Vision 2023 Part 2

As we have journeyed through 2023, the sense we have is that God is on the move. We have seen the number of people attending our Sunday morning services grow by 14% in the last 12 months. The Hub youth service has seen around 35-40 young people attending each time, and our kids and youth ministries are flourishing. We are supporting more and more people through our Life Projects, including the new Pantry in Washington. It is an exciting season and we are excited, and expectant about the months and years to come.

Over the years we have been blessed with our two amazing buildings in the Marley Hill Community Centre and The Allen. One was free and the other was such an amazing price, God’s extravagant favour! Two wonderful, but also old, buildings that need to be looked after. Over the last few years we have been able to invest in both buildings, to maintain and improve the spaces, thanks to the amazing generosity of members of Life Vineyard Church.

However, we have some unexpected maintenance and improvements that we need, as a church, to come together to pay for. All of the works required are long-term improvements that help the buildings continue to be great spaces and compliant with all the regulations a public building has to meet. So once again, we are inviting you to be generous and give towards the improvement of our church homes.

So what do we need you to give?

£10,000 in one-off gifts

Back in May, many of you gave to part 1 of our Vision 2023 Offering. Just over £16,000 was given (including Gift Aid). This was amazing and supported taking many young people to DTI (Dreaming The Impossible Summer Festival), and around £13,000 was set aside for the boiler at The Allen and other expected maintenance. Over the last couple of weeks, the boiler at The Allen broke down and is unfixable. We have also been advised that we must upgrade the emergency lights at Marley Hill, alongside other works needed to improve our Fire Safety at both locations.

The cost of all these improvements is now in the region of £23,000.

We therefore need to come together as a church to give a further £10,000.

This will allow us to complete all the essential works required and ensure our buildings are fit for the future.

8% Increase in Regular Giving

As we have shared over the last few weeks especially, like all households and organisations, we face the reality of increased costs. For example, the heating costs for The Allen and Marley Hill have increased significantly across the last 12 months, as have many of our other running costs too.  To offset these costs David Bass (one of our Senior Pastors) has returned to supply teaching to reduce expenditure during the expensive winter months. This is obviously not sustainable and so we need to see regular giving increase by a further 8%.

Again, the generosity of LVC is amazing and we have already seen regular giving increase by 6.7% in this financial year (May 23 to Apr 24).

We now need to see a further growth of 8%, or £1,250 a month.

We therefore want to invite you, once again, to ask Jesus what He would have you give. We believe Jesus will provide this increased giving through people giving regularly for the first time, but also through those of us who already give each month increasing our giving proportionally.

We believe that as we continue to press into what Jesus has planned for LVC, that all we need is already in the church. That between us we have in our hands all the resources we need to invest both through one-off gifts and regular giving. So please be praying for generosity to well up once again, and for what Jesus would have you give to the continued ministry of this wonderful Church.

We will be taking the Vision 2023 second offering on Sunday 19th November at both locations.

For The King and His Kingdom.

Love

David and Nicola

There are a number of different ways you can give to Life Vineyard Church

Bank Transfer

If this is an option that is available to you, this would be our preferred method, as the bank charges no fee to you or us and it minimises administrative time.

You can set up a standing order or send a one-off payment using the following account details. We suggest adding a reference of “Vision23” or ”regular giving”:

Account name: Life Vineyard Church

Sort Code: 20-33-51

Account number: 90970174

Please click here if you would like to Gift Aid any regular or one-off giving to Life Vineyard, just fill out the form and click send

Give Online

Click the link below and you will be taken through a simple process of giving online. You will see there is a drop down menu in case there is a specific thing you are giving towards, it is also possible to tick the Gift Aid if you are a UK tax payer and would like it to be claimed.

Fees are payable on online transactions. If you bank online please consider giving by Standing Order to maximise your giving.