All Saints, Rainford

All Saints, Rainford is at the heart of the Diocese of Liverpool - geographically at least! Just outside of St Helens the beautiful parish church was built in 1878 to replace an earlier building. The church serves the large village of Rainford and a huge rural area. The worship of a regular congregation of around 150 (there are 300 on the electoral roll), a good number of organisations and a church primary school is sustained by a Vicar and four readers well supported by a committed lay leadership. Visit the Rainford Parish Church web site for an overview of the life and ministry of the church.

All Saints Rainford (Photo courtesy of Peter Burgess) was faced with a situation where regular giving was falling short of expenditure to the tune of around £350 per week. Although the parish had reserves the PCC recognised that simply drawing on reserves would not address this problem and lead to a bigger problem in the long run. Despite this financial need they also saw the diocesan Giving in Grace initiative in a different light.

"God is love and he shows this love in all he does for us. His love is generous, kind and selfless. Therefore, how should we respond, as his followers, to this outpouring of grace? This initiative was to help us think out our response through magazine articles and the specially focused sermons at all services"

One of the first parishes to undertake a Giving in Grace programme preparation for Giving in Grace at All Saints began in May 2005. In this semi rural community there is a strong sense of ownership of the church by the local community. The planning group felt it was important to embrace this wider constituency of supporters and wrote to all of them. An early task, therefore, was the amalgamation of the many lists of church members including the magazine distribution list which ran to over 700 people! The master list was then differentiated into three groups. (It should be noted that the practice of differentiation at All Saints varied from the advice set out in the web site. Churches should be flexible about how they approach their own congregations and communities.) The Core (a total of 153 people including the PCC) was defined as all those on the planned giving scheme; the Congregation (119 people) was defined as all those who attended regularly but not on the planned giving scheme. The final grouping was the Fringe, a large grouping of some 570 people, supporters of the church but less frequent in attending worship. (This grouping would be classified as Association in terms of this web site.)

Responding to such wide ownership of church life in the community meant that the operation was huge. Managing the distribution of 867 packs and dealing with the responses was a major undertaking.

On reflection the planning group felt that they should have allowed more time for the preparation of the database given the numbers involved.
The numbers involved also led to a decision to include within the literature packs additional information about Gift Aid, Standing Orders as well as the brochure, response form and clergy letter. There was a strong feeling that this information should be readily available.
Such an approach had the advantage that people received all the relevant information, The Planned Giving Officer made personal contact with most of the people who responded or had a query regarding the completion of their responses.
Managing such numbers meant that the church had to be extra vigilant when addressing the packs of literature. Some mistakes were made and apologies graciously offered and accepted.

In all 867 packs of literature were distributed amongst church and community members by the magazine distributors. As might be expected the strongest response (67%) came from within the Core grouping of those on the planned giving scheme and within that grouping the PCC made their own commitment first. The response from the largest group, the Fringe (or Association) ran at 6%, a not unhealthy response for friends and supporters. However, it underlines the point that the most significant response comes from members on the planned giving scheme. The financial response is not in proportion to the number of letters written. The careful nurture of a planned giving scheme with associated teaching on Christian responsibility in giving is the most important thing a church can do to become financially stable.

Some responses came in immediately others were received several weeks later. Some people didn't reply by letter but by telephone or even on the street but as the responses came in everyone received a letter of thanks from the Vicar. The church carefully wrote to 140 non responders and the response rate to that reminder letter was a little under 50% so it was very significant.

The next task was to tabulate the results and assess how much income the increase would be. Difficulties arose straight away as not all the forms were filled in correctly e.g. some people indicated how much they would give but not how much the actual increase would be. Overall the response was most encouraging.

The church set a financial target target of an increase in weekly giving of £350. Pledges received totaled £421.
18 new boxes of envelopes were ordered
52 people increased envelope giving
66 people took out new Standing Orders and a further 15 increased their existing ones
31 people signed new Gift Aid declarations

The financial results were encouraging to the church. One of the aims in the Case Statement was to " widen people's vision of the church to encourage a greater involvement across the age groups and an awareness of "the church" outside of our own parish boundaries". The Giving in Grace initiative has allowed the church to become financially stable and to focus its energies on achieving this vision. In their own words: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."