A small church in one of England’s largest council estates

We are a little church in one of the biggest council estates in the country in Hull. With many of the challenges and joys of such a community, the last three years has seen us grow from single figures to a Sunday congregation of 20-30 adults and 10/15 children. It has been exciting to see local people come to faith but we are also still pretty fragile and see the parable of the sower played out amongst us.

We felt that the decisions last year at General Synod meant that a line had been crossed and we wanted to make our feelings known in a tangible way and demonstrate some level of broken spiritual partnership with our diocese had been broken. One part of partnership is the giving and receiving of money. We felt like the Ephesian fund was the best way for the moment that we could continue to give financially and at the same time highlight that some level of mutual partnership was now broken.

Since the beginning of 2023 we had been discussing as a PCC (and a few times more widely with the church) the implications of the decisions of General Synod. When the option for the Ephesian was introduced it seemed like the natural next step for us as a PCC. We were all in agreement and passed a resolution to use the Ephesian Fund and shared this with the wider church.

It is important for us to use the Ephesian Fund to allow us to honour our desire as a church to give and to grow in the grace of giving whilst at the same time make a visible step to show spiritual partnership has been broken and allow us to have a little voice of protest. The Ephesian fund we believe is the best way at the moment to allow us to continue to contribute towards ministry costs without compromising our convictions!

We want to be able to give and the Ephesian Fund has provided a way to do that! Three years ago the church paid nothing to the diocese due to poor finances and a tiny congregation. We then made a decision to commit to a FWO and each of the last three years we have increased that (stepping out in faith). This has been really encouraging for the church and after the events of General Synod last year we felt saddened that we no longer had the opportunity to give without feeling like we were compromising our convictions. The Ephesian Fund has gone some way in helping us so that we can continue to give but also make our voice known and display the broken spiritual partnership we now find ourselves in.

The Ephesian fund has also been a way of a few individuals giving to the Church through it.

Thank you to those who have established the fund. It has been much appreciated by a little church like ours to be part of something bigger and do something that on our own we wouldn’t have been able to do.