meditation.. traditional south-east Londoners and the new people from Nigeria and the Seychelles... all part of being a church without 'thresholds' a church for the whole community of Camberwell.