Stewardship: Share Magazine Issue 35 - Learning to Live/Give

the stewardship magazine | issue 35

RICHARD SARGEANT

Can faith fit better in the workplace?

L RACHAEL PHILLIPS

Afghanistan to ordination; one soldier’s generosity journey

transforming generosity

NEW YEAR… NEW VISION? NEW BUILDING? NEED A MORTGAGE? Our specialist mortgages for churches and Christian charities helped nearly 100 ministries pursue their visions in 2016.

If you have a project planned for 2017 which needs loan finance, talk to us.

“It was amazing to have an organisation that considers and understand our vision, faith and journey. Stewardship are different” Steve Campbell, C3 Cambridge

Watch the story of Cambridge Community Church’s new building at

stewardship.org.uk/mortgages We’re Stewardship.

We’ve been helping the UK Christian community to give and to receive since 1906, when we started out as stewards of church properties around the country.

We love making giving easy and each year help over 25,000 individuals to give around £60million to our database of over 19,000 charitable causes.

By offering practical, tailored support, we are committed to strengthening the work of churches and Christian charities.

And we also inspire greater generosity from this community, thanks to our wealth of resources, courses and campaigns for individuals and churches alike, including the award-winning 40acts.

For more than a century we have been driven by our desire to give the wider world the opportunity to encounter Jesus through the generosity of His people and the transformational work of the causes they support.

We are Stewardship, and this is what we are about.

Contact us 1 Lamb’s Passage London EC1Y 8AB Tel: 020 8502 5600 Email: enquiries@stewardship.org.uk Web: stewardship.org.uk You can contact the editor by emailing editor@stewardship.org.uk Editor: Craig Borlase Design: adeptdesign.co.uk Stewardship is the operating name of Stewardship Services (UKET) Limited, a registered charity in England and Wales no. 234714 and a company limited by guarantee no. 90305

Editorial Stewardship recently hosted a conference for fundraisers from churches and Christian charities.

As the host was introducing me, I was struck by his comment that ‘you have to admire an organisation whose vision includes the entire world.’

I momentarily panicked. I was about to address 500 people and one of my points was a caution to avoid setting impossible funding goals.

But my moment of panic passed quickly, for my host had a point. Our vision at Stewardship is that the world would encounter Jesus through the generosity of His church. I truly believe this is an entirely achievable goal, for when Christians live as Jesus taught us, the lives of people around us are transformed.

It doesn't matter if someone encounters Christ-centred generosity at a food bank, a photocopier, dinner party or a church service held in a shipping container. What matters, in all these places, is the proclamation of the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ.

The public expression of our faith is an essential aspect of our lives. In the West, the freedom to express our faith publicly is protected. Whilst I acknowledge real and perceived attempts to silence such expression, the overall silence has more to do with choice than external pressure.

The choice is entirely our own.

In this issue we meet some ordinary people.

I mean them no offence. I’m sure they would agree with me – I’ve met most of them. They are humble, ordinary people, intent on choosing to integrate their faith into their entire lives. By doing so, they are doing extraordinary things.

The choice to live an extraordinary life is entirely ours. No matter how ordinary we may be.

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:5, 6 Michael O’Neill, CEO Stewardship

Like what you read?

Use your Stewardship account to lend your support

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News in brief Waste Not, Want Not Food waste campaigners from the Real Junk Food Project have opened the UK’s first food waste supermarket near Leeds. As unemployment figures rise and families struggle to make it to the end of the month, many customers have already been helped by the radical ‘pay as you feel’ model of pricing.

All the food on sale comes from supermarket and food business surplus. In addition, the group runs a project called Fuel for School, delivering surplus fruit, veg, bread and dairy products from supermarkets to hungry children in local schools. Find out more at: therealjunkfoodproject.org

The Borrowers The Library of Things in South East London offers people a chance to borrow expensive or bulky items for a small charge rather than spending lots on rarely-used commodities.

