
Now that the dust has settled, we wanted to report further on the Gift Days in September 2021.
As Sanjay said in a previous blog, "through September, we spent four weeks looking together at money! We walked with Jesus towards Jerusalem, looking at four stories about money in Luke 19-21. We considered our attitude in giving, the aim of our giving, the amount we give, and what God does when we use our money for His Kingdom. …
Gloriously, we also saw God provide financially, as we invited you to participate in three gift days. God provided more than we asked or imagined, so we will be going ahead with the increases in staff time as planned, investing in our four development goals."
Since then our finance team have been busy liaising with people who made pledges, helping people setup Gift Aid (adding up to 25% to the value of their donations!), checking the bank account for unexpected income and reaching out to people who asked for help with budgeting. It will take a little while yet to fully to distinguish one-off offering gifts, new tithing and increased tithing, but early indications are AMAZINGLY encouraging!
• Our faith target for the 3 Gift Days: £35,000
• One-off gifts already received: £55,000
• One-off gifts awaited: £14,000
• Gift Aid: £3,000 plus £9,000 more if the donors are willing for us to claim
So that's a possible total of £81,000, with £55,000 already in our bank account. Wow!
As elders, we're incredibly grateful to God for his provision, and you - His people - for obedient giving as he has directed each of us. That obedience to the leading of God is even more important than the money! And we take it as a huge vote of confidence in the 'Future Focus' vision God has led us into together.
This generous provision exceeds our immediate aspirations to support 'Future Focus' development.
We have taken steps already to tune-in on the 'sound in the city' Future Focus initiative, contracting a project manager for a launch event that will serve Christians across the whole city, in Spring 2022. You'll hear more about this as we start our next Sunday series from 14 November. We are also stepping up our preparation to engage with city partners in exploring the redevelopment of Osney Mead, where The King's Centre is located.
We'll say more about church finances at a Church Family Meeting in January 2022. Look out for details in the weekly bulletin.
For more about how OCC finances work (for example, what a "faith gap" is) then you may like to read this blog from 2018.