Liverpool Cathedral, a place of encounter, built by the people, for the people, to the glory of God
Dean's Welcome
2021 challenged everyone and Liverpool Cathedral was no exception. From lockdown to normality we relearnt what it meant to encounter Liverpool Cathedral. Discovering that encounter happens in so many ways, in so many places and on so many levels, we found different ways to welcome people.
We developed new skills. We faced new realities. We remained true to the fact we were built by the people for the people. Time and again we found ways to respond to the need and the mood of the city. We were privileged to: host the day of reflection in March; be at the heart of the city’s remembrance service; a focal point for mourning HRH Prince Philip; and help say goodbye to a footballing legend.
One experience encapsulated 2021. Our magnificent Peace Doves exhibition, an amazing artistic achievement, provided a moment for Liverpudlians to come together in an act of reflection and hope. Like Gaia and the Museum of the Moon in previous years, this stunning art installation provided countless impressive photo talking points. Peace Doves, created with messages of hope and love from thousands of people, provided the perfect exhibition for the year. Peace Doves enabled people to come safely together to reflect, wonder and hope in the presence of God.
2021 could be too easily characterised in terms of difficulty, trauma and despair. Yes, it was tough. And I would like to pay tribute to all those in the cathedral community (staff, volunteers, clergy) who showed great resilience through the twists and turns of the year. Also as a year of tight finances, I would like to thank: the Department of Culture, Media and Science, the Cathedral Sustainability Fund, the Friends of Liverpool Cathedral and many individuals who have contributed to our finances.
It also helped us to see clearly what we value as we continue to invest in the cathedral for the future, and it showed us the depth and breadth of what the city values in its cathedral.
As we continue to think about our centenary in 2024 we give thanks that one fact did not change. Liverpool Cathedral remained a place of encounter, built by the people, for the people, to the glory of God. This review tells some of that encounter story in 2021.
2021 Encounters
We know that people encounter Liverpool Cathedral in many ways and have identified six ways in which people encounter the cathedral. Our report looks at each in turn. This gives a flavour of the vibrancy of cathedral life over the last year.
- Inspiring Christian worship
- A breath-taking experience
- A community committed to justice and mercy
- A safe and generous place in joy and sorrow
- A dynamic community of staff and volunteers
- A God who knows and loves you
Inspiring Christian worship
Liverpool Cathedral is renowned for its creative worship. Over many years folk have commented on the uplifting power of hearing worship supported by our world-class choir and organ. Our building’s immense size lends itself to processional worship in a way few others can achieve.
In 2021 that changed. In 2021 we learned and developed the skills for online worship through YouTube and Facebook. Supported by an anonymous donor and £13,000 from the All Churches Trust we experimented with live-streamed and pre-recorded worship to bring some of the cathedral experience online. We developed family-based resources for engaging with the Sunday Gospel readings. We adapted our in-person worship to accommodate the rigours of regulations to manage Covid 19 and to keep people safe, sustaining that vital rhythm of daily prayer seven days a week, 365 days a year.
We noticed the building remained a sanctuary for those wanting to be quiet with their thoughts and their God. Helping people light a candle, encouraging online engagement through www.prayerforliverpool.org and finding the space in exhibitions like Peace Doves helped deepen people’s spiritual engagement.
We also stimulated intellectual engagement with God through our Lent Lectures, Science and Faith lectures and alpha courses, all delivered online.
2021 was a year we recognised some elements had run their course. So after many years, we decided to end our Zone 2 service. This informal service offered much over many years but we are now working on new expressions of worship for 2022.
Advent and Christmas remained central. While we experienced lower numbers due to the general uncertainty, we were able to celebrate God’s unchanging story in an ever-changing world.
Liverpool Cathedral has been a place of worship for nearly 100 years and our activities are surrounded and supported by the daily rhythm of prayer and worship. The way we encountered that in 2021 changed, but the rhythm remained constant.
