Planned Giving

Why should we give to Our Church?

As followers of Jesus Christ the deal is that every area of our lives is given to God and that includes our money. The way we handle our money is vital to our growth as disciples. We are called to live as God’s very own financial money managers. God really does want to bless us in this area but so often we don’t allow him too and we have a tendency to keep hold of what we have and to actively seek to build up reserves. We only have to look at the statistics for the national lottery to realise our culture is obsessed with money.

The Biblical instruction is a 10% tithe, which means give the first 10% of your income to God. We cannot out-give God it’s an impossibility. Hear the message from Malachi: “In tithes and offerings, you are under a curse – the whole nation of you – because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it” Note the Lord says “test me in this”, nowhere else in the Bible does God invite his people to test him.

In China there was a beggar who had nothing only what he could beg. Passers-by threw grains of rice or copper coins his way. One day he heard that the Emperor was coming. His hopes were raised and he thought “The Emperor will give me more than a handful of rice or a copper coin”. When the Emperor passed the beggar asked for anything he could spare. The Emperor extended his hands and asked the beggar to give him something. Extremely disappointed and disgusted the beggar gave him three grains of rice from his bowl. The Emperor thanked the beggar and went on his way. Very disappointed and cross the beggar began to clean his rice in his bowl ready for his meal. As he did so a small glittering object attracted his attention. He saw that it was a grain of gold. He continued to search through his bowl and surprisingly he found another grain of gold. Searching now in earnest he found a third grain but no more. Then the truth dawned on him. Three grains of rice he had given to the Emperor. What a fool I was! He exclaimed regretfully. If I’d have only known, I would have given him my whole bowl of rice.

Why do we need to give to St Mary’s?

Well, because we need money to keep us going as a Church.  We need to pay for our ministry and our services.  This includes:-

• A salary and a house for Sharon as our vicar

• Providing the things we need for Sunday and other services.

• For our outward giving to the charities we support.

We are fortunate at St Mary’s in having a modern building with halls and rooms that we can hire out.  These more than pay for themselves.  From the room rents we get enough to pay to all the costs of the building heating and lighting; Insurances; repairs and maintenance; and office administration.

To help meet our costs, St Mary’s has been treated as a poor parish and is being subsidised by other parishes in the Peterborough area.   At the moment this is to the tune of over £10,000 every year.  Over the next three coming years this subsidy is going reduce significantly although it won’t disappear entirely.  This year we needed to raise over £28,000 this will increase to around £38,000 by 2010.

So we are going to have to raise more of the money for ourselves.

How much do I need to give?  Well that has to be up to each individual to decide for themselves.  We can tell you what the average members of the Church of England congregations give across the country as a whole.

• Records show that in 2004 this was £5 a week for each adult, for tax payers £8 each a week.

• In 2008 the average is anticipated to be £5.80 a week, just over £9.30 for tax payers

I think our aim at St Mary’s must be to increase our giving to that of the average congregation.

There are 3 different ways of giving or increasing your giving.

The first option is a system like direct debit which takes the money regularly from your bank account and gives it to St Mary’s via the diocese.

The advantage of this option is you don’t have to scrap around to find the correct cash and you can rest assured you are supporting your church and then forget about it!

To give this way or increase your giving all you need to do is complete The Payment Pledge and Bankers’ Order Form, available from the Church Wardens.

The second option is the Envelope scheme. You are given a set of envelopes one for each Sunday throughout the year. Each week you put a regular amount of money (or more if you have had a windfall that week) bring it to church and put on the plate. If you are a Tax payer you have to complete a very simple Gift Aid form.

The third option is the pink envelope or plate when you bring your cash to church and place it either on the plate or if you are a tax payer put it in a pink envelope and write your name, date and address on it and we can claim gift aid.

Gift Aid. If you pay tax St Mary’s can claim gift aid on all your giving. We  can claim 28% extra to the amount you give us for example if you give us £100 we actually receive £128 from you!! Well worth signing a form for!!!

Bequeathing. Remembering St Mary’s in your will – it’s not fair to leave it to your next of kin to make this decision for you – please write it in. Aid your church in its future work to all people.

Please do make a serious commitment to your church and its work for Christ and show this by your abundant generosity.