Welcome back for part 2 of the sermon that began last week! If you missed part 1, you will be able to find it in next month’s magazine or on the website. If you were here you will remember that I was talking about the urgent need for us to review our giving within the parish – that this is crucial in order both for us to meet our current regular expenditure and to plan strategically for our future as a parish. And that the PCC has decided to contact everyone who has a worshipping connection with us, to ask each of them to reconsider his/her giving.
You will be pleased to hear, as I was, that – maybe as a result of last week’s sermon (who knows?) - that last Sunday’s plate collection was up on its normal level. If only that were enough! But sadly, it isn’t. The review of our giving needs to be radical: a word which means ‘going back to our roots.’ So what are the roots – where do we begin? We begin where I left off last week, when I said that money is a spiritual matter – we begin with God.
Why should we give?
Every Sunday at the Eucharist, as we offer money, together with bread and wine at the Altar, we remind ourselves that
‘All things come from God,
and of his own have we given him.’
These words are taken from the first book of Chronicles – from the story told there about all that David gave for the building of the Temple. King David was an immensely wealthy man, and he had provided – largely out of his own resources – vast amounts of building materials, precious metals and stones for the house of God. But in so doing, he made the important point that he himself was only a steward of these good things. In the first case, they came from God himself – who as our creator, is the giver of everything we have. David had been entrusted with them and, in giving them for the building of the Temple, he was in fact giving back to God what was God’s in the first place.
This is the first important principle behind Christian giving: that all that we have is God’s, and that when we give to God, we are in fact giving back to him what is really his. But the link between this principle and putting it into practice is more difficult. As human beings who value our independence, we like to hang on to what we think of as our own. But as baptised Christians – God is (or should be) the centre of our life. Every bit of us belongs to God – our work, our leisure, our gifts, our time, and our money.
And so we give to God because he first gave to us.
But there is another reason why we give to God. And that is that giving is a way of saying ‘thank you’ to God. Being thankful is a matter of good manners – but it’s much more than that. Giving springs from an attitude of a grateful heart – from an awareness of how much God has given us. It’s very easy simply to take God’s gifts and blessings for granted. When did you – when did I – last sit down and think clearly about what God has done for us? It’s a good exercise to do. And our giving to God for the work of his church is a token of that thankfulness – a response of giving on our part to the one who gives us so much.
We give to God because he first gave to us – and we give as a way of saying ‘thank you.’
How should we give?
As a priority.
As Christians, our first responsibility is to God. We are, as Jesus put it, to ‘love the Lord our God, and our neighbour as ourself’. Our first duty in everything is always to God – and giving is no exception.
We reflect this priority in the way we organise our finances in the parish. Because the first 10% of all that comes in as planned giving and plate collections we give away to support the work of building God’s kingdom through the work of our monthly charities. That means that this money – this 10% - is not there for ourselves – to spend on parish projects or on running expenses.
Sacrificially
Our 10% giving to charity is a given factor written into our budgeting, but it's also a principle which costs us – it’s sacrificial. There are times when I’m sure it would be tempting for the Treasurer or PCC to say, ‘Oh, let’s cut our charity giving this month. We’ve got a heavy heating bill. But we don’t and we can’t – we've committed ourselves to give sacrificially. The first amount (10% in this instance) belongs to God and is not negotiable. For us as individuals, too, there will be times when to give to God will involve sacrifice. We are all familiar with the story of the widow’s mite. The woman put all she had into the temple treasury, while the well-heeled gave just a respectable proportion of their income.
Practically
So, we should give as a priority, and sacrificially.
But we should also be practical in our giving. This cashes out in two ways. First, we need to be organised about our giving: decide what we are going to give and then make sure we stick to it. This is where envelope schemes and banker’s orders are so helpful. They keep us up to the mark. There are a good many people who already give in an organised way in this parish – and that's good – but I'm sure that there are still more who could. Money in the plate is OK as far as it goes, but planned giving means that the treasurer can know what is going to come in and can budget accordingly.
The second way we can be practical about our giving is that we can make our donations through Gift Aid. Gift Aid is the Government’s scheme which allows taxpayers to make gifts to charity, and the charities to reclaim the tax which the giver has paid on that money. To the church this is worth an amazing 28p on every pound given. Or in other words, every gift of £100 gift aided is worth £128 to the PCC. It’s very easy to do this. All it needs is one simple form to sign, and the church Gift Aid officer – that’s Trevor Weedon – does the rest.
Again, there are some people who do this already. Last year we were able to reclaim £9000 from the Inland Revenue on Gift Aid - but more of us could still join the scheme and the church will benefit.
