In October 2016, Phil (the Vicar) and I (newly appointed Church Warden) stood with thearchitect and builder in our church. We were talking about the newly repaired guttering and downpipes which, to be honest, had cost us a lot of money. The architect said that on inspection it was clear the roof had ‘nail rust’. I had never heard of this- what it meant was unsurprisingly, the slipping tiles were due to the nails being rusty and breaking. I asked the architect the rough cost for repair (thinking it was an easy job) and he calmly replied about £100,000. On the plus side the builder informed us that the slate we had were really big - something I had never considered as a plus before, and now was clearly meant to.
Following the discussion about nail rust the Archdeacon asked us to go away and think for12months on what we should do. We needed to come up with the answer to the question of ‘should we stay or find a new place to be church?’. We worked hard that year - discerning what God wanted for All Saints but also what the Church and Local Community wanted. We asked hundreds of people’s opinions. We asked people to complete questionnaires on what they thought of the building and had monthly newsletters asking for prayers and consideration of what we should be doing.
We entered into the year without an answer, by the end it was clear that the Church and the Community both wanted us to stay. The year had helped us fall in love with the building again. People loved the Church where it was in the community and the local community liked what we do. People wanted a building which they recognised as a Church. They wanted to be able to go to the place where they remembered their baptism, weddings or loved one’s funerals.
We now seethe building is a gift- one God and the previous generation have given us. We feel we are responsible for the current and next generation who would worship at All Saints.
