share
the stewardship magazine 20
a legacy of generosity Lord Edmiston on giving away ÂŁmillions
Online giving takes off L is for lifestyle, G is for generosity New accounts for 18-25s transforming generosity SS5942 - Share 20 V4 ART.indd 1
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In today’s hectic world even the best intentions can sometimes be forgotten. Payroll Giving from Stewardship stops your giving being one of them. c Give straight away, on payday, like clockwork c Gifts come direct from your salary, before tax c Basic Rate tax payers – a £10 gift only ‘costs’ you £8. Higher Rate tax payers even less c Give to any UK charity c Easy set up for employees and employers
Find out how you can transform your giving, as an employee or employer, by visiting stewardship.org.uk/pg SS5942 - Share 20giving V4 ART.indd 2 5680 advert payroll V3 ART.indd 1
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about us We are Stewardship, a charity that effectively releases resources to support individuals, charities and organisations worldwide. Our mission is to enable you to live and give generously, advancing God’s Kingdom. We believe that generosity is transformational, for the giver and for the receiver. Our work inspires and supports a generous resourcing community, with transformational results. We are delighted to partner with you in your journey of generosity. contact us PO Box 99, Loughton, Essex, IG10 3QJ 020 8502 5600 enquiries@stewardship.org.uk 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 I went to St Paul’s today and spoke to an evangelist, a psychotherapist and a police officer.
By the time you read these words, that opening line might have a completely different set of associations. Perhaps, by the start of 2012 the protestors will have gone, leaving the place to the usual eclectic mix of clergy, professionals and tourists. Or perhaps they will still be there – maybe in even greater number than they were at the start of the whole Occupy protest movement. Perhaps the Christians, the therapists and the police will have joined in the call for change, prompting a colossal shift in the way we do business. I visited out of curiosity and – I’ll admit it – more than a little sympathy. After all, something has to change, doesn’t it? Yet what I found today was a lot of empty tents. A lot of signs too, but very few protestors. And no one saying anything productive. Perhaps today was the wrong day, and on another occasion I would have left inspired and enlightened. Whatever happens in the land of pop-up tents and supersized salaries over the next few months, I’m reminded that there are many influential Christians whose voices are heard within the city. “There are more of us than you’d think,” said Jeremy Marshall (trustee of Christianity Explored and Chief Executive of the private bank C Hoare & Co) in a recent interview with the Evening Standard. I thank God for that. And I thank God as I flick through this issue of Share. There are many examples here of the church taking responsibility for tackling society’s problems. Across these pages you will find tales of generous investors and intrepid social entrepreneurs, of families choosing to live among the poor and young people entering adulthood determined to embrace planned giving. You may shed a tear, you might break a smile, and at the end of it all I pray that you will share our sense of humbled excitement at the sight of faith in action, and join us in feeling inspired to live a better life ourselves. I didn’t find neat answers at St Paul’s today, but perhaps that is not the point. What I did leave with was the sense that any steps we take towards a better, fairer society will involve the sort of self-sacrifice and determination that has fuelled the church for generations. On the strength of these pages, I find that a profoundly exciting prospect. Michael O’Neill, Chief Executive 3
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news in brief Pastor Agu Irukwu, Senior Pastor of Jesus House, recently named London’s most inspirational black person.
will power
revving up
Stewardship has joined Christian Legacy, a consortium of Christian charities working to encourage Christians to leave legacies to further kingdom work. Co-members include Care for the Family, Tearfund and CMS.
The National Organization for Research at the University of Chicago has produced a list of the Ten Happiest Jobs. Results show that being a member of the clergy rates as number one, ahead of firefighters, teachers and authors.
The group is keen to raise awareness of the significance of legacy giving among Christians. As income from the faith-based legacy sector is falling, the CLC has produced a church pack, Tomorrow’s Harvest, to help churches educate their members about legacy giving. Order yours at christianlegacy.org.uk
The 10 Happiest Jobs 1. Clergy
fuel-anthropy
2. Firefighters
Winter Fuel Payments were designed to alleviate some of the suffering among pensioners during the colder weather, yet according to the Office of National Statistics over 25,000 older people died due to last winter’s plummeting temperatures.
3. Physical therapists
This year the Community Foundation Network – in partnership with SAGA – is encouraging people to donate their Winter Fuel Payment to those who are vulnerable. Money donated will support those most in need of help, making sure they can afford to stay warm, eat well, make and attend doctor’s appointments, get to the shops and maintain an active social life. communityfoundations.org.uk
8. Psychologists
4. Authors 5. S pecial education teachers 6. Teachers 7. Artists
9. F inancial services sales agents 10. O perating engineers
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Features... 16-21
(a lot) A man who started the Facebook page Jesus Daily two years ago has been notified that it’s currently the site’s most engaging page. Beating more obvious candidates such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber into first place, Jesus Daily has had the highest number of posts, comments, Likes and responses for at least 18 weeks in a row. Dr Aaron Tabor began the page as a hobby, posting a daily quotation from the Bible. However, people began posting prayer requests and now the page clocks in an average of 2,500 comments a day. To Dr Tabor’s delight, his page has connected people all over the world. “To see someone in the Philippines ask people to pray for them, and someone in Kenya answer is mind-blowing.” correction In the previous issue of Share was a photograph on page 9 that should have been credited as follows: Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester. Apologies to Graham Johnson for the mistake.
