From here:
July 16, 2011 — All Saints Sandy Hill is a parish of about 120 people, more than half of whom you will find worshipping together in our lovely sanctuary on a Sunday morning, and nearly half of whom are regular, generous, identifiable financial supporters.
Now, in 2011, we are nearing a tipping point.
The responsibility to maintain and improve our century-old building and hall, constructed for a congregation twice our size, is beyond the capacity of the congregation. Engineers tell us millions of dollars will be needed over the next decade to conserve our buildings.
Meanwhile, the desire to get on with our mission as an inspired and active Christian community in the heart of Ottawa has never been stronger. Therefore, the people of All Saints Sandy Hill are in an active state of discernment.
[….]
Even in the face of these uncertainties, you may rest assured that it will be worship and action as usual at All Saints until Christmas, and possibly until
Easter 2012.
Funnily enough, The Sandy hill congregation are currently meeting in the recently vacated St. Alban’s, left more or less empty by the ANiC congregation’s recent departure – the result of an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Without the All Saints influx, the diocese has a lot less than 120 people with which to convince onlookers that they really needed the St. Alban’s building, yet the building in danger of closing is All Saints, not St. Alban’s.
Perhaps Face Saving has become the sixth mark of mission.
I KNEW IT. Please put this on the Essentials blog.
Looking at that first paragraph – they have 120 names on the parish list, 60 of whom actually go to church and 30 of whom give significant money. Even if they go to St. Alban’s it won’t be much of a boost to them.
Sounds like a “shell game”.
This isn’t about “face saving” or whatever your interpretation may be. There are two large Anglican church buildings in Sandy Hill in Ottawa, and area that was once full od people with Anglo-Irish backgrounds, many of whom were seniot civil servants that was a century ago. It is not a university area full of students and apartments and mainly francophone. No other denomination has two churches in the ara except the RCs (French and English) and many denominations are absent altogether. Sall Saints was an offshoot of St. Albans in 1900 and built by the wealthy low-church Bates family who did not approve of high-church St. Alban’s. It would appear that All Saints has about 60 identifiable givers, far too few to make a parish viable. IT’s buildings will cost millions to maintain and have already cost large amounts. It makes no sense at all to maintain two parishes and two buildings in Sandy Hill. This has nothing to do with face-saving. It is about dealing in 2011 with a situation that began in 1900 in a very different time. It is simply common sense.