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Resources
Welcome to the
‘resources’ section of this website. Here you will find
information on
'Eager to Give: Keeping Stewardship
in the Picture'
As part of a stewardship initiative, C&R has produced an
information pack on stewardship called 'Eager to Give?
Keeping Stewardship in the Picture' which aims to help parishes
tackle stewardship issues. Two copies of the Eager to Give?
packs have been sent to all parishes in the Diocese, one to the
incumbent and one to the treasurer.
The Eager to Give? pack was promoted through a series of
roadshows in April 2008, one in each Archdeaconry
The Eager to Give? pack included:
 ‘NOT
JUST WHEN
WE'RE BROKE... A guide to on-going stewardship in
our parishes'. A booklet which aims to help each and every
parish to think about stewardship issues as an integral part of
God’s mission in the life of the parish.
 'KEEPING
STEWARDSHIP IN THE PICTURE... Preaching and teaching
on stewardship'. A booklet which aims to help those with
responsibility for teaching and preaching within the parish with
useful hints on using the Bible to bring stewardship issues to
the forefront.
'A Fairer Share'. A short film on a DVD about
where your money goes.
• Comparative giving graphs showing how the financial giving in
each parish compares to other parishes across the Diocese of
Southwark.
• A leaflet outlining how Communications & Resources can help
with stewardship in your parish.
• Some thoughts on how parishes might use the information in the
Eager to Give? pack.
• Leaflets which can be used to support a financial stewardship
campaign and which are available to buy from C&R
For more information on the Eager to Give? packs, please
contact
Wendy Robins Tel: 020 7939 9436 or
Jackie Pontin Tel: 020 7939 9461 (o) 07957 556 925 (m)
How we can help your parish
The Diocesan Stewardship Resources Officers and Director of
Communications and Resources are available to come out to your
parish. We can assist you in the following ways:
-
Talk to the
incumbent, stewardship planning committee or PCC about
stewardship and the programmes we offer
-
Plan and
implement a stewardship programme in the parish in
consultation with the PCC and incumbent
-
Preach on
stewardship matters
-
Advise on
fundraising
-
Plan a
mission day to help focus church resources
In addition, you
are welcome to make an appointment to come and visit us here at
Trinity House. We can discuss your stewardship needs, and also
have a number of leaflets and publications for you to take away.
Parish Stewardship Officers (PSO)
For a number of years, the Diocese of Southwark has
encouraged parishes to appoint someone to a stewardship role
to help in the promotion and administration of stewardship
in their church.
Ideally this role will be carried out by someone
concentrating solely on this task and the role would
include:
-
promoting
Christian stewardship and giving
-
communicating financial information in a simple
narrative form, including how giving fits with the
mission and work of the church
-
ensuring
there is an annual renewal when then congregation are
encouraged to review their giving to the church – both
financial and other forms of giving
-
ensuring
the church says “thank you” at least once a year.
Communications & Resources hold an annual meeting for parish
stewardship officers to pass on any new ideas and
information relating to stewardship and to give the Parish
Stewardship Officers an opportunity to meet each other and
to share ideas and problems.
PSO Job description
The programmes we currently offer
TRIO (The Responsibility is Ours)
A planned giving
programme which examines the current income and expenditure of
the parish
-
Informs
members of the congregation about the finances of their
church
-
Informs
members of the congregation about the Fairer Shares scheme
-
Encourages
members of the congregation to consider increasing their
giving to church
-
Encourages
members of the congregation to consider giving by gift aid
-
The main
feature is a presentation to which all the congregation is
personally invited. This normally takes place as part of the
main Sunday service
-
Does not
require specialist knowledge to run as a DIY programme
-
Facts are
presented using PowerPoint.
-
TRIO results,
on average, in a 50-60% rise in regular giving.
