Amazing Gift Day!

As part of our move to Two Services we have just had a gift day towards redeveloping our main hall. This will radically reduce the set up/set down time on Sundays, and improve the way we can host people.

We set a target of £30,000 to redevelop the main hall. This includes new PA / lighting / projection / staging equipment, painting and carpets. The trustees had already set aside £4000 towards this total.

Drum roll please...

Gifts on the day were £28,625.80

We had agreed to give 10% of what was given on the day to Newfrontiers for Church Planting and Social Action around the world. This came to £2,862.58, and will be given to the offering at the Brighton Conference.

We are able to claim Gift Aid back on gifts which totals £7,189.49

When we add the money already set aside at £4,000.00

We are left with an amazing total of £36,952.71, which continues to grow as more gifts come in, and we have been able to give away nearly £3,000 to bless others.

I am absolutely overwhelmed by the response within the Church.

As a nation we are in the middle of a difficult time financially and just twelve months ago we had another massive gift day which raised over £70,000 to pay off the mortgage on our building.

Scanning back at our sermons, and we have only preached directly on the theme of money or God's provision five times since October 2007, and of those only one was about giving to the Church while the others were following the books of the bible we were covering, except for a one off about the financial crisis which was a response to the big news at the time.

8th June 2008 - Martin Charlesworth - Our Resources
July 20th 2008 - David Matthias - Feeding the 5000
19th October 2008 - Martin Charlesworth - The financial crisis
2009 May 3rd - David Matthias - Giving to the Needy
2009 May 31st- Phil Whittall - Treasures in Heaven

That encourages me, because we do not teach prosperity we teach simplicity. We don't force tithing we teach generosity. We don't bang on about money all the time, in fact, we rarely mention it except when scripture does. God continues to bless us as a Church with financial provision and a loyal community of generous givers continues to excel in the grace of giving. I think the Apostle Paul would have been pleased.