Steam cleaners, ukuleles, lawnmowers and camping gear can be borrowed then returned when they’ve done their work. Membership is free and there is a comprehensive catalogue online. In their first eight weeks, this social enterprise attracted 230 members and numbers are rising fast. Check them out at: libraryofthings.co.uk 4

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Rising to the Challenge Back in October, The Great British Bake Off’s youngest ever contestant, Martha Collison, worked with Tearfund on Big Bake, one of their initiatives to tackle global hunger. The charity invited community groups to sign up at tearfund.org/getbaking. Money raised from bake sales went to help those living with hunger all over the world. Martha explained: “I see it as my way to express my Christian faith and help others at the same time.

When I’m baking in Britain someone, somewhere else, a long way away, will benefit.” The initiative had raised £90,000 by December, but it's not too late to join in.

Visit tearfund.org/getbaking to download the resource.

Getting Messy The Bible Reading Fellowship has won funding to start Messy Church Does Science, a new initiative launching in 2017. With the twin aims of tackling the myths surrounding the incompatibility of science and faith, and helping Messy Church congregations encounter God in a fresh way through discussion of the wonder of creation, this new initiative is hoping to shine a light on how faith and science can co-exist in harmony.

Stewardship in action: using buildings and building church

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Richard Sargeant: How faith fits at work

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Rachael Phillips: how generosity grows with faith

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Legal and financial

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Consultancy helpline

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ur space o g n i r a h S charities n a i t s i r h and C Churches

Opening Our Doors

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hen Stewardship moved back to the City in 2014, we felt called to be open-hearted and generous with our space and resources.

Following the Evangelical Alliance’s lead in sharing precious resources with other charities, we knew that our modern and accessible offices in the heart of the business district could be a Godsend to many space-starved groups.

“We offer our smaller meeting rooms from 9am till 5pm free of charge,” says Ruth Rumens, Stewardship's receptionist. “Our guests can use our WiFi, we provide refreshments and we can provide lunch if they wish.

Recently, we’ve hosted charities as diverse as the Cinnamon Network, Beyond The Streets, Churches' Refugee Network and Christian Missions Charitable Trust. I’ve learnt about so many charities I never knew existed.”

The conference facilities can be booked once a week, and are also available in the evenings. “We open up the conference space after hours with capacity for up to 45 guests,” says Linda Hodges, Stewardship’s Admin & HR Manager. “We charge a very reasonable rate of £25 per hour which goes towards the cost of the technical resources, refreshments and key-holding member of staff who stays on to support them.”

The generous sharing of space is having a significant impact on the charities which use it, including the Cinnamon Network. “Thank you for the hosting of our seminar. It is not only a financial blessing to the work we do, but your room, atmosphere and the practical help you provided on the day made for the perfect combination of professionalism and Holy blessing.”

Several Stewardship employees have been prompted to start supporting new charities as a result of the space-sharing initiative, including Ruth.

“Opening our doors to others has blessed us too and aided our generosity.

It’s a wonderful thing.”

stewardship.org.uk/lambs 7

STEWARDSHIP IN ACTION

LONDON UNDERGROUND CHURCH We’re all familiar with the standard church planting model: you attend a church, pray a lot, build up a team and get finance in place and then strike out. However, Malcolm and Karis Riley have turned the concept on its head with London Underground Church near Leicester Square.

“I left Bible College in 2012 and worked for a year at a church in South London. I’d had a meeting with the Head of Scripture Union which had encouraged me to put my vision of a church plant into reality,” explains Malcolm.

“I asked my pastor at the time, Vaughan Roberts, and he backed the idea.”

So far, so familiar. By September 2013, a small group were meeting at Malcolm and Karis’s house. When they outgrew that, they moved to a café at the end of 2014 and then moved several times more.

Yet while the congregation numbers were increasing, the financials were not.

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And that’s where Stewardship came in.

“I already had a bible college recipient account with them (for financial support while studying). However, when we decided to start LUC, one of the main issues was that we had no people, no site, no finance.

Most organisations would have thought we were mad, but I’ll never forget the gospelheartedness of the people we dealt with at Stewardship who got our vision and wanted to help us make it happen.”

Exhausted from working on building sites for £40 a day, and virtually penniless, the Rileys weren’t the standard Stewardship clients. Malcolm is very clear that without the understanding and support of the team, LUC wouldn’t have got off the ground.

“Stewardship confirmed I could carry on raising personal support and switched me to a Christian Worker account to receive funds easily, including the bonus of reclaimed tax from supporters’ gifts, without which I would have been back to a hand to mouth existence.”

