Sermons on Christian Giving

What Can We Do?

What Can I Do?

What Should I Give?

How Can I Give?

An Exciting Time

This is an exciting time in our Parish. By early 2011 both our Church sites will have been transformed by new building work. To help us fulfil our mission, we are making some big investments:

• The new FleetParish Community Centre at All Saints (£400,000).
• The new meeting space and facilities at Ss Philip & James (£170,000)

These state-of-the-art facilities will provide us with wonderful new opportunities for fresh and exciting church activities, and outreach activities connecting us more meaningfully with our surrounding community, thereby allowing us to fulfil our parish mission statement more fully. You can see more on the work on building our vision here.

How are we paying for them?

We are fortunate and privileged to have the resources to pay for this work; resources that came partly from generous legacies from deceased parishioners and partly from the sale of Fernhurst. However, by the time this investment in ourfutureis finished we will have spent most of our savings. This creates a potential problem for us.

What is the problem?

For many years, we have been dipping into our savings to fund our day-to-day needs. This is because our regular income (which mainly comes from Planned Giving) has not been sufficient to pay our regular bills. The unavoidable annual gap between our income and expenditure has grown and will be in excess of £50,000 by the end of this year. This cannot continue and it is essential that our regular income and expenditure is brought into balance during 2011.

What can we do about it?

We already have tight controls on regular budgets and costs. Closing the gap through cost reductions would require drastic steps such as losing one of our stipendiary clergy or closing one of our churches. Either of these possibilities would put ourfuture plans and present activities at risk. Clearly, therefore, neither option is desirable.
Our only remaining option is to increase our monthly income and this requires a two pronged approach. Firstly, we need all existing members of our parish to review their current giving to the Church. Secondly, we need to ensure that our congregations continue to grow with new Christians – so our outreach work is vital.

What Can I Do?... Read On..