What happens with money given to Christ Church?
We don’t talk a lot about giving and money at Christ Church St Ives and it would be fair for you to say - everything must be fine! Or perhaps, I thought that 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 $2.4m budget has to be funded by us.
Now $2.4m sounds like a lot - so what do we spend money on? Well here is a little graph that represents our 2025 budgeted expenses.
As you can see, the vast majority of our expenses relate to staff - both ministers and administrative staff. We then support our Mission Partners, have building maintenance and improvement costs, ministry operation and administration 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 and this year has been no different. We are currently $90,000 behind in our giving budget for 2025 and we are asking that everyone give consideration to increasing their giving by a third in each of the next two months. If we do that, we will bridge the gap and finish the year strongly.
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 have not had a 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 www.christchurch.com.au/give. 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 Jesus.
