Sermon in preparation for Gift Day at St Edward’s Church. Sun 5 October. Gift Day is Sun 12 October.
Readings: 1 Kings 17: 7-16, Matthew 25 :31-40
This week and next I am going to be talking about giving and why we should give to the church, as we prepare for our gift day next Sunday. I hope these sermons will help you to think about what and how you give financially to the church, but I also encourage you to pray and seek God’s guidance. I don’t want anyone to feel guilty, I want us all to give from a place of love and generosity, and being led by the Spirit.
Giving, sharing of what we have, is a key part of Christian life. It is biblical. In the Old Testament we read of the requirement to give of the first fruits of a harvest, to God. We read of the abundance of God to those in need such as the widow who met Elijah who God gave oil in plenty to sell. Or the widow who shared her last meal with Elijah and yet God made sure her oil and flour never ran out. Jesus taught we should feed the hungry, clothe the stranger, and said ‘freely you have received, freely give’.
Giving and sharing of what we have is a biblical principle.
It is also part of being a church family. In Acts we read of the early church who shared all they had with one another. They sold their possessions to give to those in need. They were church together, praying together, worshipping together, eating together and supporting one another out of all they had.
And these principles are good, they are helpful in, life but they don’t necessarily inspire us.
So I also want us to think and pray about what we give and why. And there’s 3 things I want to touch on this morning to help us do that:
– the place of The church in the world
– The place of St Edward’s in our community
– and, our place within this church
The Church in the world – the church is Jesus’ hope for the world. I do know people who say ‘I’m a Christian but I don’t go to church’. But that’s not really how it works. We are called to gather, and worship, and pray together. We are called to be with other Christians, to live out the gospel in our communities, and you can’t do that in isolation. The Bible is full of stories of the early church, people of faith working together for the gospel, for their communities. Gathered, supporting one another, particularly looking out for the lost and least. This is how it we are supposed to work together for the kingdom of God. Now we can all poke holes at The church past and present, of course, there is a lot to answer for, but the church is the Bride of Christ, it is all of us.
And you know what, I think now more than ever the world needs the church. There is so much division in the world, there is so much fear, concerns about war, politics, climate chance for example. There are people looking for answers, for Spiritual truths. And if they don’t find them in the church they are going to look elsewhere and find who knows what. Reportedly this search for spiritual truth is biggest in Gen Z the younger generation, those roughly in their late teens and 20s now.
The church has a voice to speak into all our world is facing. The church remains key. Something on new ABC?
And this church remains key – on a local level, what is our role at St Edward’s? Well we want to be a church of welcome, community and hope. We want to be there for all our community, we want to serve people, and we want them to know the freedom and hope that comes form knowing Jesus. We want to sustain what we are doing, and increase and grow that. When we serve our community, we are putting the gospel into practice, but it is also an open door to a life of faith, it’s an opportunity to share what we know.
We are running our successful toddler group Rainbow Tots, we have a community cafe, we work with the local schools, we run family events, at key times of year we offer all age events that tell people about Jesus. In the summer I heard so many lovely comments from people who came to our activities, many of whom could not afford a holiday and were just looking for places to take their kids to have some fun. In our café we hear from customers who are lonely and need a place to come and just have a chat, and not feel alone.
Churches across the land are filling the gaps where national and local government budgets have been cut. There is so much more we could do. Don’t we want to be part of this?
So, what about us as individuals, what is our place here? what do we contribute? Are we here as consumers, or here to be part of the family of Christ?
Because being church is not just about turning up on a Sunday, it is about being part of the family, part of the work, part of the giving, part of the community support. We are doing the work of Christ together. Are you up for that? because if you are that means not just turning up, it means giving of your time and of your finances to see the work through.
The church is not like any other charity where you can just send off a donation and be done with it, know you are supporting a good cause. In the church the work is done by us all, for each other, and for our own community.
Next week I am going to talk a bit about what we want to spend money on in the year ahead, today I’m talking about the principle of giving. But you know one thing to share is that we have a mandate to revitalise this church, not for the sake of it, not to make the diocese money, but because the church is needed in our town, in our parish, and our parish is about to get a lot bigger with new housing in the Brookleigh/ Northern arc development.
It would be amazing if we just got an allotted share of money from the CofE each month to do what we need to do, but it doesn’t work like that sadly. We have to raise all we need to do the work of Christ here in our parish. To pay our bills, to run our toddler sessions, to pay Paula, to run the cafe, even to pay me and to keep a FT priest here. And we are doing all we can to raise money, applying for grants, trying to build up bookings, increasing café income but we still need to aim higher. I don’t like putting on a hard sell for giving at all, but this year we are really feeling it. We’ve very sadly lost a few people and that has been hard for us as a church family, and it also bluntly, means a decrease in our finances. Our big projects have been funded, but day to day costs continue to increase. if we want this church to still be here in 5 years time, if we want to continue to see it grow and thrive, then we have got to be as generous as we can.
In our OT passage we read about generosity. Firstly the generosity of the widow who is literally preparing herself and her son a last meal. But she gives of the tiny amount she has left to Elijah, to God’s prophet. He gives her a promise of God and she responds. She gives. And then we see the generosity of God, who gives in abundance. God gives enough to see her and her son through the difficult time of drought that they are living through.
Last year, in 2024, we raised about £12k at gift day. We had an additional £20k given as a one off donation for specific projects. We received grant funding of about £25k towards the garden and the children’s worker salary. We know that God takes what we give and magnifies it, a sort of spiritual matched funding if you like! God rewards what we give and grows it.
We are working towards the vision God has given us and we believe God is calling us to continue with the work we are doing. So let’s see what God can do this year! We want to aim higher and bigger, to cover the Children’s worker salary, to start to raise money for a new heating system, to continue to reach out to our community. I believe that as we are generous, God is generous too, just as he was for the widow and her son.
So be committed to being part of this church family and the vision God has given to us. Commit to praying about what you should give and commit to giving when we come to gift day next weekend. and let’s continue the work of God together.
Amen
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