Together, the command of Jesus to 'go and make disciples of all nations' (
Matthew 28:19) and the call of the prophet Micah 'to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God' (
Micah 6:8) form an unavoidable task for the Church today. This theological rationale underpins the existence of the St. John's Mission Giving Committee. It comprises of a selected group of people who are responsible for organising St John's mission giving. In practice, the Mission Giving Committee seeks to respond to needs in the world, to act justly and to spread the Good News on behalf of the members of St John's. We recognise that financial giving is only part of our mission support. We wish to be able to support projects or causes in Prayer and we recognise that real links are necessary to achieve this. We also recognise that mission support has an important part to play in widening the vision of our Church, bringing real benefits to us as we give and pray.
The committee is guided by a set of fundamental principles when selecting who to support:
- We aim to support Christian mission and evangelism, defined as the spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ, at home and overseas.
- We aim to help in the relief of need, famine relief, disaster relief, relief of poverty or relief from deprivation, both at home and overseas.
- We aim to aid in the struggle for fairness and justice, for all sections of all societies, both at home and overseas.
- We aim to give to projects or causes with real and identifiable Christian aims;
or to projects or causes which have real links with the Christian Church; or to projects or causes which we, as Christians, can fully endorse and affirm.
St John's donates 10% of budgeted collections to these projects or causes.
All proposed projects and causes are researched to ensure that they meet as many of the principles stated above as is possible. We are seeking to support the mission of the worldwide church creatively and also to see that local mission is not forgotten. We believe that we have a broad range of organisations which we support, from hospices in London to missions abroad. If you have any ideas, comments or questions please get in touch.
A list of the members of The St. John's Mission Giving Committee (MGC) can be found on the Mission Noticeboard in the church (by the mini-shop). For 2006/2007 they are: Maxine Webster (
MGC Convener), David Aubrey, Cornelius Henry, Rev. Darren McIndoe, Pippa Pritchard, Rev. Dave Richards & Garry Walker.
During the first MGC meeting of 2006, an objective was set to make recommendations for the allocation of funds from the 2006 Mission Giving budget as early in the year as possible. It was acknowledged that waiting until November of each year to allocate funds, as in previous years, made little sense, and as such it was agreed that we would endeavour to be ready to make our recommendations to the PCC by end of May 2006.
A thorough review of each of the Mission Links supported during 2005 was undertaken by the MGC. Each committee member was asked to research and report back on their findings, which aided in our discussions at an extra-ordinary meeting to carefully consider each Mission Link and to decide whether or not to continue providing monetary support for 2006. A few of our current Mission Links have been supported since 1999.
In 2005, the MGC provided monetary support to 23 different Mission Links, 3 of which received support from the MGC Emergency Fund. In 2006 the committee had the grand total of
£7,400 to allocate (including
£200 carried over from 2005) and, following the review of Mission Links, as mentioned above, we agreed to continue our support of the following organisations:
- St Joseph's Hospice - A hospice in Hackney run by the Roman Catholic Church providing care for terminally ill patients. £700
- Spitalfields Crypt - A Christian run hostel for single men based in Shoreditch. Its primary aim is to provide residential care and rehabilitation for homeless men who have problems with alcohol dependency. £600
- Christian Solidarity Worldwide - a human rights organisation specialising in religious freedom. CSW works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all. £500
- Medicines for Muheza - Providing support for a Christian run hospital in Muheza, Tanzania. £500
- NAPAC - UK's only provider for helping adults rebuild their lives after suffering child abuse, through support and counseling . £500
- OMF (Overseas Mission Fund) - Overseas mission to East Asia and China - caring for the uncared for. OMF also undertakes evangelism, church planting and discipleship. £500
- Through Faith Missions - Through Faith Missions (TFM) exists to do evangelism, serving local churches and involving many other Christians in the task. £500
- Wateraid - WaterAid and its partners use practical solutions to provide safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene education to the world's poorest people. WaterAid also seeks to influence policy at national and international levels. £500
- C.O.M.E. - Providing support for the Gulu Resource centre in Northern Uganda for community development. £400
- Christian Blind Mission - CBM supports blind, visually impaired and otherwise disabled people in those areas of greatest need worldwide. CBM do this through medical intervention, education and rehabilitation, emergency relief and in capacity building through training, research, advocacy and awareness creation. £300
- Leprosy Mission - International mission responding to medication needs and the eradication of poverty as a result of Leprosy. £300
- Lifewords (formerly Scripture Gift Mission) - Providing evangelistic tracts in every language. £300
- Wycliffe Bible Translators - Working to translate the Bible into every language. £200
A donation of
£400 has been sent to the
Red Cross in response to the Africa Food Appeal,
£400 for the Indonesian Earthquake Appeal and a further
£500 to
Christian Aid towards the
Middle East crisis appeal. The remaining
£350 in the Mission Giving Emergency Fund was donated to
Oxfam for their Philippine Flood campaign.
As ever, the MGC continues to explore ways in which to make real links with the organisations that we support and as such organised a presentation by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), co-ordinated by Pippa Pritchard, CSW Church representative, which took place at St. John's on Wednesday 21st June 2006. The event was hosted by Stuart Windsor, National Director of CSW who spoke to us about the plight of the worldwide persecuted Church.
The MGC seeks to continue to raise the profile of mission giving by considering ways in which to challenge and engage the congregation. We aim to do this by inviting Mission Link representatives along to speak to us about their work during future evening and morning services. We also plan to hold special MGC focus updates on the work of other specific Mission Links after some Sunday morning services to again raise awareness of the work and services we are supporting.
Collections from most of our Christmas services will be given to
Turnaround again this year.
