The Centenary and Raising Funds for the Future
As I hope you will know by now, we will be celebrating the Centenary of the consecration of our church on the weekend of 5th and 6th November. The original plans to mark the centenary of the first service on Easter Day 1920 were scuppered by Covid – so it is a great joy that we can finally celebrate a hundred years of our presence and ministry in this place.
We give thanks for those hundred years – and for the distinctive mission of this church community – representing British-Romanian connections, Anglican-Orthodox friendship, and also for its witness to openness and liberal values in the dark days of Romania’s modern history.
But it is important that the Centenary is more than just a recollection of the past, of what has gone before. This is the moment for us to look ahead with vision and hope to the next hundred years.
Shortly after my arrival here, Monica led us in a Collective Dialogue, in which we talked together about belonging and welcome, about our hopes for the kind of community we could be. As we think about the future, we need to ensure that we are well-resourced to meet the challenges we face, but also to make sure we are able to engage in the projects where we think the church can have an impact – both for our church family, but also the wider community.
Two Goals
So in this centenary year, we have two goals to help us see our church and community flourish.
1. Reaching Financial Stability
The first is to reach financial stability by increasing our regular giving to cover our running costs. We receive no funding from the Church of England, the British Government or the Romanian State. That means that we ourselves need to meet all our basic costs – building maintenance, energy, a priest, an organist, a cleaner, office supplies, children’s resources, candles, bread and wine for the Eucharist… everything right down to the washing-up liquid and the loo paper.
Just to give you an idea – our average monthly expenditure minus our fixed rental income (i.e. groups that use the church building regularly in the week) – comes to:
13,300 RON.
I should stress that this is a rough average – and, of course, one of the significant variables at the moment is energy costs. But let’s take that figure – 13,300 RON.
If we divide that by four – we get a rough weekly average:
3,325 RON. – that’s $653 and £589.
So, we need to raise 3,325 RON every week to run our church.
This excludes those one-off annual payments we make – insurance, the contribution to the Diocesan Common Fund, and so on – as well as those unpredictable costs – things that break and need fixing.
But in terms of our day-to-day costs, that’s 3,325 RON each week.
That money needs to come from us.
Some of you will give more, and some of you will give less – and, of course, that is okay. Scripture is clear that it is generosity that we need to cultivate – and that will look different for each of us according to our income and stage of life. But it does mean that we need to think about it – and to consider what we can afford to give on a weekly basis to help the church meet this target.
The best way we can achieve this is with regular, planned giving directly from bank to bank. This is easy to set up, and if you are a UK tax payer, then we can give you the details of the account held us for us by the Diocese in the UK, and we can claim Gift Aid. There will, of course, always be a place for the collection baskets that go round at the offertory – but deliberate, planned, monthly giving will give us a predictable income to match our regular outgoings.
At the moment, our average monthly collection is about 3000 RON, i.e. what we need to raise per week. If we rely on the collection taken during the service, there are two significant variables – how often people physically come to church; and how much cash you have to hand when you come to church (and like me, you might just not carry much cash with you these days). But we must work towards raising weekly what we currently raise monthly through our collections.
What we need, if we are going to achieve financial stability, is monthly standing orders – either to our UK or Romanian accounts – that give us a deliberate, planned and predictable income.
So, to sum up this first goal – we need to raise 3,325 RON each week. We receive no financial help from external sources, and so raising that money is up to us. This is your church – and if you want it to flourish, then you need to support it.
2. Resourcing the Future
I’ve given the second goal the heading ‘Resourcing the Future,’ and in this centenary year, we are launching a Centenary Fund – a target of 100,000 RON (£17,785/$19,638) between now and 5th November 2023.
Our first goal ‘Reaching Financial Stability’ is about keeping going. Our second goal ‘Resourcing the Future’ is about what we as a church can offer our community. It is worth noting that this second goal is only achievable if we succeed in balancing the books and make good progress with our first goal.
We hope to raise money for this Centenary Fund through major gifts and fundraising events over the year – and we will give you regular updates on our progress. We will be drawing on our connections with charitable institutions in the UK, with businesses here in Romania, with past donors spread across the globe. If you would like to organise a fundraising event, if you have connections with people or groups that may support us, or if you want to make a one-off donation to this fund, let us know.
This money will enable us to think about the mission of the church in its broadest sense – how can we enrich and improve our worship? How can we reach out to our local community? How can we deepen our prayer lives and learn more about our faith?
And as we look to the future, this Centenary Fund will help us to ensure our sustainability: it will provide the capital we need to help us work on the environmental targets, towards which the Diocese is also working.
This second goal builds on what we are already doing – and if we can meet our first goal – then this Centenary Fund will help us move from a hand-to-mouth existence to a flourishing mission and ministry.
Conclusion
It can feel awkward talking about money like this – but it is really important that our church community knows what it costs to keep us going, and that we are entirely dependent on the generosity of our community. It is you who enables the ministry of our church here in Bucharest. This is our responsibility. If we want our church to continue our unique witness to the Anglican tradition in this place, then each of us needs to consider seriously and prayerfully how best we can support it.
This church and its community has so much potential, but unless we work towards financial stability and to resourcing our future, it will just remain ‘potential.’ In this centenary year, we face a daunting struggle to achieve these goals – but God is at work among us. A hundred years ago, this church was consecrated to the glory of God and for the building up of the Kingdom of God – and that is what we are here for – now, in our present moment – and for the next hundred years. This Church – dedicated to the Resurrection - is a sign of the new life we have in Christ, through whom all things are made new.
Bank: ALPHA BANK ROMANIA S.A.
Branch: SUCURSALA AVIATIEI
Swift code: BUCUROBU
Account name: ASOC. FRIENDS OF THE CHURCH
IBAN for RON: RO45BUCU1311213186089RON
IBAN for £: RO75BUCU1311213186092GBP
IBAN for €: RO38BUCU1311213186090EUR