Revising the Marks of the Fragile Rural Church

ABSTRACT

The hypothesis of the fragile rural church was first advanced by Lawson (2018) and refined by Lawson (2019) using qualitative data from interviews with Church of England clergy with responsibility for three or more rural churches. Quantitative research by Francis, Village and Lawson (2020, 2021a, 2021b) confirmed the proposed five major marks of the fragile rural church, demonstrating that these marks were most prevalent in the rural situation. The current research, based on interviews with 17 rural Church of England clergy with responsibility for four or more churches, and focus groups involving 33 lay people from the same parishes, confirms the five major marks of the fragile rural church and proposes one further mark.