We don’t talk a lot about giving

We don’t talk a lot about giving and money at Christ Church St Ives. It would be fair for you to say—”everything must be fine!” or perhaps, “some big church institution must look after all that”. But neither of those things are right. In the Anglican Church here in Sydney, every individual church must fund its own gospel work. We occasionally receive government grants and sometimes there are small amounts of money that come in for special projects but this year, as with most years, more than 95% of our two million dollar budget has to be funded by us. 

Two million dollars sounds like a lot—so what do we spend money on? The vast majority of our expenses relate to staff—both wages, stipends and for our full-time ministry staff, housing. We then give 11% of all giving away to mission both inside and outside Australia. In 2022 we have concluded our support of the Rockwells, Chos, Farrs and Ridgways and continue to support the Painters, Rebekah, George Whitfield College and Chester Hill. The Mission Working Group is also working on new Mission Partners for us to support. On top of those expenses there are building maintenance and improvement costs, ministry operation costs and charges from the diocese. Some of our giving goes to support the broader plans of the Anglican Church in Sydney.

In most years giving begins slowly—this year is no different. If you look at the financial reports released for the AGM you will see that we have been able to build a buffer in our account over the last two years, for which we are thankful to God. On many occasions in the past we have relied on short-term loans and end of year appeals to balance our books. We don’t want to do that again and nor do we want to wind down our buffer in one year. So this message is an encouragement for all of us to give consideration to our 2022 giving. 

There is lots of wonderful Gospel work happening at church right now that we want to continue to support. Our two new morning services are going spectacularly well with new people coming most weeks. We have more people in Growth Groups spending time together reading the Bible and caring for each other. We are rebuilding our Mandarin ministry after two years of disconnection that has impacted Leo’s work more than most. We are continuing to build our next generation training ministry with six ministry trainees including two students from Moore College. James and Sally have just released the Care Ministry Training course. We are hoping this will transform our care of one another here and beyond. 

God is gloriously at work so let us continue as we have begun, that the work of the Gospel here and across the world may overflow more and more. We are told in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Please be assured of my prayers for you and your financial decisions.

As I say this though, I recognise that there are some who are yet to start giving to the work of the Gospel at Christ Church St Ives or not in the practice of giving regularly.  The scriptures urge us to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us and I encourage you to consider how you can partner in the work of the Gospel in and from our church. Even giving a small amount each week is both a great spiritual discipline and helpful for the work of the Gospel in and from St Ives. 

For all the options on how to give and more information you can head to our giving page. If you would like to talk about how to think about your giving, please be in touch with me or one of the Wardens.

Thanks for your partnership in the Gospel as we seek to build wholehearted disciples of Christ so we can reach further into the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

p.s. If you’re someone with regular giving Bank Transfer or Bpay giving set up you will note on the giving page that codes have changed for general giving.