Giving for Life
Giving for Life - Encouraging Generosity in Your Parish - is the title of a new guide from the National Stewardship Committee. The Diocesan Office has ordered enough packs for every parish to be sent copies of the guide and an accompanying leaflet. Indeed they may have already arrived. Giving for Life has four key themes: generous giving is an integral part of our discipleship, that resources God's mission in the world, and has an impact on our lifestyle.
This guide has been commended by General Synod to parishes for prayerful discussion and action. Church members (including children and young people) are encouraged to live generously as disciples of Jesus Christ, joyfully giving time, skills, money and other resources to God's mission in the world.
The guide goes on to say that many church members are already giving generously and that on average they give just over 3% of income to and through the church. It also refers to the General Synod challenge to church members to assess annually there financial giving as a proportion of income, and to take as an initial target 5% of after-tax income. I've referred to both of these percentage ratios in previous articles.
In 2002/3 a survey was conducted in various deaneries and parishes. The survey was completed by over 4,000 members and provided useful information about congregational profiles, some of which I've illustrated previously. There was an optional question about the percentage of disposable income which an individual gave to their church. 3,184 members answered that question using ticks boxes corresponding with different giving percentages. The results are shown in the chart.
This shows how right the Giving for Life guide is. It points to the need for differentiated messages, commenting that church members give in different ways to their church, and think differently about how much to give. Givers might be challenged to take one more step along a journey of generosity, basing that challenge on how they give, rather than on how much they give.
Canon Don Cardy
29th September 2009
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