The Diocese of Chichester | Christian Stewardship

Christian stewardship

Christian stewardship encompasses how we use all the resources God has provided for our use – our income, time & skills, homes & families, health, investment, spending etc.  Stewardship is about the 90%+ of our time and resources that we spend at work and leisure, and also the few percentage points of our life that most of us spend actively on Christian matters.   This page provides links to many of the best resources dealing with different aspects of everyday stewardship. 

 

Individual giving

The main stewardship website from the Church of England is Parish Resources, particularly the sections on Giving and Giving for Life.  These spell out best practices for individual church members:

  • Give first to the Lord
  • Give regularly (eg monthly standing orders or weekly envelopes)
  • Give a proportion of your take-home income
  • Give cheerfully and generously to others
  • If a taxpayer, give tax-effectively through Gift Aid or Payroll Giving

 

One of the best sources is the (American) Generous Giving website, with lots of tools and a library of useful articles and sermons from across the centuries and traditions.

 

Stewardship of personal finances

For a wide-ranging look at how Christians should manage their everyday finances (spending, saving, investing, insurance etc), see The Money Revolution website.  The Stewardship agency provides giving accounts for Christians and various financial and legal services for churches.  Its website has some useful guides on managing personal money, budgeting etc.  Other reliable sources are Credit Action, CMA - Community Money Advice, CAP – Christians Against Poverty, and CCCS (with a good online DebtRemedy tool). 

 

Church stewardship

Churches also need to develop good habits.  Research has shown that the most effective stewardship parishes:

  • Run annual stewardship reminder programmes
  • Appoint a parish giving officer or stewardship working party
  • Routinely teach members about the wise use of all God’s resources
  • Link members’ giving clearly to the church’s mission and ministry
  • Thank members’ for their gifts at least once a year

Download a useful Giving for Life Guide for PCC members.  

 

Congregational stewardship programmes

One of the most widely-used stewardship programmes is Giving in Grace, originally developed by Liverpool diocese.  This contains a huge range of useful resources, enough to meet the needs of most churches for several years.  Other well-known stewardship programmes using a variety of approaches include (links are to dioceses with further details):

Legacies – gifts in wills

As well as giving regularly during their lifetimes, many church members leave their church (and other Christian charities) a gift in their will.  You can find out more at the Church Legacy website.  Many churches help to promote the Will Aid campaign each autumn, where solicitors help people to write or revise their wills in exchange for a suggested donation to a group of leading charities including Christian Aid.  Another useful site about legacies is Remember A Charity. 

 

Tax-effective giving

If you are a taxpayer, the government lets you give the tax you have already paid to top up gifts to your church and other charities.  There are a number of tax-effective giving schemes, with the most common being:

 

If you have any queries about Gift Aid, there is a useful Gift Aid Help forum with advice from experts – even a section devoted to churches and faith-based charities.  HMRC provides advice on the detailed regulations in their Guidance Notes.  The key sections for most churches are Chapter 3 and Chapter 6. 

 

Church treasurers

There is lots of good advice for PCC treasurers on the Parish Resources website.  The most recent Church guidance to the Charity Act (and how this affects the PCC’s Annual  Report & Accounts) can be downloaded as a pdf.   The Charity Commission also produce lots of relevant guides for PCC members in their role as charity trustees.  ACAT – the Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers - publish a superb handbook, and keep members up-to-date through newsletters and conferences – annual membership is only £12.50.  For parishes approaching £100,000 gross income there is lots of practical help on the Charity Commission registration process.

 

Fundraising for one-off projects

Most churches need to run one-off fundraising programmes, typically for buildings-related projects or staffing.  Different aspects of fundraising are covered in the Parish Resources funding guides.  For building projects the ChurchCare website is a mine of practical resources, including details of some of the key funders.  Funds for Historic Buildings provides useful advice and details of even more secular funders.

 

FaithWorks has useful advice and details of external funding for church-based projects serving the wider community – registration is free and simple.  The Institute of Fundraising has lots of advice, including best practice guides to most forms of fundraising.  They sponsor a useful How2Fundraise site to help small local voluntary groups.  You can search the FundingCentral database of grants, and get more advice on developing business plans, making applications and project management and monitoring. 

 

Stewardship of God’s world

God’s first instruction to mankind was to carefully manage his world – see Genesis 1, 26-30.  Eco-Congregations provides useful resources for any local church.  A number of Christian organisations are concerned about the environment, including CEL – Christian Ecology Link, A Rocha UK, and Caring for God’s Acre (churchyards).  Many organisations are working on global climate change issues, like Christian Aid, CAFOD and Tearfund.

 

Many churches are committed to Fairtrade principles as part of their support not only for the Third World (eg TearCraft), but also local producers. 

 

You can download recent copies of the quarterly newsletter Stewardship Snippets for Sussex parishes.

 

The Chichester diocesan Stewardship team is Ian Clark and Jennie Davies.  You can email them using the links provided or phone them at Church House in Hove 01273 421021.