Despite the so-called quiet revival – which I think probably has some traction – there is still a lot of disquiet about the state of the church. At the same time there is much angst about the state of the nation.

These two issues often collide as people bemoan the decline of the church as that thing that stands at the centre of communities upholding traditional values. Now, often the moaning is driven by nostalgia, memories of village churches often real or derived from episodes of Agatha Christie’s Marple.

Away from bucolic rural settings, however, people still talk about the centrality of the church in the fabric of the nation. And they are right to do so, though possibly not for the reasons they are saying it.

This week a conference at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London heard contributors talk about the danger of churches disappearing at an alarming rate in the coming years. The National Churches Trust suggests that one in twenty places of worship might not be used for that purpose by 2030.

The focus of the conference was on old Anglican parish churches with dwindling congregations and massive and growing repair and maintenance bills. They are heritage sites as much as places of faith.

But other groupings also face serious challenges. There has been a fall in the numbers offering themselves for Baptist Ministry and in the number of Baptist churches able to afford full-time stipendiary ministry, including the costs of housing. Other denominations face similar challenges.

Well, so what, I hear you ask. What will be lost if some of the surfeit of church buildings fall to rack and ruin? What if there isn’t a church on every high street, in every village, on every housing estate? When an organisation has falling numbers, it needs to cut its cloth accordingly.

And this is where the state of the church crashes into the state of the nation. I was particularly struck by one contributor to the V&A conference, not someone I usually associate with astute commentary on ecclesiastical affairs: the barrister and broadcaster, Rob Rinder.

He told delegates, ‘The story of Britain, at the moment, tragically, is being hijacked, perhaps by some people who claim to speak for its soul while doing everything to hollow it out. If you want to see the real British values at work … go to a church on a rainy Tuesday or Wednesday night. There you’ll find people of every colour, every faith, every accent, quietly holding our country together. To save these buildings is to save something fundamental about Britain itself, the Britain that still believes in fairness, hospitality and humour … the Britain that looks after one another quietly.’

That phrase ‘quietly holding our country together’ really resonated with me; as did the final sentence, especially, ‘the Britain that looks after one another quietly.’ Leave aside the buildings question – an imponderable for so many reasons – the importance of the church in holding the country together, as the place where we look after one another quietly seems to me to be key.

What kind of country do we want to live in? One where we quietly look out for and look after one another. Our country is – and has been for generations – held together by people who turn up to events in drafty buildings to express support and care for one another and for the community around them.

In times when people are shouting at each other across thinly stretched police lines, we need places where people of all colours, faiths, classes and interests gather to express their care for one another, a Britain that looks after one another quietly.

This is not the whole of what church is; but it is the essential starting point.

Over the next couple of weeks I intend to reflect on the whole Rob Rinder quote and see how it generates conversations about the nature of church, the state of the country, and what links them.