The Church
The Diocese have required Commonwealth Christian Fellowship to vacate St Mark's church.
Sunday Services are now:
11:00am
The Holiday Inn Regents Park
Carburton Street
W1W 5EE
Except Nov 23rd & Dec 7th - please see Commonwealth's website for current details.
The church office can be contacted:
Mon, Wed, Fri 10:00am to 5:00pm
Tel: 0845 130 33 34
PO Box 15027,
London,
SE5 0YS
E: info@commonwealthchurch.com
W: www.commonwealthchurch.org
Commonwealth Church has had use of St. Marks for the last 14 years and developed a very strong relationship with the local residents and businesses. While successful efforts were made to secure funding for cleaning, pew restoration, and installing a new heating system, the church was unable to raise the necessary funds for much needed roof repairs and since lost its lease agreement. It has been granted a license of use as caretakers.
In November of 2007 the church adopted new leadership (Rod & Julie Anderson) only to be presented with the current application for this Grade 1 building to be turned into a luxury Spa, by a London beauty expert.
Currently the congregation has doubled in size and sees new visitors every weekend. The church has become an even stronger part of the Mayfair community and along with new leadership has come new life, new passion and for the first time there is a real opportunity to see St. Marks retained as a house of worship. Recently though the Diocese of London served a notice to vacate despite not knowing whether the current application will be successful or not.
“I came across St. Mark's Church quite unexpectedly,subsequently feeling strongly that it had been no accident that I had snuck up to the door late one evening in March.
Since then I have received the strongest pastoral support as I go through an extremely difficult time, given willingly, selflessly and extremely patiently; in just a few weeks I was part of a family in a way that might normally take years.
The new leadership are giving the finest scriptural teaching I know,the worship is of the highest order, special events are frequent and packed out and the core congregation is growing week by week.
The church building is wonderful, and provides a unique ambience and character to contain all of these crucial areas of church life. As a professional concert pianist I immediately saw potential for coffee, lunchtime or evening concerts using my contacts in the classical music world, and this idea was greeted very enthusiastically by Pastor Rod Anderson as yet another area to develop as part of the worship in the church.
After feeling so quickly life-saved in this church, I couldn't believe the building was going to be pulled out from under my feet equally quickly-offers of free concerts to raise money for the church still stand, as do so many plans to do all that is possible by all of us to keep such a historically important venue serving the community in the way it was intended from the laying of the first brick.
Although the church people would continue to grow under the leadership of Rod and Julie Anderson, it would be a huge tragedy if this particular building were not to house such growth, as it has such an important history, has an atmosphere seeped in prayer praise and worship, and is currently in the process of a wonderful revival.”
Nigel Clayton
(Concert Pianist, Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music)