ST JOHN'S CHURCH PRESERVATION GROUP STATEMENT 

AT PRESENT THE ST JOHN'S CHURCH PRESERVATION GROUP STILL ASKS YOU TO SUPPORT ST JOHN'S CHURCH  BY ATTENDING SERVICES IN THE PARISH HALL OPPOSITE THE CHURCH BUILDING.

WE DO THIS AS WE WANT TO WORK WITH, NOT AGAINST THE  SMALL NUMBER OF REMAINING CONGREGATION MEMBERS, WHO HAVE HUNG ON IN THERE AGAINST ALL THE ODDS, EVEN WHEN LEFT WITHOUT A VICAR.

We and our members still want ideally to stay with the Church of England, to re-open the historic and beautiful St John's Church and help to redevelop St John's Parish for the benefit of the Church of England and the whole community. For the present this remains in our Vision Statement. 

We respect the views of those who do not wish to re-open St John's but we believe they are in a minority. We believe they should be entitled to stay in the Parish Hall for worship if they so wish but they should not stand in the way of those who want to work to restore and re-open St John's Church. We also acknowledge that some who support re-opening the church will never attend a service there - they support it from a heritage point of view. They will no doubt though attend other activities there such as classes, shows and talks.

The Preservation Group position is that we will never accept the Parish Hall as a 'church' except on a temporary basis while we get the real church renovated. We will certainly never refer to it as a 'church', it is a PARISH HALL paid for by local people for general community use. It was never designed as a church, or meant to be a church, or viewed by most local people by any stretch of the imagination as a church.

So far the Church of England have shown no interest at all in re-opening St John's Church for Church of England worship. In fact they refused the Preservation Group a Church of England spiritual leader for our inauguration ceremony on 15th November 2007 and we had to turn to a spiritual leader from another denomination to lead our prayers and hymns on that evening. This refusal by the Church of England to attend a meeting of over 100 local, caring people went down very badly with us.

In spite of this and many other snubs we continue to campaign hard for the building to come back into use for the Church of England which remains for the moment the religion of choice for the majority of British people. We do this on the basis of taking the longer term view that the Church of England is bigger than the current personnel involved, and we hope for a more positive attitude from new people in the future. We are sure there are enthusiatic, evangelical Church of England employees out there who would be grabbing this opportunity with both hands, and embracing our enthusiasm rather than trying to ignore us and making things difficult. 

We urge you to support our cause by coming to the Parish Hall for services if you can, however unpalatable you may find the thought. Helping to rebuild the congregation is very much one of our aims and at the moment the Parish Hall is where it's at.

With your help and inspiration it won't be long before we can go back into a more appropriate worship environment. 

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