Malcolm and Karis Riley

LUC’s vision is very much tailored to its Central London location. “The area is full of people who are lonely and isolated; there is a large homeless community and many who don’t yet know about the gospel. We want to meet their emotional, spiritual and physical needs and we’ve got such a heart for social justice.”

Malcolm’s vision for LUC has three main influences. “Vaughan Roberts, Director of the Proclamation Trust, taught me many things, but above all to always do what Christ asks, whatever the cost. St Ebbe’s Church in Oxford shaped me greatly – I attended the church for eight years and was on staff for a number of years. And my wife Karis has been my greatest encourager, teacher and friend. I could have done none of this without her. To all three I am so massively thankful.”

As Malcolm and Karis settle into their new site, membership is increasing. In September, the church doubled in size.

Through doing the right thing, working through hardship together, having God raise up an incredible team, relying on the support that Stewardship gives and most of all looking to Christ the rock in all seasons of life, Malcolm, Karis and LUC are looking to the future with hope and vision.

Find out more at: londonundergroundchurch.org.uk

I’ll never forget the gospelheartedness of the people we dealt with at Stewardship who got our vision and wanted to help us make it happen.

Rev. Malcolm Riley 20121640

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NOT THAT MUCH OF A

The struggle of bringing faith to work, and why one man decided to do something about it

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f your CV starts with the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, includes a stint at the Treasury, a period at Google, a year in Sierra Leone with Tony Blair’s Africa Governance Initiative, then goes on to describe your role as one of the founding directors of the Government Digital Service, then your time at the Home Office (where you’re Director of Transformation), and ends up in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), you’d probably feel as though you had work all sewn up.

But not if you’re Richard Sargeant. When it comes to the role of faith within the workplace, he’s passionate about searching for answers.

Your career path’s pretty remarkable.

What’s the faith journey been like?

My faith has been fairly consistent since university. That was the point where I made a very firm commitment to try and practise being a Christian, rather than it be some theory or intellectual exercise. My faith grew through friends and church, but at work I found quite a division between the way I was encouraged to think about things on a Sunday and the way we came to things Monday to Friday.

In a liberal democracy, faith can’t be explicit.

I knew ministers who had a strong faith but who nevertheless had to reason through secular liberal logic. In many regards that’s right; government is for everybody, it’s not a theocracy. But there was a lack of role-models around how to integrate faith with life.

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Hence the podcast?

I’ve always been interested in evangelism, in thinking about how to live life in a cohesive, authentic way. But often in church I heard more about ministries like foodbanks or football clubs, which always seemed slightly peripheral to where most of us spent most of our time.

That’s why I had the idea of starting a podcast – partly for me to try to learn from other people who do a much better job of integrating faith and life together, but also for other people in the church as an expression of what that integrated life might look like. And I also wanted to present people outside the church with a view of the life of faith that was distinct and separate from the ritual of religion.

Even the most sympathetic commentary of the impact of church only tends to explore the church’s community ministries; day centres for the elderly and lonely, homeless shelters for the sick and the poor, street pastors for the vulnerable.

So little was being said about what’s distinctive when it comes to Christian accountants or lawyers, or business executives. Yet I thought that they had a story to tell.

I’ve always been interested in‌ how to live life in a cohesive, authentic way

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Do you think people struggle to tell those stories themselves?

I thought that it was partly through a lack of language. Any sense of personal revelation when it comes to faith has become taboo, so people have lost a language and vocabulary.

Christian Unions in many firms have atrophied – they’ve become something that a lot of Christians don’t choose to go to, let alone anybody who isn’t. So I think there isn’t enough opportunity for people to really hear about faith in a public, coherent way.

It’s often not about the complexity of what to do, it’s about the difficulty of getting on and doing it

I wanted to present faith as a natural thing, not just as a proselytising exercise, but one that allowed people to express who they were in a more confident and more interesting way.

I wanted to present faith as a natural thing, not just as a proselytising exercise It’s hard to be a Christian in government. It’s hard to be a Christian anywhere, or at least it ought to be, I suppose. But there’s not that much of a roadmap, and I think people might need a bit of help with that. Most of us probably need some inspiration when it comes to living more authentically at work.

And you found some stories to tell?

