Pennywise and Pound Foolish

Jeff Nicholson - Stewardship Director

In most families when children grow up and are ready to launch out on their own they often look to their parents to give them a helping hand, but parents can only give such support if they have had foresight and been diligent savers. In the same way the conference can only be in a position to help new congregations purchase, repair or upgrade their church facilities if as a family we all put something into the kitty. If we do not together provide the necessary funds, there will be nothing to give to the needy and deserving. It is not equitable that congregations that have benefitted from the generosity of the family in the past now not sit back in their comfortable homes and forget those whom are struggling and dreaming of procuring church homes of their own. Congregations that have not put funds into the kitty, by supporting the Conference Wide Development Fund (CWD), cannot with a clear conscience reach out their hands for any assistance.

As many weak strands of twine when wound together make a strong rope, so financially weak churches can multiply their financial power by cooperating in putting their funds together. We can see this principle at work in the South Asian community where families multiply their financial power by each family member pooling their individual earning power and thereby maximising and multiplying the financial power of the whole. When they built up a large capital sum, we see them buying houses for cash thereby avoiding burdensome mortgages, and keeping their assets in the family. The funds thus saved are re-invested in procuring other assets for the building up of the family. When as families and congregation we focus only on our individual parochial needs however important, and ignore the wider financial needs of the whole, we are impoverishing ourselves in the long term. If as a church we would think outside the box of narrow local self interest we could achieve much more together for the good of the wider church family. It is time for us to stop being “penny wise and pound foolish.” To continue as we have been doing is not in our best long term interest.

The North England Conference has been educating the church family regarding its financial plight, in that it has not been compliant with the church’s policy of having six months running costs in its reserve fund. This is partly due to the fact that our Conference income received from the churches is made up almost exclusively of tithe returns. Despite the promotion of the need for all members to contribute a minimum of £10 towards the Conference Wide Development (CWD) funds as a way to begin addressing this shortfall, the Conference only receives £3,000 per month from the wider membership in support of CWD Funds. If this trend continues the conference finances will not grow adequately permitting it to continue to respond generously to the many requests it receives for funds to support the purchase of new buildings and other infrastructure needs of the churches.

There are many congregations sitting on pots of money for years hoping and dreaming that one day an affordable opportunity will come by when they will be able to buy a church. The time has come for us to despite our own local needs co-operate together by supporting and building up the CWD Fund so that together we can as a church achieve our long term goals, the strong supporting the weak and the weak supporting themselves. Narrow mindedness and insularity in our thinking will rob us of enormous blessings. The time has come for us to think outside the box of our own narrow local needs and look at the bigger picture thereby maximising the use of our resources so that together we can achieve our goals.