God’s call for his church at Christmas is to be generous – both with our time and our resources. Leadership Network is working with 10 churches in Europe on the topic of generosity. We asked the Senior Leaders in this Leadership Community to share examples of how they’re cultivating a culture of generosity this Christmas.
The key theme across all of these churches is their provision for the homeless and vulnerable over the festive season. Longton Community Church’s Inside Out Scheme has made them famous locally for their generosity and personal touch. At Christmas they provide the poor with a Christmas hamper stuffed with essentials, as well as a few rare luxuries. Senior Leader Ron Farrington explains why generosity is so important, “today we are helping more people than ever before; the needs are greater and we are giving more.”
Jesus House in London are also providing Christmas hampers, joining with 25 other churches in their borough to pack boxes filled with everything a family needs for a Christmas dinner. The cost of Christmas can often fill a family with dread, and Pastor Ayo (Head of Community Action at Jesus House) describesChristmas Lunch on Jesus as an amazing opportunity for the church to bless their community over this season.
Trent Vineyard, Nottingham is providing a night shelter, clothing and Christmas dinner for the homeless and Cambridge Community Church is working with their local Foodbank to ensure people don’t go hungry. This is becoming a common story for churches across the UK, and in the in the last year The Trusell Trust Foodbanks fed 346,992 vulnerable people nationwide.
Stewardship is an organisation focussed on transforming generosity and helping people give. They are partnering with us on our Generous Churches Leadership Community in Europe. Chief Executive Mike O’Neill agrees that Christians should find it a “privilege and joy to be generous with the enormous resources that we’ve been given”. He continues, “It’s important to instil the reasons for giving – the Bible is clear that everything we have belongs to God…we really are just stewards”.
This has been truly demonstrated at Birmingham Christian Centre, where they decided to give away 100% of their weekly collection during the first week in December. They raised a staggering £26,456 and were overwhelmed by this response. Senior Leader Mark Ryan said, “as a church, we are seeking to honour God with our finances and demonstrate His love in action to those in need in our community… we said ‘let’s give away our offering’ and look what happened!”.
If you’d like to learn more about the Generous Churches Leadership Community in Europe, http://leadnet.org/page/generous_churches1. If you’d like to discuss our work in Europe, please contact Nicola James at [email protected].