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FROM THE RECTORY
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The Rector's Sermon for Stewardship 2006:
II Cor 6: 1-13
Paul speaks about what his ministry has been like to the Church at Corinth
Not complaining or boasting, but opening his heart – it’s been like this, yet we rejoice and we possess everything.
Curious statements, but there is something of that flavour in the enormous privilege of Christian ministry. It’s not all fun, not all easy, but it is deeply satisfying.
Today at all the services in the parish we’re talking about stewardship, if you like, about the ministry we all share in.
As you leave you’ll be given a small booklet which explains it in more detail, under the title Thinking Bigger. Please could you leave your name when you take a booklet because we want to make sure every household gets one, then we can send them to people who are not here today.
Stewardship is about giving – about giving time, about giving skills, about giving money. All of them important to the life of our church. A few weeks ago you may remember we put out an appeal for skilled help with the financial affairs of the parish. 10 people responded offering their help, which is not just their skill but their time. That was a wonderful thing. Not all of us have those skills.
Many of you will know there has been a delay in producing the church accounts this year, not the first time. They are enormously complex. The parish is like a small business in terms of turn over. It’s like a huge business in the number of transactions.
For the past two years, last year and 2004 we have just about broken even financially. But we have only done it by holding back on some things we need to do, reducing what we have spent on maintaining buildings, and not taking on new pieces of ministry which we want to do.
This year that is not going to work. The indications are that we face a monthly deficit of £3000 on what we must do and pay for. That’s about 10% short every month of what is needed just to do what we are doing at the moment. But this parish is lively and last year when we asked at the services, what you would like to see the church doing as priorities, you wanted to do more – you wanted to think bigger.
A group of people to whom I am enormously grateful has been taking those ideas further. There are four of them, of which you will find more information in the booklet.
1. St Mary’s extension
2. Child Contact Centre
3. Support for Africa
4. Youth Minister
So we don’t just want to cover the deficit, we want to increase the church’s income by another £20,000 pa towards these initiatives.
What can you do?
You know what I am going to say, but I don’t want to start there.
Prayer – the chief activity of all Christians – the activity which gives ways for God to get involved.
Use the pew leaflet during the week, pray also about the booklet you’ll get.
It is impossible to list all the people who give their time and their skills to parts of church and community life. Impossible to list those who take their faith nourished by prayer and church worship into areas of their paid and voluntary work.
The story of this parish is a story of giving generously. The vocations to ordained and lay trained ministry are there because there is a culture of prayer and giving.
But we do need money.
How much should we give? Sensitive, private,
Church of England official guideline for giving is 5% of income after tax (plus 5% for other charities) – for every £10,000 of gross income 5% of income after tax is about £30 per month
From the rectory we give by monthly standing order. It is so much easier for us. Two years ago when we took on a mortgage, we reduced our giving a bit, now it is time to start putting it up again.
Let us try to make our financial giving as effective as possible through Gift Aid (if you pay tax) and by standing order. If you are a UK tax payer, the Gift Aid scheme means that for every pound that you give, the church gets an extra 28 pence from the Inland Revenue.
At the back of the booklet is a pledge form. Please use it, to say whether 'staying the same', 'reducing', 'increasing', 'joining'. Out of about 600 households worshipping at our churches, only 369 are in planned giving. Think what the church could do if more people join in together.
We will feed back information to you about this stewardship programme, thinking bigger. We can only do that if you return the pledges.
As another part of our stewardship renewal, we are also launching a Parish Visit programme. Over the next two years volunteers from our churches plan to visit each household on the electoral roll.
Our aims are to give people more information about the church: what it offers and how it works; to show our appreciation for the contribution people make; and to encourage people to review their involvement, express their views and engage more closely.
Please make our visitors welcome.
The booklet begins with another piece of writing by St Paul to one of the churches he ministered to in Colossae:
In Christ, God gives us gifts beyond our imagining, let us in thankfulness and humility respond with real generosity,
“and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”.
Rev'd Christopher Futcher
25th June 2006
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