On 23rd March 2020, the Prime Minister announced the news of a three week lockdown in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. From that date we entered an unprecedented time of social restriction, in which many normal social interactions were prohibited. Some people very sadly have been bereaved, some made redundant, and many have been left entirely isolated and dependant on the kindness of neighbours to collect essentials on their behalf.
This is the context in which we present these Home Mission giving figures:
As we reflect on these figures, we are very grateful for your generosity as disciples of Jesus in our Baptist churches throughout our west of England network. In spite of the challenging times we live in, these figures are only marginally down on HM giving last year. This is testimony to the generosity of our webnet Baptist Churches and for that we say a grateful ‘Thank you’.
We are grateful for your continued giving and would graciously invite you to keep giving as you have been doing. If your church doesn’t yet give by monthly standing order, might we gently encourage you to begin to do so. We are sure that further significant financial challenges are yet to come and so we pray by God’s grace for your continuing generosity as we look towards the rest of this year and beyond. We continue to encourage our churches to give 5% of their general income to Home Mission each year.
Thank you once again for your partnership in the gospel of Jesus.
In 2019 our end year total giving was at £227,490.77, you can see here how this was used to further mission across our network.