All Saints Parish Paper 7, MARGARET STREET, LONDON W1W 8JG www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk JULY 2019 £1.00 The youngest and oldest of those who processed with The Blessed Sacrament from All Saints along Oxford Street on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 20 June 2019. (Photos: Andrew Prior) We held the deadline for this edition in order to include photographs and the sermon by our visiting preacher, Bp Stephen Platten (see page 9). for years, having been sold off-plan in Hong VICAR’S LETTER Kong, Russia or the Middle East. Much of the lay leadership of our parishes belongs There is a good deal in this issue about the to the generations which could afford to renewal of ageing Victorian infrastructure. buy houses in London. How will they be Some would suggest that our clergy and replaced? One of my fellow Area Deans people, as well as our buildings, count as in the Two Cities responded to a recent crumbling Victorian infrastructure. The fact comment about clergy in our area staying that churches are having to devote so much a long time; too long, was the thinly veiled time and money to this can be a source suggestion. He pointed out that we were of frustration, but it is also a testimony to often the only people who did stay put. their longevity. I can think of no business This is not to say that fresh faces and ideas or institution in our parish which has been are not needed, but the long ministry of here longer than All Saints. Many have had someone like Prebendary Richard Bewes, much shorter lifespans. I have been here or of Dr John Stott before him, at All Souls, long enough to remember Market Place as it Langham Place, can hardly be seen as a was before it became restaurant land. Trinity cause of terminal decline. Sunday brought the news that Carluccio’s, which I have sometimes thought should Faced with such challenges, there can feed me for free, given the number of All be a temptation to panic and grasp at Saints people who have eaten there over the novelties in the hope that they will be the years, is to close by the end of June. On a key to survival: turning your premises into larger scale, department and fashion stores business hubs or coffee bars are suggestions which have seemed permanent fixtures I have heard recently. If churches have on Oxford Street are fighting for survival. suitable spaces for some of these uses, They claim, with some justification, that that’s fine. We have had some success they are disadvantaged by a taxation system recently at using our premises to generate which favours on-line suppliers with cheap more income. This helps pay the bills but out of town warehouses and low-paid staff. on its own it does not build a Christian community. We should not kid ourselves City centre churches like ours may be that this is likely to draw more people into great survivors, but we cannot ignore the the life of the church; any more than using fact that they also face new challenges churches as concert venues does. from changing economic and social circumstances. The ever-escalating cost Some of the activities in our churches of housing in London is already having which do most good, which provide most an impact on church life. Our diocesan ‘added value’ to communities, are those schools in central London face falling rolls which do not generate much income. Many for the first time anyone can remember. of the community activities which go on at Families simply cannot afford to live here. St Paul’s, Rossmore Road, come into this The conversion of a large office building on category. Theresa and I were guests of Fr the west side of Cavendish Square into 47 Simon Buckley at St Anne’s, Soho, recently. luxury flats and similar projects are unlikely It is another church which functions as a to bring an influx of potential church-goers. centre for community services. Four nights Most of the flats will probably stand empty a week meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous 2 are held there. At weekends Westminster been seeking to involve more people in. City Council operates what, to use Pope Some of our neighbours have much larger Francis’s term, can be described as a ‘field staffs, of both clergy and lay people, than hospital’ for young people who have over- we do. Volunteers and clergy alike can indulged in drink or drugs on a night out and only do so much and any major expansion are so incapable of looking after themselves of work requires investment in people. that they are at risk. At St James’s Piccadilly All Saints at the moment more or less and here at All Saints, we have found pays its way; meeting the costs of clergy ourselves providing a daytime safe space and musicians and buildings, and make a for rough sleepers. contribution to the wider Church through the Diocesan Common Fund. We could Together with other clergy in local not contemplate an expansion of our staff parishes, I am involved in some research without a significant increase in our present which is taking a fresh look at ministry and levels of giving. That can only be achieved mission in and around Oxford Street. I say by two means: a growth in numbers of ‘around’ because the only church building regular worshippers and an increased level which has a doorway on the street is the of giving by those worshippers. Salvation Army’s Regent Hall. The rest of us are set back in parallel streets. While In my sermon at Evensong on Trinity our resident populations are now small, our Sunday I spoke about Evelyn Underhill, parishes have large working populations and who had been commemorated the day even larger numbers of those who come for before. She was one of the Church of shopping and entertainment. Many of those England’s great guides in the spiritual who work around us commute considerable life in the last century and her work still distances. The shopping population changes has much to say to us. In her great book hourly. How do we minister to people who “Worship” she identifies ‘sacrifice’ as being have little time to spare or whose attention at the heart of worship. In our tradition we is focused on shop windows? speak, sometimes rather too easily, of the sacrifice of the Mass. If that sacrifice is In our case, part of that ministry is to be real it must be more than liturgical simply through keeping our church open correctness. It must involve the offering of as a place of prayer and by maintaining ‘ourselves, our souls and bodies as a living within it a worshipping community whose sacrifice’; of our time and resources; in life of prayer is not restricted to 11am on recognition that these are gifts from God a Sunday morning. People, like the two and not possessions. That requires of us architecture students I spoke to a couple of nothing less than a spiritual revolution, a days ago while clearing up after the evening conversion, a transformation, which will Mass, encounter not just an awesome and allow something more than an ‘austerity’ fascinating building but a community of approach to parish finances: What do we faith. need to give and invest in order to grow, One of the strengths of All Saints as rather than what can we cut so that we long as I have known it has been the level can just keep going? Otherwise, the same of voluntary commitment by members number of people will simply be asked to of the congregation; something we have do more in the same amount of time and 3 with no more resources. It is a short step of Pentecost Sunday at a tent in the square from that to blaming them, rather than wearing his purple stole. ourselves, for the church’s failure to grow. In this issue I report on the rededication CELL OF OUR LADY of St Mary Magdalene’s, Paddington, a OF WALSINGHAM church which began life in the 19th century Saturday 13 July – 11.30am Rosary as a church plant from All Saints. A group and Walsingham Devotions of people took the risky decision to move 12 noon Low Mass of Our Lady from a place they loved and embark on an of Walsingham. adventure of faith. In the language of today’s Following on from the success of the church, they planted new worshipping annual NATIONAL PILGRIMAGE to communities and All Saints acted as a WALSINGHAM on the late May Bank ‘resource church’. Could we contemplate Holiday (congratulations go once again doing that now? The wider Church assumes to Ross Buchanan for making all the that the answer to that question is ‘No’. We arrangements and breaking even), members all say we want our church to grow, but of the Parish make their ANNUAL CELL are we willing to take the risks involved in PILGRIMAGE TO WALSINGHAM that actually happening? Or are we content from Friday 19 to Monday 22 July. At this to maintain our Victorian infrastructure point in time, all places are likely to be taken without that entrepreneurial energy and for 2019, but contact Ross if you want to spirit which was as much a characteristic of make an early commitment for 2020. the Church of that era as it was of society Telephone: 020 7221 1312 or at large? Email: [email protected].