Last Sunday in St Matthews we looked at the church finances. Last year looks like it will be an improvement on previous years, and this year we have set ourselves new challenges in what are difficult times, but ironically (in my view), one of the most rewarding. Some might say that the bar has been raised too high in 2010, but that is typical of something that has God at the centre in that we have to rely on him to provide.
As we work through ‘What really matters’ this week, give some thought to the money aspect. The British would rather not talk about money, sex, politics or religion and you will be glad to know I am not going to touch on the last 3.
Whilst it would be very easy to get into a rant about giving a certain amount, I am not going to do that. Something I have focussed on recently is looking at what I waste from a money perspective. I haven’t completed this exercise yet - so I come at this from the angle of being pleasantly surprised by what I have saved so far.
I spent a couple of hours looking at what I spend on things like utilities and insurance. It took a while, I had to find out some information on a few things but in those couple of hours I managed to save over £1200 per annum by changing my energy provider and car insurance. The electricity is still the same, the gas still works and I still have car insurance on what I consider acceptable terms.
I haven’t yet looked too hard at things like phones, broadband, house insurance as these are smaller numbers - but I have no doubt that with a bit of effort, I can find some savings there to.
So the challenge I now have is what to do with the £100 per month that I didn’t have before I started this exercise? Well, I need to see what else is going on with my finances but given that I didn’t have it before, increasing what I give would be a good thing to do.
Why don’t you take the challenge as well? There are numerous ‘money saving’ websites and one I have found particularly helpful is:
If you save some money, then rather than getting used to that excess, why not consider giving it straight back to God? You’ve not had it before so you won’t miss it. Could this be a chance to increase what you give, rather than adding to your barns?
