Mission Giving

Our Policy and Approach to Giving

Although we are a fairly small church, we believe in tithing our income. This means that we aim to give at least 10% of our income to a variety of organisations involved in different forms of Christian work and ministry - and some non Christian too.

This means that we support some local organisations that care for people living in Brighton and Hove; some national and some international. Here are a list of those organisations we currently support:

In Brighton & Hove...

• Off the Fence Trust (that works with rough sleepers, women and risk and people needing preparation for independent living)
• Alternatives (a Christian pregrnancy advisory service)
• Martletts Hospice.
• Living Hope (a mission organisation based in Lancing that trains pastors who live and work in rural parts of Africa and elsewhere).

UK wide...

• Barnabas Fund (that supports Christians in the many parts of the world where people suffer or are persecuted for their faith).
• BMS World Mission (the missionary arm of the Baptist Union of Great Britain).
• Care for the Family (a Christian organisation that through teaching, research and its publications, seeks to strengthen family life).
• TEAR Fund (a major Christian agency involved in international relief).

In this current financial year we have given away over £12k. A gift of £2250 was also given towards the Haiti appeal. We always aim to provide additional support for international aid and relief wherever we can.

Kibera Project (Nairobi, Kenya)

In addition to the above, for the past few years we have also raised funds to supprt a micro-financing project for a church based in the Kibera area of Nairobi, an area of particular poverty. The intention has been to work in partnership with a particular church, to enable invididual members of the church to receive basic training in business skills. Thereafter we have been able to give them a non refundable grant to help with basic living costs and then a repayable grant which is like a small business start up loan. The aim is to help people develop small business possibilities in order to increase their income. So far, some 20 people have beneffited from this scheme.

Our Sunday School children have also raised money to buy mosquito nets, blankets and Bibles for the children of this church.

Mission Council

We have a Mission Council that meets twice a year to review our giving and to pray for all the organisations we support. We also regularly pray for these organisations, and others that we know of on a regular basis each month.

We hope that you will find this information interesting. We do not respond to unsolicited requests for funding however. We simply offer this information because we think that transparency is important and that people know what churches do with the money they raise.