Stewardship letter 2020/21
Parish of North West Swindon and Lydiard Millicent
Stewardship Campaign 2020/21
Encourage Generous Giving
Why encourage generous giving?
Generous giving is an integral part of the discipleship of Christian believers. Giving within the Church and beyond it not only resources God’s mission in the world but also has an impact on our lifestyle. When we are generous with our money, our time, and our resources, we are fully able to bless God and bless others around us - and this is a central part of living out our faith. We want to encourage a strong culture of generosity at All Saints Church.
Aren’t people already giving generously to churches?
Many people already give very generously of their time and money. However, we can often be reluctant to address issues around money and giving in our churches. As a result, many churchgoers are simply never asked to consider their giving as part of their discipleship and are not encouraged to review their generosity regularly. In the Diocese of Bristol and All Saints Church, we want to be open and honest about this area of spiritual growth and unlock the generosity of the people of God for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
How can we encourage generous giving in our church?
What are people giving towards?
The vision of All Saints church is: Be Family, Make Disciples, Serve Others. When you give money to the church, you are helping us fulfil our vision.
Be Family:
When you give money to the church it helps us do several things: Firstly, we have to pay our quota to the Diocese which is over £60k per year. Secondly, we have the costs of maintaining a historic building, our Church, as we enable worship and mission to happen. not just at All Saints but across our Parish and Diocese. We do not stand alone. All Saints is part of the Deanery of Swindon and part of the Diocese of Bristol. The money you give can help train new clergy and lay leaders, it can help fund children’s and youth workers here and across the Diocese, and it helps us to build family and community in our Church. In all our parishes including ours, clergy stipends have to be paid and although weddings and funerals contribute, the main part of that cost is funded by the Diocese of Bristol. But we have exciting plans of how to use the money we have here in this Parish, helping to fund our work in schools, helping to provide resources for home groups, helping to fund the worldwide family of God through our overseas mission links with CMS and MAF.
Make Disciples:
All Saints is known as a church which encourages discipleship from Alpha to Freedom in Christ to Exploring Christianity (which we ran on behalf of the Diocese).
Serving Others:
The church exists to be a reflection of the Glory of God. We do this by serving one another. There are a whole variety of statutory requirements from quinquennial church inspections to paying for safeguarding courses and making sure that those who serve are equipped to do so with Diocesan and CPAS training.
What difference will our gift make to the church’s mission and ministry?
No church is funded by central funds. Everything we do at All Saints is paid for by people’s live giving. Some examples of things that have been paid for in the last 5 years are, redesigned and replaced church lighting, we did the same for the audio and visual system, the projector, the speakers, the mixing desk, and microphones. We have a church architect who we pay for advice on lighting, building upkeep and the recent roof refurbishment. We have paid for a new notice board, posters and annual Easter and Christmas publicity. We pay for our website and since the COVID19 pandemic started we have paid for online and music streaming licences and equipment to produce online services ad school collective worship.
How will we see the impact of our generosity?
As Paul in 2 Corinthians 8v7 wrote, “But since you excel in everything in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you – see that you also excel in the grace of giving.” People who have not been able to get out of their homes are particularly grateful for the online services as are others who have never accessed church before. Tudor has seen 6 people who have completed the Exploring Christianity course going on to be licenced lay readers and 4 people who have done the course from All Saints have expressed how the course has helped them in their serving of our church.
In Conclusion
There are many ways for you to give at All Saints church. Firstly, we want to thank you and celebrate your generosity of giving, as you probably know you can give through coins, notes, and cheques into our collection plate in our services. But we would much rather that you give in a planned way. You can do this through either the envelope scheme or a standing order to All Saints Church Lydiard Millicent.
What we would like you to do is to respond by completing the form below which you should return to Tina Wheeler at tina.w.asc@gmail.com advising her what PCM figure you can generously give to All Saints Church. Phone 01793 771989
Name: .…………….……………………………………………………………………………...
Address: …………………………………………………………………………………………….
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Email: …………………………………….……………………………………………………….
Mobile Phone Number: ……………………...……………………………………………………...
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I would like more details on the envelope scheme
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I would like to start a standing order to All Saints Church Lydiard Millicent
I would like to increase/decrease my giving to ………………………………………………
Or please return this form to: Tina Wheeler at Church on Sundays..