Sharing church buildings

Many churches share buildings with other churches. Buildings can be: 

• shared on an informal basis 
• subject to a Sharing Agreement under the Sharing of Church Buildings Act (1969) 
• and/or can be a Shared Building Local Ecumenical Partnership.  

Whichever option is relevant for you, we recommend that you read the short resource Sharers, Guests or Tenants: The Sharing of Church Buildings in the Multi-Cultural City. This offers useful advice and good practice for churches looking to share buildings together.  

Headings in the resource include: 

• The Sharing of Church Buildings In the Multi-Cultural City  
• The Inner City today  
• Underlying theological issues  
  • Different understandings of the local church 
  • Different attitudes to mission 
  • Different attitudes to worship 
  • Accepting one another within the body 
• The need for a wider strategy  
• Principles of Good Practice: living “unity in diversity”  
  1. the agreement between the congregations.  
  2. the relationship between the leaders  
  3. the relationship between the congregations. 
  4. the details of any sharing agreement 

Sharing Church buildings on an informal basis  

Circumstances may dictate that a building is shared without a formal agreement, for example, if it is a temporary arrangement or if one of the denominations concerned is not covered by the Sharing of Church Buildings Act (1969). Alternatively, congregations may be anxious about entering into a formal agreement. 

As mentioned above, we recommend that you read the short resource Sharers, Guests or Tenants: The Sharing of Church Buildings In the Multi-Cultural City. This offers useful advice and good practice for churches looking to share buildings together. 

Read more about sharing church buildings on an informal basis here – including guidelines for best practice. 

Sharing Agreements under the Sharing Church Buildings Act (1969) 

Buildings can be subject to a Sharing Agreement under the Sharing of Church Buildings Act (1969). 

The book Under the Same Roof, about the workings of the Sharing of Church Buildings Act (1969), is now only available as a pdf and is also summarised on the CTBI website. 

Read more about this type of Sharing Agreement here. 

A Shared Building Local Ecumenical Partnership 

A Shared Building LEP exists when two or more congregations permanently share a building but do not become a single congregation, continuing to worship separately, particularly where Eucharistic celebrations are concerned. 
 
This is always the case when the Roman Catholic Church is a partner but there are reasons for other congregations wishing to retain a separate worshipping life. (They could have similar ecclesiological reasons, eg if it is an Anglo-Catholic Anglican congregation, or the congregations may just not be ready to combine.) It is possible for LEPs to ‘overlap’ and a partner in a shared building LEP could well be single congregation LEP. 

Read more about Shared Building LEPs here.