Finance update Nov 23

In November, Katherine gave an important update regarding the finances of St Mungo’s: reviewing the income and expenditure from the year ending 30th September before looking to the year ahead.  If you missed it, please have a look at the recording here…

In summary, our budget last year included a deficit of £192,000, reflecting the decision made by Vestry during 2022 to use our available reserves to fully resource our Vision to Be Love in the prayerful hope and expectation that we would see God’s Kingdom and St Mungo’s grow and flourish as a result.  Our hope is that as we see our congregations grow, that this would result in our income growing sufficiently for us to bring our income and expenditure back into balance, allowing us to continue this Vision in to the future.

We have been overwhelmed by your response, thank you!  Both our regular and one off gifts were significantly more than we expected last year, and this was the most significant element of ending the year with a deficit of just over £50,000.  This means that instead of already investing half of our available reserves, we have only needed to invest a quarter, which is wonderful.

Looking to the future, the Vestry has been considering what our congregational giving needs to grow by, in order to continue to sustain our current vision, and the answer is 7.5%.  At first glance, this looks like an unrealistic expectation, however Katherine outlined four reasons why she believes this is a realistic, if challenging, aim.  Firstly, the abundant generosity of God, which is where we started the year’s teaching in our morning services.  Secondly, we have a vision for growth, and as we each live out our vision of Being Love, then we can look forward to our congregations growing, and consequently our income.  Thirdly, we are each on a journey of discipleship and as we grow in our individual discipleship to Jesus then that will impact all of our lives, including our finances.  And lastly, we have already seen this level of income growth during 2022-23: our monthly regular giving has grown by 7.7% since Sept 2022 and our one off gifts have grown by over 8% compared to 2021-22.

Katherine finished by asking everyone to continue to pray for the finances of St Mungo’s, to have a look at the updated giving leaflet and to continue to regularly and prayerfully review their giving.  And by thanking everyone for their faithful and generous giving over the past year.  If you have any questions, please contact Katherine on Katherine.Burnett@stmungos.org

What is Kintsugi Hope?

What is Kintsugi Hope?

Kintsugi Hope is a charity based in the UK striving to make a difference to peoples mental wellbeing.
"Kintsugi' (金継ぎ) is a Japanese technique for repairing pottery with seams of gold. The word means 'golden joinery' in Japanese. This repairs the brokenness in a way that makes the object more beautiful, and even more unique than it was prior to being broken. Instead of hiding the scars it makes a feature of them.

We want to see a world where mental and emotional health is understood and accepted, with safe and supportive communities for everyone to grow and flourish.

Kintsugi Hope Groups

A Kintsugi Hope Group is a safe and supportive space for people who feel or have felt overwhelmed, providing tools for self-management in a facilitated peer mentoring style setting.

It consists of a structured yet flexible series of 12 weeks of content, which includes group and individual activities designed to help participants to accept themselves, to understand their value and worth, and grow towards a more resilient and hopeful future.

The role of the Group Leader is to facilitate the sessions using the material available, signposting people if necessary to further help and support. It can feel vulnerable and scary starting a group, but the benefit of a Kintsugi Hope Group is that Group Leaders are not on their own.

Issues covered include; disappointment, loss, anxiety, anger perfectionism, shame and resilience

What are St Mungo’s doing?

St Mungo’s Church will be running a Kintsugi Hope group on Thursday evenings. The group will meet at 8pm on Thursday 28 September in St Mungo’s Ministry Centre, Balerno, and will run for 12 weeks. The group is open to anyone, whether you are a member of St Mungo’s Church or whether you have no faith at all. The primary aim of the group is to provide a safe place where people can support one another.

How do I sign up?

If you are interested in signing up, please email david.lyons@stmungos.org

This is St Mungo's Course

This is St Mungo’s is a four-week course designed to help those who have started attending one of our St Mungo’s services regularly and who are wanting to become more involved and are especially thinking about joining a House Group. Our House Groups meet in lots of geographic locations with people in the Livingston and Balerno congregations in groups with people from their church service location.

The course will help you to find out more about:

• Who St Mungo’s is and what it means to be a member

• What we believe

• What our vision and the core values behind our culture are

Each session will give you a taste of what a House Group meeting is like, and you’ll experience our core values in action. There will be tea and coffee (and cakes!), a time of worship and prayer, some  teaching and a chance to ask any questions. The evening will start at 7:45pm and be finished by 9:30pm.  It will be held at the Ministry Centre in Balerno.

The course runs for four evenings in total, and the dates are:

• Tuesday 12th of September

• Tuesday 26th of September

• Tuesday 10th of October

• Tuesday 24th of October

The course is also an opportunity for you to get to know us a bit more and to ask any questions you might have.

If you would like to attend the course, then please email Andrea at andrea.brewster@stmungos.org