One of the key elements of our renewal churches is that they will resource other local churches. St Stephen’s Church in Redditch did that when they decided to return the funding allocated to them by the national church to improve their building. This generosity will enable other renewal churches to complete their own building works.
Increased costs of building works have put pressure on budgets of all our renewal projects, and the ending of the VAT reclaim scheme has added further pressure on those churches looking to make significant changes to their buildings.
Renewal Lead at St Stephen, Fraser Oates said:
“We met together as renewal project leaders to look at the gaps in our funding and what we might do to bridge them. I was struck in that meeting by the element of faith that was needed for all our plans, and when I was out walking our dog and praying for the situation that afternoon, I had a very clear sense of God saying that he wanted me to give some of our money back.”
St Stephen’s church was facing the reality of a funding shortfall of over £1 million to be able to make the radical change that the church felt was needed. Fraser felt the lack of funding could be an opportunity to really go back to the drawing board and dream about what might be possible.
“I took the idea of returning our share of the funding to the Trustees and we spent a couple of months praying it through,” continued Fraser. “When we came back together, we unanimously felt that this was the right thing to do. It made sense of our journey and the radical faith needed for the adventure we’re on!”
The Trustees decided they would continue the improvements that there had already been some investment in – removing the pews and improving the electrics in the church. They then wrote to the Archdeacon and offered to put £400-500k back into the shared pot. A change request for the money needed to be made to the national church, but this has now been approved, and St Stephen’s generosity means that two other renewal churches could afford to make the changes they needed. A fundraiser is also in the process of being recruited to look for other sources of funding.
“We’ll be grateful for the support of the fundraiser when they are in post, but we also feel like we’re starting to inhabit the building as it is and work with that,” said Fraser. “We are already achieving so many of our targets and there are lots of exciting things happening despite the unsuitability of our building. It has always been my experience that God can do wonderful things without the resources we often rely on and I’m confident that will continue to be the case!”
Andrew Sillis, Vicar of St Thomas’, Stourbridge, one of the renewal churches which benefitted from St Stephen’s generosity said:
"We’re astounded and humbled by the prayerful faithfulness of our brothers and sisters at St Stephen’s Church. Their obedience to the Holy Spirit’s direction is a powerful affirmation of our shared calling to serve God’s Kingdom, and honours God’s wisdom in founding a church which is enriched by its diversity. St Stephen’s generosity has greatly reduced the amount of additional fundraising that will be necessary at St Thomas and will enable our own renewal plans to be brought forward by over a year.”