-
Can take as
little as six weeks from initial planning to final response
GEM (Giving Enables Ministry)
-
A longer-term
programme which examines stewardship in terms of finances,
time and talents
-
Encourages
members of the congregation to give in terms of finance,
time and talents
-
Begins with
the development of a Parish Mission Plan
-
Can follow on
from TRIO
-
Works most
successfully in a parish where there is no shortfall between
income and expenditure
-
Does not
require specialist knowledge to run as a DIY programme
-
The main
feature is a presentation to which all the congregation is
personally invited. This normally takes place as part of the
main Sunday service
-
Facts are
presented using PowerPoint.
-
Requires five
months or more to plan and run
Pass-it-on
-
A shorter and
simpler programme designed for parishes who have lots of new
members or are new to the principles of Christian
stewardship
-
Introduces
the principles of stewardship of finances, time and talents
in a simple, non-threatening way
-
Does not
require specialist knowledge to run as a DIY programme
-
Begins with
the development of a Parish Mission Plan
-
Involves the
circulation of Pass-it-on folders to the homes of church
members
-
The main
feature is a presentation to which all the congregation is
personally invited. This normally takes place as part of the
main Sunday service but may be a special ‘launch event’.
-
Takes three
to four weeks to run, but requires up to three months to
plan
Other services
we offer
-
Information
on capital fundraising, with specialist searches and
databases available for your use with the advisor in Trinity
House
-
Tailor-made
stewardship programmes where none of the advertised
programmes are suitable for your parish
-
Leaflets for
sale, including ‘Proportionate Giving’, ‘The Church is
Always Asking for Money’, Gift Aid and Legacy leaflets
-
Tailor-made
leaflets for your parish
The Cost of Our
Services
-
We do not
charge for our time.
-
If we visit a
parish to do a presentation or to preach we simply charge
travel expenses or mileage
-
TRIO, GEM and
Pass-it-on packs are available at £45, £45 and £15
respectively
-
Please ask
for the current price of our leaflets, which are sold at
cost
-
We provide
our own equipment for PowerPoint presentations at no charge
to the parish
-
A £10 rebate
is available on TRIO packs on submission of a ‘results’ form
(see pack for details)
Preaching and teaching on stewardship
To help those with responsibility for teaching and preaching
within the parish C&R has produced a booklet with useful hints
on using the Bible to bring stewardship issues to the forefront.
We hope this will help parishes reclaim stewardship – so that
stewardship is seen as more than simply a way to pay the bills!
For a copy of
this booklet, please contact Communications & Resources
Bible Passages on Stewardship
There are some well known and popular passages for preaching
on stewardship and the best known of these are:
Deuteronomy 26:1-15 – First fruits and tithes. This
describes the Israelites giving a thanksgiving offering to
God for all that they have received. How often do we thank
God for everything we have been blessed with?
1 Chronicles 29: 1-25 - David makes a personal
donation towards the building of the temple before he asks
for voluntary contributions. This makes a great model for a
PCC!
Acts 4:32-37 – Believers in Christ show themselves
to be willing to share their possessions and to make
personal sacrifices in order to help others.
Romans 15:22-29 – Paul distributes a gift of money
amongst the churches which represents hope and thanksgiving.
James 2:1-7 - Make no distinction between rich
and poor; do not judge on appearances (a good justification
for proportionate giving).
2 Corinthians 8&9 – In order to challenge the
generosity of the Corinthians, Paul uses the example of a
church in Macedonia who promised to give to the work of the
people in Jerusalem and urged Paul to accept their gift even
though they were very poor. This passage teaches us about
generosity, giving because God first gave to us (8:9),
giving proportionately (8:12) and that all we give goes to
help support God’s mission either in the parish, elsewhere
in the Diocese or the world.
Many other
stewardship passages lend themselves to preaching.
Preaching a series on stewardship
Planning a sermon series or home group programme on a
stewardship theme can be a particularly effective approach
to teaching stewardship in its widest sense.
Ideas for preaching on stewardship based on the Lectionary
readings from Matthew’s Gospel, Mark’s Gospel and Exodus are
available from the
Giving in Grace website.
