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Generosity Stories: Rethinking our financial resources

Date:
Mon 21st August 2023

The Revd Paul Millard (Rector of St Paul’s and St Barnabas', York) reflects on the impact of the Generous Giving Team’s visit:


My understanding is that for several years prior to my own arrival St Paul's was running at a financial deficit with income gradually decreasing monthly. Covid obviously didn't help.

The Generous Giving team came in and they initially supported us to look at our vision, which was really helpful. St Paul’s is in a partnership with St Barnabas' church, and we held a PCC joint Vision Day followed by a parish joint Vision Day, which were really useful starting points to refresh what we were thinking about and ask ourselves why we're here as churches.

St Paul’s and St Barnabas' held a Generosity week and the Generous Giving team came in again. We shared the speaking about ‘generous living’ over two Sundays. It was just such a blessing.

I had an idea of how much we’d like to have coming in as we had been (and are) praying about a change in our thinking about giving. The church communities were asked to think about giving – be it time, energy, experience and resources, and response slips were given to every member to respond prayerfully. We are excited and extremely grateful that, if everything comes in, including some pledges, there has been a huge increase, somewhere in the region of over £14,000 a year! It is absolutely wonderful and such a blessing and really what we needed to help us sort of out the deficit path we were on.

We were able to use the Generous Giving team's materials or edit them slightly and make them more our own. There was so much help offered and the talks were really well received. They weren’t like a pressured sale but gave a really helpful theological understanding of why we give in response to our generous God, in terms of how we serve, as well as giving our finances too.

So, it's been amazing a real blessing and encouragement as a church leader to see the change that the support brought.