The summer is flying away, but it has been a lovely sunny summer with enough rain to keep the plants happy most of the time.
As I begin to think about the end of the church year (end of November!) and the celebration of Christ the King on the last Sunday in November I have strangely come across a poster that advertises a Gift Day at Christ Church, Derry Hill – I don’t know when it was, there wasn’t a date on it! However, it struck me that it may be a good thing to do again. People visit the church, chat with those there, ask the vicar questions and kindly leave a donation to help the church with its work over the coming year. The donation traditionally would reflect the importance of the church to the individual.
And then it struck me that people are not at all sure what they would be giving to! So, this month and the next two editions of Inspire I will write something to tell you about the finances of the church and why a Gift Day is appropriate.
The biggest question often is ‘Why does the church need money – isn’t it well off?’ Well, the truth is the Church of England is the oldest and largest institution on this island. Yes, it has a lot of investments but it also has a large portfolio of churches and ministerial buildings to maintain. To give a few facts:
The Church of England relies heavily on income from historical endowments. It has about £900,000,000 of outgoings each year.
It has repairs and maintenance to do on 12,500 Grade 1 listed places of worship each year.
It does not generally receive government funding, but in 2012 a grant of £12,000,000 was increased to £42,000,000 to maintain the 12,500 Grade 1 listed churches.
You may have heard of the Church Commissioners who manage the Church of England funds. The church recognised that there was inequality of funding to parish ministry when the stipends of the individual priests and local ministry were met by the local wealth. All the assets that funded local stipends were gathered together under the governance of the Church
Commissioners and they distributed stipends evenly so that all ministers received the same income. The income from the assets governed by the Church Commissioners is used to fund clergy pensions, the expenses of cathedrals and the expenses of Bishops’ housing (which is often divided into private modest accommodation, and working offices). The Commissioners manage assets totalling around £3billion whilst the income from them is around £164,000,000 – a fifth of total income required.
Expenses of providing support to the parishes from the diocesan offices fall upon the individual parishes. Grants are available to help with work on some projects to develop church facilities and to maintain their character but most of the money has to be raised locally. Additionally the parishes have to share the cost of housing their ministers, church running costs and the stipends of ministers. This amount is called the parish share and goes towards the cost of providing the vicar and the support in the back offices in Salisbury (the Diocese’s Base). The contribution from Derry Hill to the Diocese is calculated as £25,000 per annum. On top of this there are running costs as well as the maintenance of the church building and churchyard, also the cost of providing ministry must be added. This results in an operating cost of £42,000 per year!
So, you can see it takes a lot of money to provide for the spiritual needs of the community, and ensure that the church is a facility available for those important occasions in life such as baptisms, weddings and funerals.
Gift Day will be on 23November from 10am – 4pm. I do hope you will come along to chat, discuss and if you feel able donate something to help ensure Christ Church’s future.
With love
Ann