Gift Day 2024

Earlier this year, we hosted our great friend and leader of our overseas mission to Sierra Leone, Dr. Abs Dumbuya. During Abs’ visit, and subsequently, we discussed our desire to continue to support his work with the Dorothy Springer Trust (DST), which is the charity Abs established to help people with disabilities (PWDs), and the Freetown Cheshire Home (FCH) which educates and cares for disadvantaged children.

You may recall that in recent years, the offices of DST (where PWD’s receive advanced training in IT skills and are helped thereafter to find employment) were relocated to ‘Opportunities House’, a building that sits within the FCH complex. Abs explained to us that in the rainy season, the roof of Opportunities House has revealed itself to be less than waterproof… and so clearly we have an opportunity (pun intended!) to help change that! Additionally, we remain committed to funding the schooling of three children with Special Educational Needs: Natalia, Jane and Abdulai, whom Abs has been especially concerned about since they were effectively abandoned at FCH some years ago.

Separately, this year we have as a church family continued to recognize the enormous impact of our own church building and grounds on our local community in Bracknell. As you know, a huge number of people use our place for a plethora of great reasons. These include blood donations, mental health services, NHS medical teams, family mediation and groups battling addiction, to name just a few. This is, of course, in addition to the many activities we run as a church family ourselves – Sunday services, coffee mornings, ‘soup & sandwich’ groups, pastoral meetings, prayer groups and so forth. Finally, our South Hill Road site is our operational base for all the missional work we do, including our amazing Storehouse ministry.

Keeping all of this in mind, over the last several weeks, we have been going about our annual budget and Gift Day process. This itself involves a great deal of prayer and preparation, beginning with round table meetings between myself, our Treasurer Rob Lea and our Finance and Global Mission lead, Kat Jarvis. There is, as you would expect, input from Phil Marsh our ministry Director and then an overview by Tosin Fawole as Church Secretary. The Trustees team as a whole then reviews the proposals and the draft budget is presented to the church membership for discussion at the November church meeting, while the Gift Day takes place, this year, on Sunday 3rd November.

The Trustees have agreed that this year we want to focus our Gift Day appeal on three particular causes. These are:
1)            Increasing regular giving so that all our aspirations and objectives for 2025 can be met with funds to do this – whilst hopefully building up our reserves not drawing from them.
2)            Supporting Abs as set out above (funding next year’s schooling for Natalia, Jane and Abdulai and helping fix the roof of Opportunities House). We aim to give Abs £10,000 for these things.
3)            Investing in our home environment at South Hill Road. We have a range of projects we’d love to tackle, and aim to give our Environments Manager, Pete Jones, at least £10,000 to get started on making EBC more welcoming, accessible and eco-friendly.

In recent years, we have stressed the importance of reviewing (and if possible increasing) our regular monthly giving as the first and most important part of our Gift Day appeals. Secondly, if we are able, we might additionally consider giving a ‘one-off’ gift – which will be ringfenced for Sierra Leone (the first £10K) and our environments projects at South Hill Road (whatever is given over that first £10K). This approach has proven highly effective and has, in tandem with close control of our spending, meant that our finances are stable and therefore we are better able to sustain all our ministries and mission at home and overseas, as well as financing special projects from time to time. Of course, every year, we depend entirely on your generosity!

There are two ways in which we might choose to respond –
1)            If you are a member of EBC then you may already take part in our regular giving scheme.  If you are a regular with us and not already doing this, please pray about this important step of faith and partnership with God and each other. We want everyone to be partners in the amazing ministries that EBC provides to people. The challenge for each of us is to give generously and sacrificially, whatever that looks like for us. If you are concerned about what you can afford, we encourage you just to make a start – don’t worry if the amount is small. As an example, if just 200 of us made an increase of £2 a week, that would bring an annual increase of £20,800! Regular giving at EBC involves either making a regular electronic transfer via online banking, or setting up a standing order. A form with EBC’s bank details is attached if you prefer to use online banking, and a standing order form is also attached if you prefer to set things up that way.
2)            If you are already on a regular giving scheme, please consider increasing your contribution – and to keep reviewing the percentage you give whenever you can, as a commitment to ‘progressive, priority, percentage’ giving.
3)            Please give what you can as a one-off gift, using the envelopes available from this Sunday, October 27th, and returning this to the church office, on or by Sunday 3rd November.

Thank you for your love and support. It remains an incredible privilege, and blessing, to be a part of our wonderful EBC family.
Every blessing
Simon
Simon Lace
Minister