A breath-taking experience
For many, the breathtaking experience of Liverpool Cathedral is the building itself. Our awesome and intimate spaces, magnificent windows, stunning city views from the tower all add up to an experience unlike any other.
Even in 2021, we managed to welcome nearly 300,000 people through our doors. However, Liverpool Cathedral is about much more than stunning architecture. Daily visitors received a warm cathedral welcome from our volunteers and staff. They would encounter knowledgeable guides able to explain the building’s history and tell our story. They could visit our impressively stocked shop or dine in our hugely popular food destination. All this in a place committed to supporting local and ethical suppliers.
It is this which led to us being awarded the VAQAS Gold Award for the first time and the prestigious TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Award. Our commitment to a safe visitor experience saw us awarded Visit Britain’s Good to Go accreditation.
Peace Doves was the highlight. Planned for when lockdown was eased it provided a city commemoration. Over 154,000 visitors experienced this commission cementing our reputation as an important cultural venue and bringing an estimated £3.5m into the local economy. We brought much value to the doves with a range of associated activities including yoga and exclusive, distanced dinners under the exhibition.
Supporting local remained a theme for our visitor experience as we continued to support the popular Arts Markets offering independent craft stalls a marketplace for their endeavours.
Events and educational visits were understandably restricted, so we found creative ways to reach out to schools and engage with the wider community. Music remained important with recitals occurring when we could. Our choir continued to develop and thrive with new choirs enabling a wide repertoire to be offered.
During the year we took time to invest in aspects of our cathedral including vital repairs to our roof and ceilings, repairs to leaking rainwater pipes, mending trip hazards, improving the lighting and starting to create the beautiful new Josephine Butler Memorial Chapel.
A community committed to justice and mercy
As a city cathedral, it is not surprising that we seek to serve the city. As a community of faith, driven by our understanding of biblical teaching, it is not surprising that we seek to support the poor and those on the margins.
Our main vehicle for this provision is Micah, our social justice charity. Established to provide emergency food aid and a volunteer programme that supports people back into work.
Micah distributed 500 food parcels a week during the height of the pandemic. Micah was overwhelmed by the generosity of the public, schools and businesses in supporting this effort to aid those in need. And our food support goes beyond emergency provision with community markets providing low-cost produce at affordable prices.
The volunteer programme was disrupted by pandemic restrictions but remains an important part of our strategy to help people gain meaningful employment.
Beyond Micah, we have recognised our broader commitments to various aspects of social justice.
Recognising the church’s historical connections to slavery and the reality that modern forms of slavery exist we have committed to an anti-slavery statement and started to explore how we interpret and understand our connections to the slave trade. From our Lent Lectures to the extremely well received Micah Lecture “God is not a white man” we challenged ourselves and others to confront the complex past.
Seeing the need to protect God’s creation we have started to look at our commitments to net-zero carbon achieving a bronze eco church award. Projects like our wildflower garden show our creativity in this area. We are grateful to Eco-innovatory at Liverpool John Moores University for our carbon footprint audit.
We used the occasion of the Peace Doves exhibition to hold a Vigil for Peace with contributions from several city-based social justice organisations.
During the year we continued to understand our commitment to diversity thinking around the unconscious biases we have and working to tackle them.
A safe and generous place in joy and sorrow
Liverpool Cathedral stands as an iconic landmark in the cityscape and that place reflects our place in the hearts of many in the city. We remain true to the idea we were built for the people and have been a place for the people in 2021.
We remain the focus for key city services. So we hosted the city region’s memorial service for HRH Prince Philip and were happy to respond to the desire to hold the city’s Remembrance service whilst St George’s Plateau was being repaired. Both proved moving times of reflections and remembrance.
Also, during the Peace Doves we hosted a service of thanksgiving for all the key workers in the city whilst remembering the regions Covid victims. In October we helped the city say goodbye to the kop legend ‘Sir’ Roger Hunt. And we continue to partner with the Good Funeral Company to help people continue to commemorate loved ones they have lost, especially poignant for those families affected by Covid restrictions on funerals.
