Can you see us?

Despite our prime location in central London, on a street which probably has one of the highest footfall counts of any locally, we as a building remain to many invisible. What is even harder to credit is that local residents - admittedly divided from us by a busy and rather messy road junction - don't credit it us with being a community that seeks to engage with them.

Where have we gone wrong? Surely if we are true to the Gospel we should be engaging with the local people as well as with the big global issues for which we do have a reputation that attracts attention?

Somehow we have failed to connect. Locally will claim to know we exist, could if pressed even give directions to find us BUT don't see what we offer as relevent to them or their needs.
Despite our best efforts over the last forty years and more (perhaps even since our founding in 1848) Bloomsbury has to be a community that has international, national and local concern.
Our programmes, especially our lunches on Sundays and Tuesdays, do appeal to some in the neighbourhood but many who do come from around and about the area have been doing so for years. We're not connecting with recent 'incomers' or those who have been around for years and who probably have long since dismissed us as irrelevant.

Struggling to get our identity right, grappling with public perception of us, living with the physical barriers of our isolation on a 'traffic island', all make it hard for us to be a church 'serving the community' - the strapline on our church coasters.

I guess waking up to the realities that these challenges present us is a first step to seeking to find solutions.