Building a Generous Church guides

Generosity is at the heart of the Christian faith, and woven throughout the way that we grow in living Christ’s story. It is a gift in response to God’s generosity to us, a discipleship commitment as we seek to become more Christ-like, and the means to enable mission and ministry.

As we seek to enable our vision of generous churches, and as part of our commitment as a diocesan family to ‘transform our finances and structures’, it is important that we regularly reflect on generous giving as church communities, through Best Practice Reviews and Giving Programmes, giving space for us to ask ourselves how we can grow in generosity.

Below are the resources to help us in this journey of generosity - it can be helpful for these to be facilitated by a Generous Giving Officer, if your church would like to arrange this please click here.

Building a Generous Church: Best Practice Review

As churches, we should regularly review the way that we encourage people to live generous lives in the broadest sense, and ensure that we have accessible and safe mechanisms in place to enable people to give in a variety of ways.

We encourage all churches to follow this Best Practice Review once each year, creating a list of actions to follow up on, in addition to our recommendation of running a Giving Programme for the whole church community once every two or three years.

To download a copy of the Best Practice Review, please click here.

Giving Programmes

As we seek to enable our vision of generous churches, it is important that we regularly reflect on generous giving as church communities: intentionally putting aside periods of time in which to explore, pray and respond. We encourage all churches to preach and teach about generosity at least once each year, and run a more in-depth Giving Programme for the whole church community once every two or three years.

Every programme is unique, shaped according to your context and what you want to get out of the programme – this guide talks you through the process of planning and facilitating a Giving Programme, thinking about different elements and ways you might engage with people.

To download the guide, please click here.

Programme Reflection

In coming to the end of a giving programme, it’s helpful to reflect on the process of planning, evaluate things that went well and what you might choose to do differently in future, and gathering outcomes to communicate back to your church. Reflecting on programmes helps to discuss whether you achieved your aims, and decide how you might continue to build a culture of generosity in future. As Generous Giving Advisers, it is also really useful for us to gather ideas and examples of best practice across our diocesan family of churches, and helps us to understand how we can best support other churches going forward.

To download a reflection guide, please click here.