While prayer is where we always want to start our battles, we know our obedience to the call of Jesus must also flow through into how we spend money. In 2023 we are therefore determined to invest our income in a profound expansion of all God is doing among us. We want to keep on doing all the wonderful things God is already doing, but we want to also stretch for all that is possible.

There are 5 specific areas that we want to spend on in 2023:

Continuing to grow a Culture of Worship, Raise Sons and Daughters and have life-changing small groups

The bulk of our spending in 2023 (ie. £290k) will be on the many projects and expressions of church that we spent money on in 2022. We will continue to massively invest in our under 18s, in gathering as a worshipping church on Sundays and in building fun, healing friendships in mid-week groups. These costs in 2023 will be higher than in 2022 because the general cost of living has increased. In particular, food costs and building rental costs (for Harris and Harvest) have gone up 25% on 2022.

Using Creative Projects to advocate for Jesus

Historically the church was a dynamic centre of culture and beauty for all of society. Through creativity, the church advocated for the richness of life lived under the Lordship of Jesus. Venice was (and still is) a vivid city-wide example of this kind of richness. We feel convicted that we - as the church - have given up the high places that our forefathers won for us. We have retreated from the production of beautiful, creative, God-honouring craft and our witness as the people of Jesus has suffered as a result. As a step towards advocating for the Kingdom in 2023 we are committed to the intentional gathering of both creatives and entrepreneurs to see many and varied God-honouring resources developed. We will invest money in these gatherings, believing that as iron sharpens iron many creative and generative business ventures and artistic projects will emerge. In addition to these community spaces, we are planning to spend £5k to kick off a 5-year project to become a producer of high-quality, re-enchanting worship and teaching resources such as an album of home-grown worship songs, the New Testament Journey and a range of other video and podcast resources. We believe these resources can be highly effective for seeing people encounter Jesus and begin to come to life in his name.

Expanding our work among young people and the most deprived in Croydon

In 2022 we expanded Vineyard English School to a 5-day-a-week project. We want to continue this expansion in 2023 by adding more pastoral support to our students and by enabling more “stepping stone” activities to be formed between VES lessons and Sunday services. We have over 80 students attending our school and approximately 50% of them are asylum seekers or refugees with highly complex needs. Many of our students are incredibly spiritually hungry and - regardless of their own faith background - enjoy gathering for bible study. We would love to deepen our relationships with these students both by offering them pastoral visits in the place they are staying and in having more team members available to talk with them, pray with them and invite them to come to life in Jesus.

On the youth side, we are conscious that God is using Lara, the youth team and the young people in our church in dramatic ways. Our youth numbers have more than doubled in the last 12 months with a number coming to faith or exploring faith in Jesus for the first time. We want to reach out to more young people in Croydon and this will, of course, require money.

We are also conscious that there is both a mental health crisis and a cost of living crisis in our town. In 2023 we would love to begin to develop more provision for those struggling with their mental health and to allocate more money to caring for the poor and vulnerable in our congregation through initiatives like the Jehovah Jireh fund.

Investing in Lara and Zac and the wider body of emerging leaders

Paid and volunteer leaders are the skeleton upon which God builds his church. We have an incredible range of leaders who all serve far beyond anything they receive back financially. We know that is part of the joy and the lived reality of the Kingdom in this Age. We are determined to invest in the ongoing growth of our staff team members. In particular, we want to add another day to Lara’s employment and make her temporary contract permanent. This extra capacity on the staff team will also free up Zac to invest more in songwriting and pastoral work. We want to do this alongside developing a more cohesive and vibrant leadership community all across the church, using the Vineyard Churches Leaders Essentials material, alongside other things. We would also like to be able to sponsor emerging leaders to attend the Vineyard Leadership College, which costs £1500 for the year.

Funding imaginative outreach initiatives and gathering events

We know that gathering events and initiatives see people come to faith. We know this is particularly true when we spend money on making the events truly appealing (eg when we hired a donkey for a nativity service or did a hog roast for the community around St Andrews School). In 2023 we would love to have a bit more money to fund gathering events like this, and want to set aside £3600 for such events.

In graph form, then, our planned spending for 2023 is as follows:

Or the same expenditure shown by Emphasis rather than by expense type:

2022 finances

We want to thank you so much for all you gave to CV in 2022. It was a brilliant year where we ran a “tight ship” across the board, cutting back on all spending areas, and yet we saw God move in great power. Many of us put in a massive effort to re-establish a church that had been wounded and scattered during COVID. Our 0-18s work has truly flourished, VES has expanded to 5 days a week, our Sunday numbers have increased 20% and we have never had so many testimonies of miraculous breakthroughs in people’s lives. John and Ele Mumford - global coordinators of the Vineyard Movement - spoke in the most effusive terms possible about what they saw in you and through you during their visit last month.

Here is a headline summary of our finances for 2022:

Budgeted spend = £270k
Expected income = £220k-£260k

In normal circumstances we would want to spend 50-55% on staff, enabling 45-50% to be spent on admin, ministry, buildings and on giving. In 2022 we swallowed a larger % of costs on staff as to do otherwise would have meant making people redundant.

Actual spend (based on 11/12 months) = £265k
Actual income (based on 11/12 months) = £260k

Should you want any more information about our finances please just ask us, or go direct to Graham Bright (Treasurer).

CV Financial Update