St Mary the Virgin Church in Wanstead is an iconic building. It goes way back to the days of Wanstead House, with many remnants of those days adorning the church and crypt.

It is a beautiful church, something not lost on television production teams, with St Mary's featuring in the recent ITV serialisation of Vanity Fair and before that Taboo, starring Tom Hardy.

However, St Mary's hit the headlines more recently for the change in the way in which the Bishop of Chelmsford, Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, has decided worship should proceed in the future.

Numbers attending services on a weekly basis have dwindled, stretching the Church of England’s clerical resources to serve both St Marys and Christchurch. Bishop Cottrell decided that three of four services a month at St Marys will become lay-led, so relieving that pressure.

The move seems a good one as it keeps the church open and functioning as well as challenging the congregation to step up to serve.

The pressure on personnel stretches across the churches. The Catholic diocese of Brentwood has brought together the three parishes of Our Lady of Lourdes in Wanstead, St Anne Line in South Woodford and St Thomas’s in Woodford. The three churches will now be served by two priests.

The dramatic drop in the number of priests can be illustrated with a look at Our Lady of Lourdes, which back in the 1970s had four priests – it now has one.

No doubt the laity will be called to step up in this situation as well. Failure to do so will put intolerable pressure on two already overworked priests.

Change, though, is not a bad thing. The churches are evolving, maybe becoming more outward looking, integral parts of the community.

I am always impressed with the community involvement at Christchurch. It is a church very much of the community, open and welcoming, with its resources regularly used by a variety of community groups.

Christchurch is environmentally aware, which can be seen by a variety of wild flower and insect based initiatives around the building.

It is vital if Church’s are to be living organic parts of the community that they look out and actively engage with the environment and the world.

In the Catholic case, the Church has the excellent teachings of Pope Francis, most notably with his environmental encyclical Laudato Si. The blueprint is there to be followed.

Churches will survive and prosper if they are outward looking, inclusive structures. Fortunately, this is the case with many of the churches in our area.

However, if churches fail to rise to this challenge, then they will decline and struggle. In the end, rather than living organic structures they could become moribund brick museums to a past world.

Thankfully our churches in Wanstead seem to be following the first route but it is always wise to be aware of the danger of slipping down the latter path. The more people who become actively involved in all aspects of parish life the better the future is likely to be.

  • Paul Donovan is a Redbridge councillor for Wanstead village and blogger. See paulfdonovan.blogspot.com