Money does not come from selling church buildings but from filling them

It is very sad to see the London Community as a whole lose such a wonderful place to yet another housing development. All Saints Pastoral Centre has been home to so many young people, conferences, music festivals and educational services. It is the centre for global evangelical movement which has now been tossed aside to fulfill a budgetary requirement.

Perhaps the hierarchy is focusing on the wrong problem. Money does not come from selling off the pastoral buildings but from filling them.

They are addressing the wrong issue. Closing churches does not grow your coffers as a charity but leads to a declining community and less money! Perhaps the hierarchy should be focused on training their ministers to grow their church (when last were priests taught how to improve their ministry, when last were resources provided to help them be more effective leaders to their community, when last were these good men give the means to become better developers of community?)

A priest's training should not end in seminary! The hierarchy should learn how to focus on the real issue of growing and empowering a lay community - who are desperate to below to something they can believe in. By selling off the All Saints Pastoral Centre they are not only getting rid of a material resource, but are destroying a lay community
resource that was perhaps the best thing to happen in the British Catholic Church since the re-introduction of the faith in the UK. They are not building or promoting community but continuing to encourage the idea that the church in the modern world if not dead is dying!

And they are not standing up to defend it. Why would any lay person want to join this organisation? I know I have benefited enormously from this wonderful resource and it is with a great sadness to think that my children will never get visit the church where mum and dad got married!

Brett Robertson

Link to online petition to Save All Saints: www.ipetitions.com/petition/saveallsaints/