Yes, people like James Perry, the founder of COOK food. He built his company on principles taken from his faith. He believed that the business wasn’t there just to serve shareholders but employees, community and the environment. He wouldn’t have been in the same place if it wasn’t for his faith.

There aren’t many silver bullets in life – simple answers to complicated problems. But are there some key things you believe can help people break down the barriers between faith and work?

Whether you’re working at home as a homemaker or in an office, finding others who are in a similar type of work to you can be a really helpful thing. But added to that, I think that starting to talk to others about how they have presented their faith at work – regardless of whether they’re in the same line as you – is actually quite important. We don’t do it nearly enough.

And I guess just thinking and praying about why you’re doing your work is vital. Making sure you can somehow connect it to what motivates you, to gain some sense of service as well as purpose through that work. As you say, there are no silver bullets, but I think that it’s often not about the complexity of what to do, it’s about the difficulty of getting on and doing it.

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Many of us evangelicals have grown up knowing that the ideal is that we work for the church or that we do something measurably good – like social work or education. But what about the guys like my friend in IT, who describes himself as a ‘nerd-herder’, and so often feels as though his work is seen as being of little value by those within the church? How do we get a better view of faith in the workplace?

That was one of the motivating forces behind wanting to do the podcast – to address things that were never really validated in church.

The church’s community is where its people spend the majority of their time

I go to a great church and I’m really proud of the leadership and the ministries, but we don’t spend a lot of time talking about what the majority of people do for the majority of their time. It’s not an intentional omission, it’s often that the clergy have not been in the world of work for decades, and also because they are acutely conscious of the need to talk to the whole of the congregation who are in a myriad of different settings.

I think having smaller, more interactive groups can be an answer. Also, the church needs to see work as the dominant opportunity for the transformation of culture and the impacting of communities of which they are a part. The church’s community is where its people spend the majority of their time. It’s in firms and charities and government organisations and schools and hospitals where their members are.

We need to flip the assumption that church will be an occasion where there will be teaching dominated by biblical exposition rather than application. It needs to be far more of a demand-led situation where our leaders are saying “What would be most helpful to you when you go back to work tomorrow?”

The church can catalyse and accelerate that process by bringing people together who can learn from each other.

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While the specifics may vary from career to career and working environment to working environment, do you see some key traits and characteristics that are common to all Christians who want to integrate their faith and work?

Yes. Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control are common things. Saint Paul was a tentmaker, Daniel was a civil servant, and some characteristics are common to all Christians that work, whether we’re making tents or writing policy. But life is in the details, and we spend so long thinking about the details of our work that we – at least certainly I – could do with thinking about the specifics rather than the generalities of how our faith applies to work.

Have those podcast interviews helped?

The most inspirational interviews have been where people have genuinely only managed to do their work as a result of integrating their faith and their career together. Their faith is not just complementary to their work, but transformational. I think that Krish Kandiah, for example, has seen his work grow out of the attachment of his theology to his love of family. The fostering and adoption that he has undertaken and is helping other people to do by setting up Home for Good, I think is an inspirational example of what can happen when you do integrate faith and life together seamlessly.

Stephen Ruttle is a barrister who wanted to bring people together rather than bludgeon one side into submission with his arguments.

He’s a mediator now, and he’s ranked in the top ten in the world today. I think that’s because of his faith rather than in spite of his faith. It isn’t that being a barrister is in some way illegitimate or difficult and that all Christian barristers should become mediators or all parents should adopt. That isn’t it. But for everybody who is seeking a way to integrate their faith and their life, examples like these can give far more colour and inspiration.

And for people outside the church, it helps to picture a life of faith not as some kind of holy Joe who’s giving lots of money to charity and doing good works in their evenings and weekends. It shows that Christians can live in ways that their faith makes a difference, not just on high days and holidays, but every day.

You can find Richard’s podcast ’Faith in Action’ on iTunes, or by visiting sargeant.me/podcast

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CHURCH FAITH WORK

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‘AN ONGOING CONVERSATION’ Why generosity and faith are journeys, and how one woman is navigating them both.

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achael Phillips was generous long before she was a Christian. At 19 she bought a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka to see how she could help after the Boxing Day tsunami.

