Autumn Gift Days & our General Giving Update

Hello!

We’re well into our Autumn Term now: small groups are up and running; our “Next of Kin” relationship series has moved from the core skills onto some specifics on Marriage – Parenting – Singleness and Divorce; my cycle home is probably going to need bike lights next week(!) - and in the office, we’re switching from starting up the term, to thinking seriously about Christmas!

Yes, we mentioned it. Much more on Kerith’s Christmas plans from Beccy shortly – but at this stage, just a reminder to save the date for Sunday 11th December (4-7pm) for this year’s Christmas Carols Experience. This will be our main inviting event and serving opportunity in the season. For now, make a note in your diaries to be available and start to ask the Holy Spirit who to invite as you pray.

What else is going on…?

As well as being here on Sundays, we have welcomed back dear Pelumi (Bracknell Site Pastor for whom Beccy and I are currently covering) into the community of the Kerith Office Team. As part of his compassionate return to work, Pelumi is based with the Experience Team, headed by Ben Pocock, who are the folks crafting our meetings for adults, our social media & website. Pelumi is already putting his considerable design skills to great use and taking each day at a time. It is tough, as I’m sure you’ll understand. He is going step by step and doing a lot of very helpful things as he follows Jesus faithfully in grief with amazing support all around him. He is so grateful for your prayers and messages. Please continue to pray for him and the entire family.

OK, onto our Giving now. We’ve got Gift Days coming up for special projects, and an update on our regular giving, too.
(You can always find out more about any of these things mentioned via our Giving Page on our website, by the way)

GIFT DAYS - 30th October and 6th November

We have a wonderful history of God’s provision and generosity to us as a church and in participating in his plans through our own giving. Twice a year (or so) we highlight specific funds that we can give to as a community, in order to make a huge difference together on a particular issue or project. Whilst you can give to any fund at any time online, on these Sundays we’ll be especially highlighting two new funds and any money given physically on those weeks, unless otherwise specified, will be split evenly 50/50 between them. They are:

- Cost of Living Fund - NEW!

This is to boost our ability to support people with financial help they need in the coming season – think of all the usual household costs that are becoming a challenge for folks. The signs of need are there. Foodbank demand has doubled over the Summer vs last year. Energy bills are rising from the start of October.

We want to be able to provide support for needs that arise within the church across all our sites as they become known to us through small groups, pastoral care teams and through other routes. The pastoral team will administrate and govern its use and have (with donors permission) already rolled over any remaining Covid Response funds to seed this new fund already. We also want to use this fund with our Revive Social Justice ministries to be a blessing to our wider community.

For both groups, we want to give them a launch amount they can use to make a real difference. For more on making a difference in our Cost of Living crisis, read our Senior Pastor, Simon Benham’s blog about it here.

- Bracknell Building Fund – NEW!

Recently we’ve been raising money for Farnborough and Windsor’s building funds – and you can still give to those at any time. (We give away 10% of all that’s raised into our Building Funds, too, by the way). However, it’s been a while since we have specifically raised money to help us make larger improvements and updates on our Bracknell site. It’s early days, but we have a couple of big projects in mind already, that could easily total £75,000+ once we’ve finalised quotes. We want to start giving towards those this term, too:

• Firstly, with our focus Creation Care, it really is time to change the lights in our auditorium. We’ve wanted to do this for years for a host of other reasons (so we can control them from the tech desk; so they’re dimmable, not just off or on; so they turn on immediately, not after a five-minute warm-up; so they’re brighter to see one another and a warmer colour for reading etc.) but couldn’t quite justify the price tag we once received (£25,000)! Add to all those reasons the need to replace energy-hungry old bulbs with much kinder, modern LEDs and this project has jumped right up the list. It’s beyond our usual maintenance budgets, so - just like a home-improvement scheme - it’ll take a bit of extra money from us all to achieve. The good news is, once done, we’ll start to save some money on their running costs, too.

• Secondly, we know elements of our sound system need replacing (anyone notice the microphone drop out on us on Sunday just gone?). Our mics and a load of hidden but vital equipment that process the sounds and amplify them for our benefit are at the end of their life and in need of replacing. We rely on quality, working sounds equipment to participate fully on Sundays, online and in the auditorium for many other groups and activities. We estimate this will cost us £50,000 to achieve and detailed quotes are being sought already.

• Our Creation Care project team are identifying a number of projects we could tackle around our buildings. We don’t have specifics on these this term, but we do know that any additional monies raised could start to seed those future projects, too. Replacing old bulbs with LEDs doesn’t only make a difference in the auditorium, for example!

Our role in following Jesus with these opportunities is to ask him what he has in mind for us to give. As you do, listen for what the Holy Spirit is prompting you, have a conversation about that with anyone you share the household finances with, and agree what to give. You might be able to give enough to change one light bulb, or replace a whole row. You may be able to pay for someone’s groceries this week, or you may be able to cover them for the month. We can only give out of what God has already given us, so there is no pressure whatsoever. Just ask, listen, come to agreement and do it! If we do, we’ll have more than enough!

General Giving Update

We had so much to say on Sunday, we didn’t have time to update you on September’s giving details. Here are the stats for the whole of Kerith (Bracknell, Windsor, Farnborough and the Isle of Wight) for the month. You can see that for September, our giving was almost exactly what we budgeted it to be - that’s amazing!

Then if we look at the Total Giving since January in 2022, you can see that we’re ahead of where we thought we’d be by this stage - by a significant amount - £46,926. This is such an answer to prayer and an encouragement to us that we can continue investing in what we sense God is doing across our four sites. For example, in Windsor, we’re delighted to have Leon Johnson, our Site Pastor there, fulltime with us since the beginning of October.

Does this mean Kerith has loads of spare money? Good question! The short answer is “No!” Remember, this is our giving vs the budget for this year. The budget was just what we planned and expected. You may remember, we expected to lose money this year, as we continue to emerge from the pandemic. We now think the amazing giving we’ve seen this year may well see us break even by the end of December instead. That in itself will be a wonder of God’s provision to us - and well worth celebrating!

Thank you to everyone who gives as part of Kerith. It’s a privilege to be part of such a generous community.

September’s Finance Update