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Stewardship in action
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our history
10-11
one donor: one fundraiser
14-15 Stewardship launches 18-25 accounts
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Lord Edmiston: a true success story
22-23 l iving simply with Ruth Valerio
24-25 27 28-29
legal and financial roundup
more than gold prayer map legacy giving
30-31
a different dragon’s den
The magazine is printed on paper from farmed forests: for each tree felled, another is planted. The paper is chlorine-free and environmentally friendly.
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Stewardship in action online giving takes off Eighteen months ago we rolled out our online giving service. It’s certainly made giving easier, but has it encouraged even greater generosity? Ruth Leigh caught up with three online users to ask them how online giving has helped.
If I feel like giving something extra at any time, I can simply click a button and it’s done.
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Monitoring my giving is very important to me, and I find Stewardship’s online system clear and easy to operate. Tom Donaldson Tom Donaldson came online in July last year. Online giving has proved invaluable, as he explains. “My wife and I are both junior doctors. Our work location changes regularly, necessitating quite a few house moves. Trying to contact all our charities to give them our change of address used to be a nightmare, but with our Stewardship online giving account, everything’s in one place. It’s so much easier to organise now.” Tom and his wife supported a number of charities separately before they married last year, but have added several joint ones, including child sponsorships, Tearfund and a charity based in Nepal, where Tom grew up. With a fairly large group of regular donations to arrange, they have found Stewardship’s online service makes their giving far easier to track and monitor.
Jacqui Green
“It’s incredibly helpful to have our giving so organised,” Tom explains. “We support a number of regular recipients, but we both respond to appeals and disaster funds as and when they come up. It’s great to be able to have the flexibility and organisation to do that.” Tom and his wife support 19 different recipients online. With those sorts of numbers, Stewardship’s ability to manage their account has been a real gift, on any number of levels. Jacqui Green is a Baptist minister. She opted to take advantage of the online service when it was first rolled out. “I use Stewardship to organise my church tithe, various child sponsorships and the charities which I regularly support. It makes sense to me to be able to organise my giving online and request one-off donations when I want to.”
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David Trumper
We support a number of regular recipients, but we both respond to appeals and disaster funds as and when they come up. It’s great to be able to have the flexibility and organisation to do that.
Online giving suits Jacqui’s donation style. “I have a group of charities which I regularly support, but I like the 24/7 nature of the service online. If I feel like giving something extra at any time, I can simply click a button and it’s done.” In addition to arranging donations effectively, Stewardship also simplifies completing the dreaded tax return, which in itself is a good reason to go online. “When it’s time to complete my tax return,” says Jacqui, “all I have to do is visit my Stewardship account and the figures are there, ready to be added to my tax form. It’s so helpful.” Jacqui supports a broad spectrum of Christian charities including Nations Discipleship Enterprise, Smile International, Spurgeon’s College, Toybox Charity and World Vision UK. Like Tom, she finds the ease and efficiency with which Stewardship’s online service manages her account a great help in releasing effective resources for the Kingdom. David Trumper is a longstanding Stewardship client. “I was with UKET back in the 1970s,” he explains, “so I’ve seen lots of changes to the organisation along the way.” However, Stewardship’s core
values remain unchanged and David is enthusiastic about the online giving service. “One of the reasons I decided to go online when the service was launched was because I liked the efficiency of it all. Monitoring my giving is very important to me, and I find Stewardship’s online system clear and easy to operate.” David and his wife take their giving very seriously. “We always pray hard about every giving decision and wait on God about the way we should go with our donations. Online giving has proved to be a very useful tool for us in organising what we give to our various recipients.” Like Tom & Jacqui, David supports a large number of recipients – 55 at the last count. “I love the flexibility that using the online facility gives me,” he says. Eighteen months on from the launch, online giving is helping our clients to explore new expressions of generosity. With increased access to giving accounts, and systems in place to encourage spontaneous and planned generosity, the online giving experience is just a few clicks away.
Find out more about online giving at stewardship.org.uk/online 8
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from the archives... EB Roche – trustee Dr Eleazer Birch Roche was one of the original leaders of the United Kingdom Evangelization Trust (UKET, now Stewardship). Roche was born in 1848, the son of a pioneering physician who championed homoeopathy in the mid 19th century, at a time when most of the medical profession dismissed such practices as nonsense. The whole family was rooted in a strong Christian faith. Roche followed his father into medicine, excelling at his studies at King’s College London. By the age of 23 he had risen to become the House Surgeon. Three years later, Roche recounts, he was invited to “come and make history,” when the body of David Livingstone, Roche’s hero, was brought to King’s for examination and official identification. As the House Surgeon Roche was one of the men who identified the missionary’s remains. This experience served to intensify Roche’s admiration of Livingstone’s faith in action. He listed the missionary’s accomplishments: “his blotting out of the hideous and infamous slave trade and his personal demonstrations of the blessed Gospel.” Roche’s eldest daughter chose to become a missionary in Algeria. The family were obviously close – Roche and his father worked in a joint medical practice in Norwich for many years until the elder Roche’s death in 1889.
