St Mary’s Church
Fundraising
Question, have you ever thought about how much it costs to keep St Mary’s Church, your Church here in Newchurch in Pendle going?
I am Douglas Bull the Treasurer and Church Warden, and I will answer that question for you. I will also ask you some important questions about how you can help keep St Mary’s Church going for our children, grandchildren and their children, as generations have done before us.
Like every household and business St Mary’s has ‘running costs’ these include our utilities, oil, electric and water, we have insurance and the most significant monthly out going is our Parish Share. “What is Parish Share?” I hear you ask. Every year the Diocese of Blackburn issues us with a Parish Share request. This is calculated by taking into account the number of regular church attenders and the socio-economic data for the parish of Newchurch in Pendle according to the most recent Census. Our Parish Share for 2025 is £25,441.00. This is our contribution towards the support we receive for our vicar, legal advice, safeguarding support and guidance to help us care for our church.
In addition to the above we have the regular expenses of maintaining our old building, recently we had to replace the boiler, completed the Narthex and upgraded the audio and visual system. It is worth remembering that the Narthex was funded by legacy donations left to our Church over several years. We have paid £4,000.00 in July to treat and repair water ingress on the east wall. The Church Warden and PCC have a duty of care to keep people safe when they come to St Mary’s, this includes the graveyard, where we spent £5,000.00 on memorial repairs in December 2023.
An advantage of the work at church has been to enable the church to become more adaptable as a community space. It is regularly used as the meeting place for the Parish Council and has been invaluable in running the Pop-Up Tea and Cakes events. Over the coming year we hope to be able to host more events at church. Do contact me if you want to run an event, help at the events or want to rent the space.
We still need to plan, fund and make improvements to the Church building. Our in planning at this time is to make better use of the gallery and seek to instal a large TV for Church services. We will always look for funding from organisations, like the National Churches Trust.
Our income is entirely made up of weekly donations on our collection plate every Sunday, monthly direct debits, interest from our investment, HMRC Gift Aid return, fund raising events and donations from the Sum Up card reader in Church. We receive no funding from the national church, the government or local authority and rely on the generosity of those who value our church.
In a nutshell then our essential budgeted expenditure for 2025 is £48,836.00 or £4,070.00 a month. At the end of June 2025, we had collected £14,000, or on average £2,333.33 a month.
As a church community we are not complacent about our financial challenges and continue to look at fundraising activities as a small but significant way of meeting our day-to-day running costs.
HOWEVER, whilst all these saving and fundraising strategies are incredibly important, as a church family, we, like many individuals and families, are living from hand-to-mouth. We have limited reserves and savings. Each month we are spending more than we have coming in. This, as you can imagine is not sustainable.
I know that I have asked our Congregation to look at the generosity of their financial contributions, and that they have all managed to find a bit more. I know there are people who contribute each month by direct debit but do not come to Church and on behalf of St Mary’s PCC I am very grateful for these contributions.
My questions to you:
Have you thought about making a regular donation to St Mary’s Church? You can do so by setting up a standing order?
Bank Details:
Name St Mary’s PCC
Sort Code: 20-15-70
Account: 80775533
If you are already donating, can you think about increasing your donation?
Can you help by giving your time to help with things like keeping the Graveyard tidy?
If you are a UK taxpayer, would you consider ‘Gift Aiding’ your donation? Gift Aid allows us to claim 25% tax back.
One other question:
How shall I repay the Lord for all the benefits he has given to me? (Psalm 116 v10)
If you have any questions or want to know more about how you might be able to support our church and it’s heritage please contact me by email or on 07907458894.