When she was 22 she served with the Royal Engineers on her first tour of Afghanistan, enduring horrendous experiences that she would struggle to cope with for years to come.

In 2012, she was back in Helmand Province, once more risking her life for her fellow soldiers in the hope of bringing peace through her role as mediator and liaison between the army and local communities under occupation or threat of the Taliban.

So perhaps it is hardly surprising that when she finally decided to give to Jesus whatever remained of her life, to promise to devote herself to obedience and sacrifice in pursuit of her Saviour, she was willing to embrace some drastic changes.

“Three weeks earlier I’d made some other big promises to my brand new husband.

When we got married he thought I’d stay in the army for a period of time, then leave and hopefully get some well-paid job and we’d have a comfortable life. I had to tell him, ‘You know this Christianity thing that I’m involved with? I think that maybe one day I might end up being a vicar’. He was naturally pretty surprised, but he’s been great about it.”

Giving up a promising career so quickly – and for such a low-paying alternative – wasn’t a whim or a guilt-driven response. It was precisely the kind of thing that happens when generosity has been sown into a life over many years.

In Sri Lanka, where Rachael lived with a Muslim family while she volunteered as a teacher among devastated communities, she learned how religion can permeate every aspect of life.

Her first tour of Afghanistan gave her plenty of opportunities to ask life’s big questions, “But I obviously wasn’t ready to listen. And God in his infinite patience waited another few years and finally I was ready.”

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It was on her second tour, sitting in a church service held in a shipping container, that Rachael’s eyes were finally opened to the fact that the universe was not created by chance, but by God himself.

OBEDIENCE AND SACRIFICE. THAT’S HOW I INTERPRET WHAT IT MEANS TO FOLLOW JESUS “It was a sort of frightening, overwhelming, emotional experience. I felt really big and important because God loved me so much, but I also felt very tiny and insignificant because God also made all the stars and everything else I’d ever known.”

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All these experiences, as well as countless others, combined to shape Rachael’s faith.

They gave her an appetite for putting words into action and for taking risks.

“My personal response to my faith certainly impacts my job, and there are two words that describe my relationship with God: obedience and sacrifice. That’s how I interpret what it means to follow Jesus.”

Having embarked upon a theology degree, Rachael was forced to put obedience and sacrifice into action again when a lack of funds meant she had to put her studies on hold at the end of the first year.

In need of a job, she was recommended for a post encouraging generosity throughout the Diocese of Durham. “In my interview I was

asked what my approach was to stewardship.

I took a gamble and said, ‘I’ve got to be honest with you, I didn’t even know what stewardship meant until two weeks ago.’ I’d done my research, looked at stewardship.org. uk and read about 40acts. I told them this and explained that in the last two weeks of learning what it means to give generously as a Christian, I had really taken a good look at what I’d been giving. I realised that my idea of giving had been doing the Sunday morning pat down as I searched for change in my pocket. I had sacrificed a lot for my new faith – leaving my army career, putting myself through part of a degree – and I thought that was my sacrifice. It was only while I was preparing for the interview that I saw that my purse was the last thing of mine

to be converted. It was a big step for me but I knew I wanted to take it. I ended up saying, ‘If you don’t employ me, that’s fine, but at least you’ve got one more person in the diocese tithing.’ I’d finally understood that giving generously is an act of faith, and also I learned what that money is spent on. It was a huge learning curve and I wanted to tell others what I’d learned.”

Unsurprisingly, she got the job.

I’D FINALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT GIVING GENEROUSLY IS AN ACT OF FAITH 25

These days, Rachael travels the Diocese in her role as chief cheerleader for generosity.

“I listen to people far wiser than me, and Christians much longer in the tooth. I ask loads and loads of questions about giving and then blog about it.” Describing herself as a fairly new Christian, she says it’s a challenge to share real-time via her blog what she’s learning each week about generosity and faith itself. Perhaps it is that very freshness of vision and openness of heart that got her the job in the first place, and which makes her blog so compelling.

Her experiences have opened her eyes to two matters in particular. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what the offering means and how in some churches we’re a bit too British about it. It’s all a bit secret, taking place quietly during the offertory hymn. In other churches it’s celebrated and is more than just paying subs. I’ve learned how it’s so clearly linked to the Eucharist which follows it. When we get to give, it’s a representation of how much we love God and how much he sacrificed for us in Jesus. When I started taking that seriously, seeing it not as a collection but an offering, there was no way I could go back to putting loose change on the plate. That was massive.

