It’s usually sound advice to avoid talking about politics or religion, and if you are writing a column like this, it’s a golden rule.

On the other hand, rules are there to be broken, even golden ones, so here goes.

Electors are perfectly capable of voting in the wrong people without my say, so we’ll skip politics, but pull up a pew because I am going to talk about the church.

It is usually easy for me not to talk about religion because I don’t have one of my own, but whether you are religious or not, sooner or later you are going to find yourself either in a church or talking to Christian folk. I can think of much worse.

A few weeks ago I explained that as part of a project to co-write a book about the history of the old Stratton Workhouse (on sale in December), my colleague Caroline and I have been inviting ourselves along to places to see how those people who are disadvantaged, disabled, down on their luck, vulnerable or just old cope, compared with a hundred years ago.

Our latest visits have been to a Gorse Hill lunch club and a social club for adults with learning difficulties, called the Open Door Centre.

We feel like royal visitors who pop in, shake hands, have a cup of coffee, chat for an hour or two, and then go home to our tea.

But if it feels like that, it’s because we are made so welcome. People are so friendly.

On our royal visits we have been struck by how much hard graft is done by volunteers these days, but a recurring theme has been the large amount of work done by the churches.

Did I say ‘large’? I meant enormous.

I’m not really up on my Bible, but I’m pretty sure it says something in there about helping the needy, and Swindon churches take it literally.

Their generosity with both their time and the money in their own pockets means they are the backbone of systems providing food to those who need it, but help in countless other ways too, including turning their churches into the hubs of their communities.

You may have decided you have no need to visit a website run by an organisation called Swindon Churches Together, which provides a focus for all this good work, but have a look.

It scratches the surface of what they do and includes an audit report that looked at the work of 49 Swindon churches.

About 8,000 local churchgoers are involved in voluntary work, which is impressive enough, but they do it all expecting nothing in return, while being completely non-judgmental – they’ll help anybody, no questions asked – and won’t ask you to reconsider your own faith. In other words: no preaching.

As far as I can tell, these people are doing most of what you probably think is provided for the needy by the authorities.

That audit I talked about said that Swindon churchgoers contribute 610,000 hours of voluntary labour a year, which was calculated to be adding £6.1m to the “economic and social wellbeing of the area”.

But that values their hard, challenging and often expert work (if it were paid, which it usually isn’t) at a measly £10 an hour, or a fraction of what you would get paid if you were, say, a politician.

God does, indeed, move in mysterious ways.