Our Church | Giving

All giving to St Mary’s goes towards building the vision of this church. St Mary’s is a big show to keep on the road, and like everyone else we have to make ends meet. The bills for the day-to-day running of St Mary’s, the heating, the choir, the Sunday School, our youthwork, running the Parish Office, insurance etc all mount up. Approximately 50% of our total expenditure – over £1350 a week – goes to the Common Fund of the Diocese of London, which pays our vicar’s stipend, housing and pension, as well making a contribution to support parishes less fortunate than our own.

We raise the bulk of this money via our annual stewardship renewal scheme. Members of the church family commit themselves to support the work of St Mary’s through regular, proportional, planned giving by standing order, or through the envelope scheme in the Sunday collection. The Biblical principle is to “tithe” our income – in practice this may mean whatever percentage we believe, after prayer, is right for us, but for some people it does indeed mean 10% shared between church and other charitable causes.

Once a month, on a designated Sunday, we give all the cash in the collection (excluding that given through the envelope scheme) to various charities and mission projects. We support a number of charitable concerns, both at home and abroad.

In addition to honouring our regular commitments, we fundraise for specific projects like our youthwork programme and the organ restoration fund. Donations to the Blueprint Appeal will be used by the PCC for these and other urgent needs.