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“Then there’s the fact that generosity is an ongoing conversation. I don’t think we ever peak in our generosity. I don’t think it’s like Super Mario where we reach the final level and get the gold stars. I hope I’ll always be reviewing what I give, and I hope that I’ll always challenge myself.

“I talk about this day in and day out. I preach in churches and visit PCCs. If I thought the conversation was over for me and I was just telling other people what to do, that would be a massive shame and a real sham. I think that when I go and speak to people and the clergy, I hope they’re all listening, myself included.”

You can follow Rachael’s blog at thegenerousgivingproject.wordpress.com, and read more about her reflections on faith and the armed forces at frontlinefaithfulblog.wordpress.com

WHEN WE GET TO GIVE, IT’S A REPRESENTATION OF HOW MUCH WE LOVE GOD AND HOW MUCH HE SACRIFICED FOR US IN JESUS

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Legal & financial Should your church be paying that Many churches these days rent space in schools, leisure centres and other venues for Sunday worship, mission events, outreach and so on.

Quite often, those renting the premises to the church will add VAT to the rent. And 20% on top can add up to a tidy sum.

So, two questions arise: Can the church reclaim that VAT? And alternatively…

Should the church pay it in the first place?

VAT is by its nature, very complex. We have therefore produced a short Briefing Paper ‘VAT: churches renting property for their activities’ that explains the whole of this topic in more detail.

The short answer to the first question is that, in virtually all cases, a church will not be able to reclaim VAT in the way that businesses do.

The second question is of much more interest. That is because the answer in nearly all cases will be no. Why is this?

Where a church rents space in someone else’s building, for example for Sunday morning services, that will normally be VAT exempt. But – and it’s a big but – the landlord has what is called a legal option to tax the rent so that they can add VAT at 20%. Landlords will often want to exercise this option as it will improve their own VAT position. But of course that doesn’t help a church as they will not usually be able to reclaim any of it.

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But here comes the good bit:

There are two points to be aware of:

If the church rents space purely to carry out non-business charitable activities, they have a legal right to block the landlord’s option to tax, meaning that it must stay VAT exempt. Landlords will often not know this.

So it is up to the church to point it out… and then convince them that they can’t charge you VAT.

First, if you are renting premises and what you do there includes ‘business’ activities VAT can still be charged. For example, if a church rents premises to perhaps run a bookshop, or for an event for which there is an entrance fee, this is likely to be business use. It may raise funds but that is irrelevant. Equally whether or not a profit is made is not relevant for VAT purposes … the rent will attract a VAT charge if the property owner has opted to tax it.

Example: if you rent space in the local leisure centre to ‘do church’ on a Sunday morning that will be a non-business activity and the owners of the leisure centre should not charge VAT. If they do, you can stop them.

So, what’s the procedure for getting out of the VAT charge?

HMRC recommend that you provide the landlord with a VAT certificate that says that you will use the accommodation being rented solely for what is called a ‘relevant charitable purpose’. Our Briefing Paper gives more details of the meaning of this, as well as providing you with a template certificate.

Normally, the landlord will need advance notice of your intended use, and you can give this using the certificate. But you may be able to convince them to issue a VAT only credit note for rents paid over the previous four years if they have incorrectly charged you VAT.

Second, if the payment made is buying a range of additional services alongside just a room, for example the ‘rent’ includes provision of AV equipment, catering etc., the payments may not be rental payments at all, but payments for a package of services including the room. If this is the case, VAT is charged at 20% regardless. See our Briefing Paper for a potential way around this.

If your church is paying VAT on renting accommodation, it is probably time to review the arrangements and see if you can have the VAT charges removed!

For more help, see our Briefing Paper ‘VAT: churches renting property for their activities’

Visit stewardship.org.uk/share35 for more information, plus full links Kevin Russell, Technical Director

@KevnRussell

For the very latest news, subscribe to our free Sharpen email bulletin by visiting our website stewardship.org.uk You can also check out our Blog and Events pages for technical updates on law, accounting and tax stewardship.org.uk/blog and /events 29

Ask Steve Professional advice for churches and charities Stephen Mathews heads up the Stewardship consultancy helpline team, a specialist service offering expert knowledge to churches and charities.

