St. Andrew Holborn

St. Andrew Holborn

St. Andrew’s is a guild church ie it has no parish as such but serves the business district around it – more of that in a moment.

Firstly, the church is open each day and this is well signposted. There is building work going on around the church at the moment but the signs account for that. At the door there are welcome signs as well. There is much of interest in this beautiful and very well cared for church.

Inside, there are gifts and cards etc. to buy – a pretty good selection of items and these are well displayed. There is a free colour guide which gives good information about the church and it’s activities. Also a Lent Book – ‘This is the Word’ for which a donation of £1 is requested. This is very good indeed and also worth pondering over. This all points to a church which takes it’s visitors very seriously. This is one of several things that set this church apart from many others. There are some stunning icons here which were written for the church by the Monastic Community in Vallechiara. They are well worth spending time with. A leaflet outlines their meaning. There are also leaflets on ‘Places to pray’ within the church and another which points towards ‘Three Points of Prayer’. These are an icon – ‘Our Lady of Inexhaustible Grace’, The Tabernacle in which the blessed sacrament is kept (this was created for Stewart Headlam) and ‘The Statue of our Lady’.  A a votive stand sits in  front of a statue of this. You might gather that this is not the most Evangelical of churches…

Along with some prayer guides. There is also a prayer board nearby to add intercession requests to. But I have saved the best till last. Here at St. Andrew’s they have provided a ‘Listening Service for anyone who needs to talk.’ This is provided by trained and experienced listeners. As the person sat there had no customers I went and talked to him. This has been running for some time in response to the recession of the last few years and the strain this has put on the business people who work around the church. He told me that it was quite well used but had been less used in the last few months as the economy had picked up. This is a very good response indeed to a real need in the locality

Statue of St. Andrew with a ‘prayer net’

I am very impressed with St. Andrew’s and rate it as excellent. Well worth a look.