1) Our money to pay for what we do comes from Christians giving generously.
The money we have for church life and ministry comes from three places:

•  sacrificial giving by the church family (‘congregational giving’) c.£73,000 in 2021, c.£60,000 in 2022, and is expected to fall to c.£52,000 in 2023. 

• generous giving by Christians outside the church family (‘grants’ from trusts, partner churches and former members of the church family),

• savings we have built up from giving in previous years (‘reserves’.  These have run down since local down because of essential maintenance works, and a fall in congregational giving as inflation has bitten for many of us).

 

2) We don’t receive any income from the Church of England. 
The amount we pay for our vicar’s salary, all staff housing, legal and safeguarding support means we are effectively subsidised.  (We currently pay £40,000 each year).
 

3) Our biggest regular cost is staff salaries.  

That is because God’s Kingdom grows as people are led to faith in Christ, and equipped to live and speak for Christ.  Together we can do that more as paid staff model and equip Christians to do both of those.

 

4) We would love to keep having (at least!) two paid gospel workers.

To do that – and maintain the church building – costs over £90,000/year. 
 

5) We have depended for a long time on the generosity of long-time church members (who are often older). 

One challenge in the coming years will be to replace (and, we pray, grow) that financial giving through the generosity of newer (often younger and less financially secure) members of the church family.
We have long said we wanted to be a church that looks more and more like the local communities near to the church building.  The people we are seeing become Christians and joining the church are often less financially well off or secure than older and former members of the church family.  As the church family changes, changes, numerical growth doesn’t necessarily mean we have more financial resources with which to meet the growing needs of the church family and beyond.