Realistically
So, we should be practical about our giving. But we should also be realistic.
There’s an idea around that Christian stewardship is about much more than money, and of course, that’s right. In giving to God, we are giving our whole selves: what we are as well as what we have – and there is much to be said for committing our time and our talents to God and his work. But the fact is, we live in the real world – and the church needs money both to survive and to move forward in its mission.
When we give to the Church, we need to do so with a clear understanding of the financial needs of the parish. As I said last week, the C of E no longer has significant historic reserves from which to pay the cost of ministry. The historic endowment that provides money for the Vicar’s stipend in Godmanchester – what’s called the benefice income – is just £430pa! The rest comes from us.
It’s always a salutary exercise to work out exactly how much it does cost just to sustain the ministry of the parish at its present level. Currently that figure is between £1400 and £1500 a week - and that is just to ‘keep the show on the road’ – there’s no allowance there for development or growth, or projects for mission or for any work on the fabric of our buildings. We all need to be realistically aware of the facts, so that our giving is realistically tailored to the church's needs.
Sometimes people ask me ‘Where does it all go?’ Well, nearly £45,000 a year is paid - as our Parish Share -into the Diocesan fund - and that comes back to us in a variety of ways. (In fact we get out of this pot rather more than we put in.) For that we get a Vicar, a Vicarage, the Vicarage maintained; a full-time stipendiary curate, a curate's house and the curate's house maintained; as well as the skills and support of all the Diocesan structures and personnel. Then on top of that are our own administrative costs: the Parish Office, Clergy working expenses, and so on. And a significant amount goes towards heating, lighting and insuring this church building.
This all costs us a lot more than it used to. But has our giving kept pace? No it hasn't. We are in serious need of overhaul.
How much should we give?
So our giving must be realistic. But how much should you - should I - give? Well I can’t tell you! Nor should I try – because the amount of a person’s giving is something between them and God. But it is something that is between us and God – in other words God is part of the process of decision. As I said last week, money is a spiritual matter, and our giving to the work of God's Church is part of Christian discipleship. Hence it is a matter for serious thought and prayer - and something that each of us should be thinking and praying about.
But what about guidelines - are there any useful ones around? There are. Some Christians follow the pattern set out in the Old Testament in which God's people counted the first 10% of everything they had as belonging to God. (This is the principle the PCC uses when it gives to our monthly charities.) The Church of England recognises that many people might wish to support a range of charities, and recommends that, as part of the bigger picture of charitable giving, a reasonable guide for church giving is 5% of a person's disposable income.
Percentages are helpful, because if someone is on a low income, the sum is realistic. It is equally realistic for someone on a higher income. What counts as disposable income is something that each of us needs to work out for ourselves. But using this sort of guide is good because it makes us keep in mind that our giving to God is something that we do first - that has priority within our budgeting.
Conclusion
As I said last week, over the next couple of months, the PCC is going to be contacting everyone who worships with us to put the challenge of giving before us all.
I end with some thoughts from today's Gospel. The story of the miraculous catch of fish illustrates what can happen when we follow Our Lord’s instructions. The disciples had, as Simon Peter reminded Jesus, 'worked all night long, but had caught nothing.' Yet, when they did as Jesus told them, they caught so many fish that their nets were about to break. As with all the miracles, this is not a case of Jesus waving a magic wand, but an indication of what can happen when we trust him and do as he says. The crucial element is that relationship of trust between Jesus and the disciples. They had tried doing their fishing as a purely human enterprise - with disappointing results. But once they started from the place of their relationship with Jesus, things changed.
There is a clear parallel here for the church as it seeks to balance its books and finance its mission. We can very easily run the Church as a human institution – if we do (like the disciples), we shall ultimately end up nowhere (with a nil catch of fish) - and, as the statisticians tell us, extinction will be inevitable. But the Church is not a human institution. It's a divine institution that exits - or should exist - because of the relationship between its members and Jesus Christ. If we run it in this way - and this means seeing our finances as just as much a matter of faith as any other part of our church life - then there is no limit to what God can do through us.
Christian giving poses hard questions for all of us. But answer them we must.
I end on a light note, with a true story that I've told before. In a parish – a long way from here you understand(!) – the PCC decided that it was high time the parish reviewed its giving. A brochure was written, and distributed to the congregation and sermons were preached. But the climax came at the end of the morning service, when the Vicar unveiled the parish stewardship: “I upped my pledge – Up Yours!”
I'm not suggesting we adopt this slogan - only that we change our habits and review our giving before it is too late.
Amen