Ordinariate bids for former Methodist church

AN ORDINARIATE priest who is hoping to buy a former Methodist church in the West Country said this week he hoped it would enable his congregation to reach out more effectively to the local community.

Fr David Lashbrooke, who was an Anglican priest for 18 years until he “came over to Rome” with his parishioners from St Mary Church, Torquay, in 2011, hopes his group – now known as the Torbay Ordinariate Mission – will become the first of its kind to buy its own church. This week, he launched a £150,000 appeal to raise the funds to buy Chelston Methodist Church in Torquay.

Fr Lashbrooke, who works as a prison chaplain and who with his wife, Lizzie, has four children, said he believed the church would enable his community to reach out in a way that brought its Anglican-rooted gifts to the fore.

“When we came into full communion with the Catholic Church, we brought with us some of our traditions,” he said. “A lot of people talk about the liturgy, but actually it’s much more about outreach.”

The former Methodist church, he said, could provide a home for him and his family as well as space for a community cafe and youth events, which the group was already beginning to offer. It  also runs a charity shop nearby.

“People know we have a trad­ition of patrimony, they know they can come to us when they’re in need,” said Fr Lashbrooke.

The fund to buy the Methodist church, which is no longer needed by its original worshippers following a reorganisation, has so far raised £36,000. Currently the ordinariate, which has 87 priests and about 40 groups of lay members across the country, has the care of two churches, both of them in London.