After the rededication in 1957 St Bride's continued its ministry to the newspaper world of Fleet Street, hosting baptisms, weddings and memorial services, as well as offering regular weekday worship for those who worked in the area.

In 1967 it was packed for a service to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Press Association, whose offices were next door. The glass doors at the West End were a gift to mark the occasion. Through the generosity of Sir Max Aitken a permanent exhibition was mounted in the crypt chronicling the history of the site and of Fleet Street, and this was renewed with the help of Reuters twenty five years later. In the late 1980's the spire was floodlit so that it can be seen in all its beauty at night, especially crossing Waterloo or London Bridge. St Bride's witnessed the departure of the newspapers in the late 1980's after bitter struggles, but the Rector, Canon John Oates, worked hard to maintain warm relations not just with the newspapers but with the new firms moving into Fleet Street, chiefly law firms, accountants and investment banks.

During the hostage crisis of the mid 80's St Bride's hosted all night vigils for John McCarthy and others, and on their release a grand service of celebration was held. In 1989 the new Assembly Room was built, opened by the Princess of Wales. Links were forged with St James's School Zongoro in Zimbabwe, which continue to this day. And throughout all this there was a continuous steam of baptisms, weddings and memorial services. We have commemorated John Schofield, BBC reporter killed in Croatia in 1995; and many others including BBC figures such as Godfrey Talbot, Louis MacMillan and Leonard Miall, newspaper proprietors Lord Burnham, Lord Rothermere and Lord Hertwell, Sir Edward Pickering, Michael Cudlipp, the Guardian's Mary Stott, David Astor of the Observer, Editors including Stewart Steven and Louis Kirby, Fiona MacPherson of Good Housekeeping magazine, and Reuters journalists Kerem Lawton and Doon Campbell, Gaby Rado, Daniel Pearl, Terry Lloyd of ITN and the BBC Cameraman Simon Cumbers. In 2003 we unveiled a memorial to journalists killed in the Iraq War, and this year we commemorated James Brolan and Paul Douglas, CBS journalists killed in Baghdad.

In March 2002 we celebrated 300 years of printed daily newspapers at a service attended by senior media representatives and HRH the Prince of Wales, and in 2005 we bade farewell to Reuters at another service which brought together major figures from Fleet Street. This year, in October 2006 we celebrated one hundred years of the Newspaper Publishers Association; and in 2007, as we look back over 50 years since the church's rededication, we shall also be looking ahead to the future and the development of the ministry of this remarkable Central London church.

The media industry we seek to serve is undergoing massive changes as it grapples with the revolution in technology and the growth of the internet and digital technology. We have already built stronger links with the broadcasting media, and we are working hard to maintain and develop our networks as the media village scatters across London. There is still a 'virtual' Fleet Street community and St Bride's is its spiritual heart. Through the development of a St Bride's Media Forum we aim to strengthen our network and offer an arena for debate and discussion about issues of value, morality and meaning which are relevant to today's journalists.

Fifty years ago the Rector, Cyril Armitage chose as his theme to launch the post-war restoration appeal, "Beauty for Ashes". This theme is a fitting description of a record of 50 years of service and ministry in the life of St Bride's. It is the text (from Isaiah 61) which the composer Bob Chilcott will use for a specially composed anthem to be given its premiere at the service of celebration in November 2007. Out of the darkness and destruction of that night of 29th December 1940 has come something beautiful which remains the spiritual heart both of the parish of St Bride's and of the journalistic community in Britain and throughout the world. May St Bride's continue to play that important and vital role as we look ahead with confidence to the future.