Save Your Church Money

Did that get your attention?

The Church of England spends over £200million a year on operating costs - electricity, gas, oil, printing paper...the list is endless. Parishes usually struggle to find the best deal they can but we are all doing it separately. In these demanding financial times, the National Procurement Officer has done some work to find out just what parishes in the 42 dioceses are spending money on regularly and to facilitate some joined up negotiating for favourable deals from approved suppliers. The result? An online parish buying service which will be launched on 30th January 2012. It's so obvious we will all be asking, 'Why didn't we do this sooner?' Visit the site now and find out how your church can steward its resources more effectively. Make sure you tell your church treasurer!

http://www.parishbuying.org.uk/ 

Ordering through this site may save you time as well as money. The categories of product covered initially will be energy, office products, photocopying, IT soft ware and fire safety. There are also some helpful 'buying guidelines' if parishes would prefer to source things themselves, locally. A big thank you to Russell Stables, the National Procurement Officer, and his team.

And  you will see on the website, in 2012 there will be training sessions 

• 20 Ways to Save your Parish Money
• Cost Control Training for Parishes Embarking on Major Capital Projects.

Motivation and Ambition in Business

It is crucial to affirm the positive role of business in God's purposes and to think about the application of Christian faith and values in business' The Revd Dr Richard Higginson

The Diocese of Ripon and Leeds has been undertaking an exercise called 'Ambition for Mission' through which we hope to research and discover more about what makes churches grow and become more effective in their mission, their ability to encourage true discipleship and their ability to get into partnership with community and business organisations in their own locality. My eye was caught by the details of a conference at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, run by the Faith in Business Initiative, which clearly has something to say in this area. The organizers comment that the level of debate about the economic issues underlying the present, perceived national and international financial crisis has been disappointingly low. (This statement is borne out in the remarks of the Archbishop of Canterbury, today, in the Times where he criticises just about everybody from all sides of the debate for over-simplifying the causes of the current financial difficulties.) The aim of the conference is to explore the question of how faith impinges on motivation and ambition. Speakers include

Beverley Shepherd, a mamgement training consultant
Andrew Tunswell, CEO ToughStuff
Graham Codrington, founder TomorrowToday
Jim Wright, consultant Soterio
Harald Holt, chair Noroff AS
Richard Higginson, Director Faith in Business

Topics cover Adventuring with God, Running a Social Enterprise, Motivational Differences, Big Business and the Kingdom of God, Success and Signifiance, Motivation in China.

I have attended some of these Faith in Business conferences myself and the great thing is that I have always come away having met one or two truly inspirational people who have then gone on to affect my life or the life of the churches and organisations I work for in significant ways. I know Cambridge is the deepest south, but it just could be worth the journey...!!!  'A rich diet of inspiring talk and candid sharing lies in store for you. Attending this conference could be a life changing experience.'

If you are in business, are a church or community leader or an entrepreneur, if you care about the ethics behind business and the financial community or the pastoral care of those who work in the financial sector, this could be for you. The conference is at Ridley Hall in Cambridge from 30th March - 1st April (honest!) 2012. Cost £265 or £240 for early bookers.

To book using the secure online system go to

http://www.faith-in-business.org/programme.html

Generosity Reviewed

I've just posted, on my Publications page, the details for how to get hold of the latest Church of England report on Giving (it used to be called stewardship in the old days!) I was part of the group that wrote it, so I suppose you could say I have a vested interest in its uptake. I hope that the really useful thing about it is that, although it originated as a report to General Synod, it comes along with booklets and other material for parishes to download (free of charge!) to help them think about budgeting, giving programmes, stewardship campaigns, communication, preaching and teaching about giving and much more. I really hope that churches will at least have a look at the 18 page booklet Encouraging Generosity in Your Parish. On pages 7 and 8, there is a checklist of 8 things to do. Research shows that churches which are doing all 8 things are growing financially (and often in other ways, too!)

This post comes with apologies to those of you who have no interest whatsoever in Church of England finances! If you have not already moved on to another article, I am sure you can appreciate that helping churches think about their finances is an important part of what an archdeacon does and that we do rely on some hopefully well thought out principles to help us in our quest to generate both income and contribututions to other projects and organizations. Many churches try to give 10% of their income to support other agencies.

The undergirding theology of Giving for Life is that all our giving is a thankful response to God's overwhelming generosity in creation, redemption and the gift of the Spirit and that all Christians are invited and called upon to give so that the values of God's kingdom can be seen at work in the world as well as in the churches. This includes giving to organisations and projects that bring life in so many ways - through justice, healing, agriculture, education, care, service, hospitality, ecological concern. It also includes giving so that the work of the Christian churches and in particular, if we count ourselves Anglicans, the Church of England, can go on. Almost all the finance that supports ministry in the Church of England is directly given by church members through parish share. Research undertaken in 2007 shows that, while UK givers are generous, (average £203 per annum) Church of England givers donate to charity twice the national average per annum. The percentage of household income given by church members has increased from 2.8% to 3.2% over the past ten years. The ideal held out in a ten year old report First to the Lord, was 5%. The new report asks all church members, in this time of recession and financial uncertainty, to consider their giving. It recognises that people give to all sorts of things besides the church - hence, the title 'Giving for Life', which encapsulates the two thoughts that we give throughout our lives and we give so that true life and health can be experienced in as many places as possible. The report also suggests that giving is prayerful, prioritised, planned, sacrificial, communal and joyful! 

Giving can be fun! I was recently talking to an 83 year old man who told me how he had been taught by fellow Christians at university to give away a proportion of his income each year. He had maintained this discipline throughout his life, even though he had sometimes struggled. Now, in his ninth decade, he looked back with great pleasure on all the interests, friendships and opportunities his giving had brought into his life. Infact, he felt that he had gained more than he had given. There's something strange about the economics of God's kingdom, isn't there? The more you give away, the more you receive. So many of Jesus' parables tell us that, and challenge us to act on it! 

Questions of Credit

I suppose I've always had a nagging fear of so called chip and PIN banking - or at least questions about how safe it actually is. Computer scientists at Cambridge University have recently shown how easy it is to make withdrawals from an account without knowing the account holder's PIN. There's quite a row going on between the UK Cards Association (representing leading banks) and the University over the publication, on the net, of details (in a PhD thesis)describing how chip and PIN systems can be breached.

Now what would be the most likely response of the banks to this? Could we not be forgiven for expecting it to be something like, 'We are taking immediate steps to overcome these glitches and rectify the problems they cause our customers?' Perhaps accompanied by a campaign to restore confidence in their services by giving some proof of the urgent and serious nature of the work being undertaken to put things on a safer footing? Well, no, it seems that the main plank of their response is to accuse Cambridge University of recklessness in disclosing too much information. This sounds perilously close to an attempt at cover up and really does nothing for my already shakey trust in the banking system! Professor Ross Anderson, a leading researcher from the Univeristy's Computer Lab, summed it up well, for me. 'Cambridge is the university of Erasmus, Newton and Darwin. Censoring writings that offend the powerful is offensive to our deepest values,' he said. 'What will support confidence in the payment system is evidence that the banks are free and honest in admitting weaknesses when they are exposed and diligent in affecting the necessary remedies.'

I have never had much trust in credit transactions and attempt to avoid them whenever possible. However you organise the management of your money, there is risk involved. But the idea that the banks are not giving us an accurate picture of what that risk involves (again) is disturbing. If I am going to take risks with my money, I would prefer to invest in something that, on the way, might produce social and spiritual capital rather than large profits for organisations that dissemble.