$86,000 behind
Thank you for your ongoing and generous support of the ministry at Christ Church St Ives. We have had a great start to the year: growing together as we study God’s Word in church and Growth Groups, serving together as new teams have been established and ministries began for the year and being on mission together through Easter, Hope Sunday and Share Life Mondays. We give thanks that God is at work in the hearts of men, women and children and bringing people to know and love him.
Our vision is to build 3000 wholehearted disciples of Jesus and we are praying that God would save many of those as new believers.
As you know, we rely almost entirely on the generosity of church members to fund the work of our church month by month. As I signalled in church in February and March, our regular giving has been slow this year and unfortunately we are now $86,000 behind. As Paul urges the Corinthians, so now let me urge each of us: let us excel in the grace of giving so that the work of the Gospel may overflow more and more.
Our monthly giving budget is $165,000 and we have averaged about $143,500 per month so far this year. So while our regular giving is tracking about the same as last year, on this year’s budget we are about $20,000 behind per month. For those who do not like numbers, here is a graph!
So what can we do? A few things.
First, all the information you need to start giving is found on our website here.
Now, you may be new to church and have not yet got into the rhythm of giving regularly, maybe you have become a Christian recently and didn’t know that church members support the church work. The Bible urges us to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us, including the money we earn. So let me encourage you to consider how you can partner financially in the work of the Gospel in and from our church. People often ask how much they should give. I usually say, start with 10% of your income and see what happens from there. But the principle for working this out is to consider how generous you can be in light of God’s eternal generosity towards us. So the 10% is not a mandated law that we must obey but a good place to start in considering what it is to be generous. Some will be able to give much more, others significantly less.
But just getting started with giving is important no matter how much you earn or how old you are. Throughout the Scriptures we read that God’s people faithfully bring their contributions and gifts to support God’s work (see 2 Chronicles 31:12 and Acts 4:32-35). If you have questions, why not raise this at Growth Group or chat to a member of the staff team.
For some church members, you will not have revised your giving in a while even though your circumstances have changed. Now would be a great time to do that. If you have any trouble making revisions to previously planned giving, please let us know. We always want to ensure that our systems are as good as they can possibly be.
Financial transparency really matters to me and the wardens so if you have any questions about money at Christ Church, current decisions or plans with money or any other matter regarding our governance, please do not hesitate to contact the Wardens (wardens@christchurch.com.au) or me (nigel@christchurch.com.au). You can also find our 2024 audited financials and 2025 budget on the AGM page of the website.
I also wanted to note at this point that our Scripture Appeal will begin in about 4 weeks time and there will be an opportunity then to give tax deductibly to that specific work.
Please be assured of my prayers for you and your financial decisions throughout this year. Thank you for your generous gifts and for your partnership in the Gospel as we seek to build 3000 wholehearted disciples of Jesus.
