As churches, it is vital that we 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 are a great way of encouraging generosity in our churches, by ring-fencing a period of time (usually two or three Sundays) in which to focus and reflect on giving. Every Giving Programme will be different, utilising what skills and resources are already in the church community and shaped to each parish’s needs and context. This is planned by a small group from the church alongside a Generous Giving Team member.

As a guide, the basic shape might be:

• Opening Sunday – This is where everything is introduced. You may also want to invite your Giving Advisor to preach.
• Include an offering in as part of your worship – There are plenty of ways to weave generosity through liturgy and music, and an offering is one of the most tangible expressions of our giving as Christian people. 
• Email – and where needed post, supporting materials – We suggest that materials include a covering letter, a leaflet about why giving is important for your church, a card to encourage prayer and means of responding. Please contact the Generous Giving team for examples of these materials.
• Encourage personal reflection – There are various ways you could do this, so that when people respond it is prayerful and fruitful. The Generous Giving Team have produced Bible Study notes for groups to support our giving from just transactional to life-long generosity and gratitude.
• Thanksgiving Sunday – This is the closing Sunday of your programme where people are encouraged to respond, and the church gives thanks and prayers over the response forms.
• Thank people – This could include an emailed card or letter, a suggested form of words and prayer within an act of worship, a fun activity such as Bible Bingo, or tea and cake over Zoom with a short talk.

To download the guide, please click here.

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. Gathering these outcomes to communicate back to your church 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 to understand how we can best support other churches going forward.

• To download a Reflection guide, please click here.

• Next Steps

Our Giving Advisors, Phil McBride and Jan Grey, are able to guide and support you through the process of planning and facilitating your programme, designing materials, and are available for preaching. To make contact with an advisor, please click here.

Traditionally, the season of Lent is a time of spiritual internal examination as we journey through the forty days, in preparation for Holy Week and Easter. Historically many Christians used this time for fasting, following the example of Jesus who fasted for forty days in the wilderness. Today, some people choose to use the season to commit to a Lenten discipline – giving something up or taking something up – as a tool to reflect on how we can better live Christ’s story and grow to become the people God creates us to be.

As generosity is the outpouring of a lived-out faith, we have a few suggestions for Lenten disciplines, which you might like to commit to during the season of Lent. We’d love to hear how you get on – do share your stories with us here!

Ideas for Living Generously Through Lent

1. Take up the 40acts challenge.

40acts, created by Stewardship, presents a different challenge each day to practice generosity in your life. This is a really creative way of doing Lent differently. Complete yearly plans are available online – find out more here.

2. Donate something every day.

Find a charity or a selection of charities which you can donate to each day throughout Lent. You could include giving supplies to a local Food Bank, or put aside clothes and toys to donate to a charity shop.

3. Commit to praying for your community.

You could commit to giving thanks for the generosity of your community each day in Lent, reflecting on the gifts of money, time, hospitality and other means. You could also prayerfully discern where God is calling you and your church to use these gifts.

4. Sign up to volunteer.

Commit to giving your time to volunteering with a charity. This could be done in person – York CVS provide details of opportunities in North Yorkshire, which you can find here. This could also be done virtually, and there are plenty of opportunities for this, such as the Crisis Text Hotline, Help from Home and Help a Hero. A selection of ideas can be found here.

5. Set aside money for mission.

In addition to your regular planned giving to your church, you could set aside an additional gift amount each day or week, in order to resource mission. You might want to have a particular ministry in mind for this, or generally to bring glory to God in a watching world.

6. Practice gratitude.

Giving springs from the attitude of a grateful heart. Gratitude is a spiritual discipline rooted in the belief that everything good that happens around us is given from God out of love for us. This discipline will help to recover a Christian theology of thanksgiving. Our giving is an expression of gratitude. Commit to giving thanks each day, either by sending a message to someone or by making a note of three things you are grateful for each day.

Click here to download the Living Generously poster.

A comprehensive guide to Lent Resources for 2024

This poster shows a variety of helpful resources, including Bible studies, songs, liturgy, and more.

Click here to download the Lent Resources poster.

Lent Bible Study

This Bible study explores the story of Lent and can be used in small groups.

 Click here to download the Lent Bible Study.

Harvest Bible Study

This Bible Study will enable small groups or individuals to reflect on God’s generous gifts to us during the season of Harvest.

Click here to download the Bible Study (pdf).

We are holding this space for the Church of England’s national Generosity Week. We will keep you informed of any updates for this exciting time of the year. It gives us all the opportunity to spend eight days collectively focusing on nurturing and encouraging generosity.

Being generous with God’s transforming gifts is key on our journey of that transformation as we seek to put mission at the centre of all that we do. In this Generosity Week, may we give time and space to inspire, encourage and celebrate how generous giving enables mission and ministry to flourish, deepen our understanding of God’s generosity towards us, and explore how we can live more generously in our daily lives.

Here are ideas and materials from previous years to inspire us, while we wait for 2024’s shiny new material and events:

Read our Generosity Stories

Sign up to the newsletter

Watch our short video series from 2022

Resource hub: 5 ways for your church to get involved

The Generous Giving Team offers ideas and resources for churches and small groups to use in their journey of generosity in Advent this year.

• Download A Eucharist to Celebrate Generosity during Advent; includes the complete liturgy from Common Worship including readings. 17 pages A4 PDF 231KB
• Download A Bible Study for Advent; suitable for groups of all sizes – about one hour long. Includes four short Bible readings. 4 pages A5 – print as landscape A4 and fold to size. PDF 882KB

The following resources are available to download as example materials, and a generous giving advisor will help you to edit these to include your church’s vision, ministries, photos and response details.

• Why Give? leaflet
• Pray, Reflect, Respond card
• Pray, Reflect, Respond card (with PGS)

This Bible Study focuses on the theme of ‘Seeking the Kingdom of God’ and recognising that we are grateful recipients of God’s blessings. This can be used individually or in small groups and is designed to last around 1 hour.

Click here to download the Bible Study (pdf).