The 3-2-1 Campaign

We are raising money to invest in the next phase of Croydon Vineyard church; the launching of three congregations across two sites, as one church. One site will be in Central Croydon. The other site will be in South Croydon.

As we began planning for the Central Croydon site an extraordinary opportunity became available to take out an 8 year lease upon a part of what was formerly Old Palace Secondary School.

We are praying that these two sites are the first of many that God will use to bring spiritual awakening all across South London. The more money we raise the more we will be able to invest in the sites that we launch.

Churches that have launched sites have told us that a successful site launch costs £80k–£100k over two years. This money covers the salary of a part time Site Pastor alongside building rental and publicity etc.

Our estimate on acquisition, basic refurbishment and initial running costs of Old Palace building is £375k–£475k. But we would then love to increase the spec of things like the sound system and lighting, add staff members to facilitate mid-week ministry there and invest in a lasting move of God in our Borough.

We are asking people for a 3-2-1 response. To consider whether you could increase your regular giving for 3 years, double down on your serving and prayer and make a big one-off gift.

In addition to this, we would love you to ensure you have registered for gift aid, which means the government adds 25p to every £1 you give. This is a massive way to boost the impact of your giving.

Gift aid can do 25% of the job for us. Please do fill out a gift aid form if you are eligible to do so and if you haven’t already.

As a charity we are bound by strict laws on our use of money and we are audited each year, filing our accounts at Companies House and the Charity Commission. Our Trustees take this responsibility seriously.

As a church we also value very highly our financial integrity and transparency and so we encourage you to review all of our previous accounts on the Charity Commission and then ask us any question you want about our spending or budgeting.

Yes. Whatever you can give would be wonderful. It shows you are bought into the next part of the mission and the parable of the widow’s mite shows that when you give money out of the little you have, God sees you and he values it very highly.

No. Please do not do this. If you do not have money to give now, perhaps you could consider one item of your current spending that you could cut back on over the next few months and then give that amount.

And if you have any issues at all with debt please do check out Christians Against Poverty who are a wonderful organisation who offer non-judgemental really helpful support for people in debt.

We have previously received very large gifts and everything has gone through fine, so you should have confidence in transferring it in the way you normally do.

But if you have any concerns please do contact our bookkeeper Christian on christian@croydonvineyard.org.uk.

Many churches have found it helpful to run services or locations in multiple locations. This is not a new idea. It is likely that the church in Rome was one church made of several smaller churches meeting across the city. And ultimately all of us in Jesus’ church are one church. The “multisite” model that we are wanting to move towards is that used by Catalyst Vineyard in Aberdeen. They went from one location in the centre of Aberdeen to now meeting in seven locations across a wide geographic area in Scotland.

All the locations have their own Site Pastor who loves the people and leads the expression of the church in that location, and then a central team of ministry overseers supports and resources the sites with the same kids, youth, worship and preaching values and content. The church has one Senior Pastor, one senior leadership team and vision, one set of Trustees, one bank account and one website.

While the experience of church will be impacted a bit by the style of the building the church meets in, and by the people in the room, the values and feel of the church are the same in every location.

Initially Sunday services would operate at 9:30am and 11:30am in Central Croydon and at 10:30am in South Croydon / Purley. Each service would have the same kids and youth content. Anyone could attend any service they wanted.

We would appoint a Site Pastor for each location. We would also aim to have location-specific worship leaders, preachers and service leaders embedded in each site. Tom and Lesley and other members of the central Pastoral Team would rotate across the two sites, and Tom would preach at each site twice a month.

But we all know that church is far more than Sundays and this is where we will have to experiment with what works best. We do not intend for Connect Groups to be specific to either site; people could just attend whichever group was best for them. Some mid-week ministries and events would also span both sites, but some events and ministries might be specific to one site.

Our sense is that God is calling us to launch sites in additional locations like Redhill and Bromley and others. We would not launch an additional site until we were convinced we have a Site Pastor and a core team ready to commit to that location.

Tom and Lesley will span both sites, alternating between them. We also anticipate Worship, Kids and Youth Pastors will be present at different sites on different weeks.

Churches who launch multiple sites say that the cost of employing a site pastor and of hiring a venue and of marketing and equipment is £80k-£100k for the first two years. After that, if the site has grown, the giving of the congregation recoup those costs.

So your giving would be investing in the appointment of Site Pastors and in the multiplication of mission across South London. The more we give the lower the pressure is on the site to quickly raise money from new people being added to the site. And the more it will be able to run ministries which see people in the area come to life in Jesus.

Alex Lyne has been raised up in our church to be one of our Site Pastors. In the next couple of months we will be advertising for the other Site Pastor.

We also believe it is part of our mandate for the next season to train up a crop of younger leaders as Site Pastors who will contend for a spiritual awakening across South London for decades to come.

Hiring buildings is fine. It carries a lot of work in set up and set down and it means you can’t be present to your community in the same venue every day of the week. Our sense is that as we move to multi-site we will continue to hire some buildings for a while. But, we are serious about wanting to see Croydon Transformed and many more people coming to life in Jesus. And that makes a Mon-Sun building highly attractive. Our vision for a building is to make it a place where the presence of God is sought and stewarded all through the week, where a culture of worship and mercy is curated, which a whole range of people from all across Croydon can encounter and come to life in as they come in for a cup of coffee or a toddlers group or a young session or for a work meeting. Having a space of our own enables us to design a worship space for worship and encounter. It enables us to buy and use a whole range of youth and kids equipment. It enables us to do massively more in our community. And so our heart for every Site in our church is that eventually it would acquire its own building.

The Old Palace building is on Old Palace Road, CR0 1AX, inside central Croydon’s one way system which means it is in a slightly quieter location even though it is so central. What was Old Palace School is split across two sides of Old Palace Road. Serenity School has purchased the older, listed buildings on the Minster side of the road. The site we are wanting to acquire is a newer, unlisted, 3 storey 26,000sqft building which is on the Matthew’s Yard side of Old Palace Road.

It is extremely easy to reach the building on public transport; whether by bus or tram. In addition, Google Maps says it is a 12 minute walk from both East Croydon station and West Croydon Station. There is also a 38 space car park included in the building which is highly unusual for central Croydon. You cannot access this car park from Old Palace Road, but from a gate on Church Road.

Acquisition costs for Old Palace will likely be £25k-£35k. If we have to apply for full planning permission those costs would likely rise. The building was functioning as a secondary school until 18 months ago and has broadly stood empty since then. Some rooms are in great condition but multiple rooms will require some work to make them attractive and usable. In particular the ground floor requires two walls to be knocked down, and for a fully-fitted worship space to be set up. Our estimates for this are £300k, but we hope to gain £150k through grants. We then are making provision for the first three years of rent and running costs, which look like they will be above £300k a year. We can afford some of this through our normal income, and we hope to recoup income from renting out rooms to local businesses and community groups, but we estimate that we might run at a significant shortfall for the first couple of years and are therefore looking to build up a pot of £200k to provide for this.

We are fundraising at this point because we have strong confidence in the negotiations that we have been in so far. However, if it does end up that we cannot use Old Palace we will then need to make a new plan. We will remain committed to launching a site in Central Croydon.

Yes. In the long term we would love every site to own their own building. While it is not feasible at this moment to acquire two buildings, we will keep our eyes open for opportunities and assess affordability when they arise.

Please do not hesitate to contact us on hello@croydonvineyard.org.uk and one of the team will get back to you.