The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

This month will see the re-opening of the meeting rooms in the Crypt. Thanks to the generosity of the present congregation, and of the previous generations who helped us to build up our reserves, we have been able to renew and extend this space to better meet not only our own needs but those of the community groups we serve.

Thanks to careful planning and design we have been able to significantly improve our facilities whilst achieving good value for money. This is a result we can be rightly proud of. All of us – young, old and in between, members of the congregation and people from outside – will find changes that will increase our enjoyment of the space and, hopefully, of our meetings.

As we prepare for our Dedication month in October, it is worth reflecting on the commitment of all the people that enabled this project to go ahead. Had they visualised what was possible? Probably not. Were they committed to a particular building project? Certainly not. Did they want to see the work of the church in Hampstead enhanced and extended? Absolutely.

Which is the whole point – unless we are equally committed to maintaining and extending the work of the church in our generation it will begin to wither away. We can’t afford to fund another major building project from our own resources for a few years, although we already have a pretty good idea what it might be! But we need to go on paying for our present activities, investing in training the next generation of clergy, paying them fairly and supporting the poorer parishes near us who are part of the same body of Christ.

So it isn’t too soon for all of us to begin thinking about what our commitment is, and what we will give back to God in the coming year.

At the General Synod meeting in York this summer the church confirmed its1978 request that we should each give 5% of our incomes to and through the church to help build God’s kingdom. If we were to meet this target as a congregation, we could increase our income by some 50% and significantly expand our activities and our help to others.

This is a difficult time financially for many people, and equally so for the church. The PCC will discuss a draft budget for next year at its meeting later this month. Through careful housekeeping and close scrutiny of our “business as usual” plans we will keep our costs to a minimum. But our income will also fall following the deaths of a number of generous members of the congregation in the past year. On present plans this means that we are likely to face a deficit of around £10,000.

To close the gap we need to increase our income from regular giving by recruiting AT LEAST 8 more families or individuals willing to join the Stewardship scheme and contribute £100/ month OR 16 new families/ individuals willing to contribute £50/ month OR the equivalent in smaller pledges.

Might you be one of them?
Please pray – we know that there are generous people able to help us reach this target to continue our ministry in 2010. They just need to discover it themselves.