An invitation from Pastor Peter Scott:

Dear Carey Baptist Church Family,  

Thanks for being part of this community as we seek to be and make disciples, with the vision of becoming flourishing communities of hope! I write this letter to invite you to participate in Giving Sunday, which this year will be on 30 March.

On Giving Sunday, I would like to ask you to do two things:

1. Sign the commitment card indicating how much you intend to  give regularly (tithes/offerings) to support the ministries of the church over the coming year, and
2. Prayerfully consider making a special one-off gift as we look to build a future ministry leader development fund.

Deep thankfulness for 2024

Last year, we held our first “Giving Sunday”. We held it as a call to continued discipleship in the area of our finances and as a relatively urgent request to restore our church financial health to a position that enabled us to move forward well. As you know, if you were on the journey with us, as a result of that process, not only was our financial stability restored (you gave around $80k in one-off giving), but our regular giving increased across the rest of 2024 and enabled us to: 

• Restore our senior female youth leader role  (a critical role in our healthy and growing youth group of typically 80 people on a Friday night); and
• Restore our admin staffing to full capacity, creating the foundation required for our ministries to launch and grow.  

This has meant that we have entered 2025 ready to embrace the fullness of the missional opportunities God has before us, including, to name a few:

• Our Kids Ministry, which is thriving;
• Our RISE internship program, which has more than doubled in numbers;
• Our engagement with the Carey schools, which is increasing;
• We are starting conversations to grow our Young Adult Ministry;
• Our Sunday morning worship service is a place of blessing,  growth and invitation; and
• We are beginning the journey together of refreshing how we go about the mission to which God is calling our church..

So why do another Giving Sunday?

This year, we are doing Giving Sunday for two main reasons. The first is similar to last year; as an important part of our ongoing discipleship journeys in the space of finances. John Piper says that “Jesus spoke more about money than sex, heaven and hell”. It is a topic of importance because of its connection with our souls and where we truly place our trust. So an annual focus seems not only prudent, but important as Christ followers.

What is different this year, is that the invitation to be good stewards with our regular giving is not made in the context of perceived great need by the church, but rather in the context of great thankfulness for what we have and anticipation of what God might want to do through us as our generosity increases. Imagine that – getting together to talk about how  God is wanting us to expand our ministries for his glory because of the excess he has brought us!

The second reason to have Giving Sunday this year is a specific sense about what God is doing through our church in relation to developing people who will be leaders of his church into the next generation. The RISE program is growing. There, people are being shaped as Christ followers with an appetite for God’s word and mission and people. And, we are already seeing people graduate from the program with an interest in going into full time ministry. Our response to that has been to develop the Ministry Training Strategy (MTS) – an opportunity to explore and train for full time, paid ministry. We are very excited that Thomas Wilson is our first MTS apprentice in 2025. Watch the (2 min) MTS introduction video here.

And – we believe God is calling us to grow this program, such that we can either or both extend Thomas to a second year of MTS (which is typical of other MTS type programs), and offer an MTS apprenticeship to another (more than one more?!) emerging leader.

So, our call in 2025 is for one-off gifts to fund future MTS apprentices. One year full time funding is in the order of $60k, of which we ask the trainee to raise at least half themselves. So if we give $60k in one off giving in 2025, that sets the opportunity for two more MTS apprenticeship years. Think of the legacy created for future generations of the church as Godly women and men are trained for key ministry roles! 

The Giving Sunday invitation

So, I invite you to join us by doing the following:

Please read this letter (you’re almost there!) and take a look at the Giving Card 

1. Pray – ask God to show you how much to give as a regular tithe/offering in 2025 and as a one-off gift to the MTS;
2. Go to the MTS website (by scanning the QR code on the Giving Card) and contribute to our MTS leadership development fund;
3. Fill in the Giving Card; and
4. Bring the Giving Card on Sunday March 30 as we celebrate what God is doing

I would also like to invite you to pray with us for this process and our hearts. Both in your own prayer time and at the next Partner’s Gathering on Wednesday March 12  for the work God has called us to do this year and in anticipation of Giving Sunday.

We know that God will provide for all that he has planned for us, and so we continue to move faithfully in that direction. We also know that he invites us to participate and be the vehicle of provision. Specifically financially, putting that vision into practice depends on the generosity of people like you and I. 

Thank you for being part of our community and for being open to considering this request to continue to invest in God’s mission and our pursuit of it, here at Carey

Yours in Christ,

 

Peter Scott

Senior Pastor

Carey Baptist Church | Harrisdale