RE Inspired trustees and staff had an away day on Friday. One of the things we tried to look at and engage with was the whole notion of spirituality. What do we mean by spirituality, and how do we develop it? And it became clear to me that I am more keen on a spirituality that talks about what I do, than about my interior life. Yes it is important that I know more of myself; that I am more self-aware and more aware that God loves me unconditionally; that I am more aware of the wonder of creation and the beauty of every human person that I encounter; and how that impacts me and enables me to develop and change and grow. Of course that’s important. But that personal journey cannot be lived in a purely personal way; cannot be lived in a private way. Our spiritual development is, of course, personal; but it is not private. For our interior journey is shown and lived out by our exterior actions. Only when people can see that we are changing what we do, do they have any evidence of our interior spiritual development.

A different starting point.

When I was thinking about what to share with you this morning, I went back to 2001 and had a look at what I said to you then in the very first of these Stewardship Campaigns. I said this:

Last year (2000) the total income for the church was over £14,000. This year (2001) not surprisingly, it is down quite a bit to £11,500. On Monday of last week the church council set the budget for next year and we think our running costs for 2002 will be about £10,000; but our Parish Share is going to be £18,000. A total of £28,000. You can see the gulf that is opening up between our income and our expenditure.

I pointed out in 2001 that we were setting a budget for 2002 that had a £16,500 gap. Ten days ago the PCC met again and we set a budget for 2008. The treasurer presented a budget that had a shortfall of £16,703. We have set a budget, seven years later, which is exactly the same. At one level nothing has changed.

But this is why statistics are such fun, for if you look at it from a different point of view … we were expecting our total expenditure for 2002 to be £28,000. The budget we have just set for 2008 is £119,000. Our Parish Share in 2002 was £18,000 and in 2008 it’s £46,000. Yes we have a shortfall of £16,500 … but you are an amazing bunch of people.

You have risen this constant challenge of needing to fund this enterprise we call St Nicolas Church. You rise to the challenge of being a growing church. You rise to the challenge of funding an ever increasing range of church activities: Sunday Schools, Focus, Emmaus, Advent & Lent series, to say nothing of the Diamond Jubilee weekend we had last June which cost us over £5,000. You rise to the challenge of serving the community in which we are set: locally, through RE Inspired; regionally through the Churches Drop In Centre; nationally through our 10% charitable giving; and internationally through things like the Trust Bank we have established in Peru. And you rise to the challenge of contributing more and more of the cost of ministry in the Church of England.

Back in 2001 we were paying for about 30% of one priest for the Church of England. Next year, for the first time, we will be paying 100% of the cost of one priest. And, as I have said before, we really should be paying more than that.

One of the gifts and glories of the church of England is that there is a priest for every parish. There is a priest for every person in England. Wherever you live from Berwick upon Tweed to Land’s End, from Carlisle to Dover, every man, woman and child in this country can turn to someone else and say “You are my parish priest”. They can do that in the suburban heartlands of middle England; they can do that in the rural flatlands of East Anglia; they can do that in the urban wastelands of major conurbations. The C of E is there. Often we are the only institutional church left. Sometimes the Roman Catholic church is there as well. Often the C of E priest is the only professional person left in a geographic area. The United Reform Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church are no longer able to afford to cover the whole of the nation as they would like. Teachers, doctors, solicitors, police officers are far less likely now to live in the community they serve as they did some fifty years ago. But the C of E remains.

And we are determined to remain, Not just out of stubbornness. Not just out of a desire to preserve our built heritage – as important as that is to some people. Not just out of a sense of loyalty or false pride. The C of E is determined to remain in every place in this country because it is the mission of the C of E to serve the nation. The values and purposes of the Church of England demand that everybody is offered the same opportunity. “God has no favourites, and neither does the Church of England.” Rather simplistic and a somewhat grand claim – but there is truth in it.

Every person in this land is of ultimate worth and value and the C of E seeks to honour that worth and that value. But that has to be paid for. So to fund that mission in places of extreme poverty, and in places of relative wealth where people are few in number, we call upon those places of wealth where the demographics say that there are a significant number of people living with a reasonable amount of wealth to help fund the whole enterprise.

The parish share, some claim, is a tax on church going. No it is not. It is the way we acknowledge our allegiance to the call and purpose of the Church of England; it is the way we affirm the worth of each and every person in this land; it is the way we proclaim, that we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

So thank you. Thank you from Alan Hughes, Vicar of Holy Trinity and St Mary’s, Berwick on Tweed. Thank you from Brin Berrimen, Rector of St Berren, St Leven and Sennen in Cornwall. Thank you from Eric Robinson, Vicar of Arthuret with Kirkandrews on Esk and Mickelforest in Carlisle. Thank you from Tony Durkin, Vicar of St Margaret’s at Cliffe with Westcliffe near Dover. And from me.

Thank you. You are an amazing bunch of people.