Resources for small groups
We have a number of resources for small groups to work on
stewardship. Please telephone us or visit us for more
information. We can also work with your parish to produce
tailor-made small group resources. In the meantime, here is a
taster of some material:
Why
give to the Church?
What does the Bible say about giving to the community of
faith?
-
From the
earliest days comes a picture of a loving community whose
shared life reflected the generosity of the life of God
himself. (Acts 2:44 & 45) Mutual responsibility is a notable
mark of the New Testament Church — and it has clear
financial implications, which are only avoided at personal
peril. (Acts 5:1—11) Remember Annanias and Sapphira!
-
Financial
provision was made for the support of those in ministry,
just as it had been among the People of God in Old Testament
times. (1 Corinthians 9:14 see also 1 Timothy 5:17)
-
Provision was
made, too, for supporting brothers and sisters who were less
well off. (1 Corinthians 16:1 & 2)
-
We can deduce
some important Biblical guidelines from the previous
passage. Our financial giving should be:
REGULAR
“every Sunday”
UNIVERSAL “each of you”
COMMITTED “must”
PROPORTIONATE “in proportion to what you have earned”
For discussion
-
Discuss the
importance of the four aspects of the context of giving.
-
Do you agree
that the Church has been better at passing on its teaching
about God rather than the experience of God?
-
What other
aspects of the context of giving do you think are important?
-
What do you
perceive to be the difference between Teaching and
Information with regard to giving?
Making the most of legacy giving in your
parish
-
The Diocesan
Stewardship Resources Officer is available to advise you on
legacy giving and the best way of approaching this subject
with the congregation
-
We have a number
of leaflets available on this topic for sale and are happy
to send out free samples.
-
Please get in
touch if you require help with this area of Christian
Stewardship or would simply like to know more
Fairer shares and the costs of running our Diocese
Fairer Shares leaflet
Money Matters leaflet
The Diocese operates a “FAIRER
SHARES” Scheme. The cost of maintaining and supporting our
clergy in 2008 is:
£60,054 (£1,155
per week)
This cost includes stipends,
housing, assurance, pensions, etc (£899 per week), PLUS support
costs (£256 per week).
What is your Fairer Shares assessment? Using the information
above, you should be able to work out whether you are a net
receiver (i.e. you pay less than £1,155 per week) or a net giver
(i.e. you pay more than £1,155 per week). This information can
often help with stewardship campaigns. You should make the
congregation aware of these figures.
Useful websites
www.parishresources.org.uk
www.givingingrace.org
www.churchlegacy.org.uk
www.stewardship.cofe.anglican.org is no longer available but
many of the resources can be found on the above websites.
Gift Aid
Following the
Government's Review of Charity Taxation, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
announced wide-spread changes to enable giving to charities to be more
tax-effective. The biggest change was the introduction of a new Gift
Aid scheme that replaced the use of Covenants. The changes came
into effect on 6 April 2000.
Further
information and advice
Central
Gift Aid Scheme
Helping you tackle the
administration of your gift aid declarations quickly and efficiently. There are over
90 parishes in the scheme already and the numbers are growing.
Consultations
-
Advice on giving,
capital fund-raising, covenants, etc.
-
Advice on all aspects
of communications
-
Communications
workshops
-
Stewardship workshops
-
Treasurers' workshops
-
Gift
Aid Secretaries'
workshops
Publications
Leaflets and manuals on
all aspects of Christian stewardship and giving.
Contacts
Director
& Bishop's Press Officer: Wendy
S Robins
Diocesan Stewardship Resources Officer:
Jackie Pontin
Departmental Administrator:
Frances Diamond
Communications and
Resources
Trinity House
4 Chapel Court
Borough High Street
London SE1 1HW
Tel: 020-7939 9400
Fax: 020-7939 9468
E-mail: comm.res@southwark.anglican.org
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