Places of worship are not just heritage sites, nor just revered spaces. Their characters and emphases are as different as the people who make up any single parish. Yet all need help to function and evolve. Caring for the Building is the diocesan guidance produced to assist you.

Since treating these buildings with careful respect calls for organized oversight to protect them from over-frequent or inappropriate alteration, or unsuitable repair, changes to most Church of England places of worship need a "faculty". This permission protects the PCC from being accused that it's altering our built heritage without sufficient consultation. You apply for faculty on a Form of petition. (If work concerns churchyard trees, use the shorter Form). You'll need Acrobat Reader v4 or higher to use either.

Being the main legal document in the faculty process, the format of the Form should not be altered so you can’t simply type into it. But you can complete it on computer if you treat each page as a graphic and overlay text onto that.

The faculty process (and what to do in an emergency) is explained in Caring for the Building. Its last section lists matters too small to need faculty but, if you do need one, talk first to the DAC secretary or your archdeacon. These people may recommend you ask the Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches [DAC] for informal advice. Whether you do or not, when you have a consensus what you want to do is send your Form with supporting information to the DAC secretary. The documents When to make a petition includes DAC deadlines and can help you decide when.

Applications must include sufficient particulars to identify work you want permission to carry out. You should aim to convince DAC members why it’s better to make the change than not.

But it must be stressed that applications can only be considered if supported by enough information to enable an informed decision about a building most members won’t know. Proposals should include at least a Statement of Need, and major changes proposed to any listed building will also require a Statement of Significance.

Church Tipsheets contains guidance on both these, also offering help on a number of commonplace aspects of church buildings, their reordering, and activities within them. A summary of implications of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act is offered separately, as is another dealing with issues of safety.

For matters around the building, Churchyard Regulations might be what you want. Along with rules concerning memorials and trees are comments on memorial safety, how to apply to put one up, and responsibilities for “closed” churchyards.

Ideas for landscaping and landscape architects can be found via The Landscape Institute or The Arboricultural Association, but for environmental issues generally, look for EcoCongregation or visit www.caringforgodsacre.co.uk. And for guidance on saving energy and reducing the church's "Cootprint" (carbon footprint), see www.shrinkingthefootprint.cofe.anglican.org and www.mea.org.uk for starters!

Help for church surveyors and architects comes in the form of A Guide to the QI of Churches (previously a booklet of the same name) and the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association.

Don't forget that, under the Listed Places of Worship scheme for church buildings of Grades 1, 2, and 2*, you can reclaim 5/7ths of VAT on repair work ordered between 1-Apr-01 and 31-Mar-04, and 100% for work from 1-Apr-04 till Mar-11.

Finally, there’s more info at Churchcare, a website launched in 2001 by EIG and the Council for the Care of Churches as a "one-stop-shop" for everyone routinely involved in the care of church buildings.

We hope you find the resources here helpful: if less than you wanted, please tell us! And if you really wanted to know about pastoral reorganization rather than buildings, just click here.