Alongside this we were also able to hold the annual service at the start of the legal year, and the ordinations of new deacons and priests took place in socially distanced ways.
Our People’s Path reached its tenth anniversary as a place to mark key moments in different people’s lives.
Sadly great events such as Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU's) graduations were beaten by the pandemic and we missed welcoming students, families and staff to this ceremony this year. We also saw the cancellation of some events as these could not be held safely within the guidelines at the time.
A dynamic community of staff and volunteers
Volunteers and staff have been the mainstay of 2021 coping with the changes the pandemic imposed, learning new skills and remaining true to the values that we hold.
The financial realities of 2021 meant that we had some staff on furlough. We committed to topping up the furlough payments to 100% as we recognised the impact that furloughing would have.
However we went further to support others in the community bringing at least five Kickstarter Apprentices into roles at the cathedral.
We also provided full refresher training for frontline staff across our retail and tower offer as well as full re-engagement sessions with all staff before they returned from furlough.
We increased our EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) to allow all staff access to any free counselling and support they felt they might need as they returned to work after the lockdowns. We invested in hardware and software to allow staff to work remotely and also upgraded our phone system to Teams so staff wouldn’t be tied to office-based landlines.
We invested a great deal of time supporting volunteers recognising that many were in vulnerable categories and needed to isolate.
A God who knows and loves you
Whilst a significant cultural, heritage and visitor attraction we are first and foremost a place of worship. We do not hide worship away but find creative ways to help people understand the God who knows and love them for whatever reason they encounter Liverpool Cathedral.
From our longstanding incorporation of a clergy welcome to every event to our incorporation of worship alongside events such as the arts market we have demonstrated our desire to show how God is active in people’s lives. We have made determined efforts to hold our daily services in the main spaces of our cathedral, a clear visible presence to even the most casual visitor.
In recent years we have noticed large numbers of visitors wishing to light a candle or say a prayer as part of their encounter. So last year we embraced technology to support this idea by using prayer cards displaying QR codes to lead visitors to www.prayerforliverpool.org as part of their prayerful encounter.
Image of Liverpool Cathedral at night copyright of Stratus Imagery
Building back through the pandemic
For many years we have acknowledged the financial challenges of managing the UK’s largest cathedral. With an annual income of around £2.75 m, our prudent financial management led to a projected deficit pre-pandemic of around £15,000. In 2020, without the financial support, we received this would have reached a deficit of just over £1 m in 2020 and £840,000 in 2021.
So we are thankful for the financial support that came from a wide range of sources including
- Furlough - £400,000
- Business support grants - £70,000
- Cathedral Sustainability Fund - £250,000
- DCMS 1 - £610,000
- DCMS 2 - £280,000
- Friends of Liverpool Cathedral - £175,000
- Francis Neilson Trust - £150,000 (over 3 years)
- Cultural Recovery (capital) - £38,000
The ongoing challenges and changes to our income streams and loss of income from overseas tourists will result in a projected £150,000 deficit in 2022 which we are looking to cover.
So we cannot be complacent, we will continue to look at a mix of events, fundraising, corporate and individual generosity and financial prudence as we continue to look at how we can be a place of encounter in 2022.
Conclusion
No individual or institution has been able to escape the challenges of the pandemic.
At Liverpool Cathedral we have shared this challenge with the people who built us and the people we were built for. We have seen in ourselves and others a spirit of resilience and hope that enables us to endure and continue to build.
In 2021 the Peace Doves came to our cathedral as a symbol of hope, a symbol of the way Liverpool Cathedral displays its values and looks to be a place for all.
We are grateful to all who encountered our cathedral, who supported our cathedral and who help make us a spiritual and cultural heartbeat for the city and region.
Peace Doves installation by sculptor Peter Walker, photography by Gareth Jones. Images ©Liverpool Cathedral,
Liverpool Cathedral, St James’ Mount, Liverpool L1 7AZ
0151 709 6271
www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk
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Liverpool Cathedral