Vision Fund Gift Days

Greetings from the 100 degree heat in Lusaka, Zambia! I want to warn you in advance that this is quite a long blog, but if you can please make the time to read it all the way through to the end :)

On November the 5th and the 12th we’re going to be having the next offerings for our vision fund - can I encourage you to be thinking and praying about what God would have you give.

We launched the vision fund last September with the goal of allowing us to develop our Bracknell, Sandhurst and Windsor sites. To date we’ve raised over £300,000, which has allowed us to do the following:

In Bracknell we’ve been able to:

• Pay off the mortgage on the house behind K2, which this time last year stood at over £170,000.
• Make an offer on some additional land around K2 - we hope to complete the purchase of this in the next few weeks using money from the vision fund to pay for it.
• Draw up plans for a redevelopment of K2 which should give us the facilities we think need on the Bracknell site for the next 10 to 15 years. We’ll be in a position to share these plans early in the New Year.

In Sandhurst we’ve been able to:

• Draw up plans for a potential permanent home for Kerith Sandhurst. This is in partnership with another organisation. Please be praying for this as in the next few weeks we should know whether this is a door God is going to open, or whether we need to be looking elsewhere for a permanent home for Sandhurst. I’ll hopefully be in a position to share more on this soon.
• Invest in making our Sandhurst Sunday venue simpler to set up and tear down including acquiring a large storage container and buying flight cases to move all the equipment around. 

In Windsor we’ve been able to:

• Agree a deal to hire the Gospel Hall in Dedworth for the next three years, giving us a midweek home for Kerith Windsor.
• Refurbish the Gospel Hall, including redecorating, putting in a new carpet and buying new furniture.
• Buy the equipment required to start meeting on a Sunday in Windsor, including our own portable PA, signage and toys for the kids work.

We’ve also bought a van to allow us to more easily equipment between the sites. It’s silver and covered in Kerith logos - you can’t miss it!

In addition to all that we’ve also tithed on the money that came in, allowing us to give away £21,000 to churches in Albania and Estonia, give to the Partingtons in Bolivia and support a number of local projects. There is still another £9,000 of tithe which we’re in the process of giving away. 

I think that’s an amazing amount of progress to have made in a year. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has given in the last year, making all of this possible. 

So what next? Well by buying land, paying off mortgages, exploring potential partnerships and drawing up plans it’s likely that some time in the near future we’ll be launching into at least one building project. We’ll also want to be in a position for Kerith Windsor to start meeting every Sunday from some time in th second half of 2018. It therefore makes sense to start accumulating funds now, even if we’re not exactly sure what they’re for or what how much we’re going to need. 

I’ve recently met with leaders of two different churches which both want to embark on building projects. Over the last few years one has built up a fund of over a million pounds, and the other has accumulated nothing, even though they knew what was likely to be coming. You can guess which church is better placed to move ahead quickly. I would love us to be in the former situation, so want to encourage all of us to be praying about what we should give.

We’re going to have midweek vision meetings in the New Year where we hope to be in a position to talk about all the plans in much more detail. If you want to put them in your diary now they’ll be in:

• Sandhurst on Tuesday 9th January
• Bracknell on Wednesday 10th January
• Windsor Thursday 11th January

Until then please have confidence that whatever we do, all the money raised will go to helping create spaces where we help people find their way back to God. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this :)

Simon