Q. We are about to complete our annual accounts and are discussing reserves – what level is it sensible for us to carry?

A. Determining an appropriate level of reserves to carry is not an exact science but neither is it an excuse to squirrel away as much funds as possible. We suggest that there are three perspectives for trustees to consider: Biblical. In Genesis 41, the principle of storing up resources in good years for future release is seen, and in Matthew 6, Jesus warns us not to store up treasures on earth. Both teachings are complementary; hoarding riches for their own sake is not good, but using riches (either now or for a planned future purpose) on eternal treasures is encouraged.

Charity Commission. The Charity Commission is clear that income received by charities must be spent within a reasonable timeframe and that trustees should be able to justify holding income as reserves. They give no specific guidance on a level of reserves and certainly do not advocate an amount equal to three months of annual expenditure, the popular position for many churches.

Practical. Churches and charities should consider reserves in two parts: Money set aside to cover ongoing costs in the event of a loss of income or an increase in running expenses. This will be different in different situations (eg a church with low overheads and wealthy members willing to give in a crisis should need less held in reserve than a church with lots of staff or other overheads, working with low income members who would have real difficulty giving more).

Money set aside for a specific future project or to safeguard the charity against anticipated but unquantified future events eg roof repairs.

Combining these three perspectives, which are discussed more in a briefing paper on our website, will help trustees determine an appropriate level of reserves.

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Q. What changes do we have to make to the trustees’ annual report to comply with the 2015 Charity Statement of Recommended Practice?

Q. Can I make a claim under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme if I do not know the donor or I am not sure how large the donation was?

A. Module 1 of the Charity Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) says that the trustees’ annual report (TAR) should be a ‘coherent document…that provides a fair, balanced and understandable review of the charity’s structure, legal purposes, objectives, activities, financial performance and financial position’. The emphasis is on the trustees providing a ‘rounded story’ explaining how the charity operates, what it has achieved and what difference it has made. The SORP suggests some headings under which this story can unfold.

A. The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) is still relatively new and we find many churches have either not yet fully grasped the rules or imagine them to be too complicated and, as a result, are missing out on funds that could rightfully be theirs. Even HMRC appear to be a little disappointed with the relatively slow take-up of the scheme.

Whilst that meets the SORP requirements, the TAR can communicate much more. At Stewardship, we read hundreds of TARs. Whilst many tell a good story, there is a significant number that do not. These are often prepared at the last minute, often repeat the narrative of previous years, and frequently include a long dry list of activities.

c£ 20 or less. You do not require positive evidence of this, but where it is reasonable to assume that a gift exceeds £20 (eg two £20 notes folded together) it cannot be included in a claim.

The TAR is an opportunity for the church to engage with the outside world. It is an opportunity to promote the church as a people of transformation and a place of wholeness and belonging. If the highlight of the church year is yet again the annual outing this has to be a missed opportunity. By thinking about the TAR earlier in the annual reporting cycle, church trustees can do more than just meet the requirements of the SORP; they can tell a vibrant story to the outside world of Kingdom transformation and lives changed.

The basic rules for a qualifying donation are that it must be: c Made in cash.

cA ctually deposited in a UK bank or financial institution. That means that it can’t be used to pay expenses before being paid into a bank. cN ot received from a person for whom a Gift Aid declaration is held.

So, rather than not knowing the identity of the donor being a bar to making a claim, it can actually be advantageous.

The scheme has other regulations that must be followed and we have two briefing paper guides on our website (one practical and one comprehensive) which go into the details of the GASDS more extensively. With the claim limit being increased, the GASDS can provide a significant income flow to churches; one that should not be overlooked.

Visit stewardship.org.uk/blog for links to all the briefing papers mentioned Stephen Mathews, Head of Accountancy and Consultancy Services.

Subscribe to Stewardship’s consultancy helpline service, visit stewardship.org.uk/consultancyhelpline Subscriptions for churches and charities start from as little as £50 per year.

If you have a question you would like addressed in a future edition of Share, please write to us at editor@stewardship.org.uk

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