Photo: Wellcome Library, London
At the age of 58, EB Roche sat round a table with ten other men and witnessed the creation of UKET. He was seen as a trustworthy, reliable and faithful servant of God, and as such, a good choice to act as a trustee of church property. Roche died suddenly of heart failure on his wedding anniversary, 11th February 1930. In a long life, he had served many through his medical career, identified the body of one of the greatest evangelists of the Christian faith, and was in at the birth of a new venture to promote the Kingdom. 9
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generosity: the first steps At Stewardship we want to encourage the natural instinct for generosity among those who are taking their first steps of independent living. So, last year we created a special giving account for 18-25s. How has it been received? Frances Miles: “As the Head of Giving Services, but also a mum of two young adults, I am delighted that there is this opportunity to encourage ‘planned spontaneity’ – setting money aside for God that can be used for regular donations or for responding to emergency appeals. I know that money can be a bit tight when you are just starting out, with new larger bills to pay and maybe a student loan to contend with, or even finding regular work: Stewardship has made it easier by creating a special account for young adults. With no fees for two years, Stewardship will also make a monthly top-up donation into your account for a year creating more for you to give away.” Several of our most recent Stewardship givers took up the opportunity to join us by opening their accounts at Momentum 2011, the festival for 18-25s run by Soul Survivor – enticed by the offer of us topping up their giving by £10 a month for the first year. This has been their experience so far:
Luke and Rebecca Bacon so that We opened a Stewardship account ly. We easi e mor g givin our we could track one-off give to er easi it e mak also wanted to I am . give lly usua t don’ we to places where ‘offer’ this ine genu how with d really impresse unt amo extra this give to ded is. We have deci g, givin l usua our of top on th away each mon a itely defin was it say to but I do have ing a persuasive factor when looking at open unt! Stewardship acco
when presented with the opportunity to create an account with you – and the opportunity to give an extra £120 to charity, I took it!
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Andrew Galpin My father has an account with Stew ardship and he uses it to organise all his givin g. He introduced me to Stewardship and I liked how the system worked and the purpose of it. So when presented with the opportunity to create an account with you – and the opportun ity to give an extra £120 to charity, I took it! It’s my belief that we should give awa y some of the money we have to people who are more in need than ourselves. The Stewards hip account allows me to do that, and to do it easily. So I would recommend it highly to anyone who believes the same.
In-Yong Hwang a flexible I haven’t been paid yet, but hopefully my giving! online account will help me organise
With no fees for two years, Stewardship will also make a r monthly top-up donation into you account for a year creating more for you to give away Will and Pip Campbell-Clause We liked the idea of our regular givin g being topped up by Stewardship for the year and also getting the Gift Aid on top of it!
Stewardship has a limited number of these special accounts remaining. To be eligible you need to be aged between 18 - 25, be paying enough tax for us to claim Gift Aid on your giving, and make a monthly payment of £10 or more into your giving account. In addition to your monthly giving, we will credit an additional £10 a month, for a maximum of 12 months. And we won’t retain anything towards our administration for the first two years.
For more details and to open an account go to stewardship.org.uk/1825 15
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generous to the last... Here’s a question: how do you turn £6,000 into £380 million? And here’s another one: having made so much money, why would you give away £180 million of it? In search of answers Ruth Leigh met Lord Robert Edmiston – international businessman, life peer and overwhelmingly generous philanthropist.
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“I was born in New Delhi and went to school in Kenya. I was raised a Catholic, but I didn’t feel that God would do me any good. I got in with a rough lot at school and was constantly truanting. One day, I got an invitation from a local church. I went along and saw that the people there liked God – they had a living faith. There were some nice girls there too!” At 17, Lord Edmiston became a Christian. At once, he noticed changes in himself. “I was cycling to school one day and was nearly knocked off by a passing lorry. I opened my mouth to give the driver a piece of my mind, but I found I couldn’t swear.” That same year, he was challenged by God one night at church. “He told me to empty my pockets into the offering. I obeyed, then walked home seven miles in the dark as I didn’t have enough left for my bus fare.” At 20 he married and by 22 was a father. Money was tight and always seemed to run out halfway through the month. Even the cheque he wrote for his wedding flowers bounced. To make ends meet, he worked as a bank clerk by day and did up used cars by night. He was also looking to the future by studying to become an accountant. Things began to change when Lord Edmiston started work at Jensen Motors in the early 1970s. By 1974 he was Finance Director, but the mid-1970s were not kind to the motor trade. “It was the time of the three-day week and the oil crisis. We were selling 7.2 litre engine cars and there was no market for them.” In 1976, Jensen Motors went bankrupt. However, the owner had such a high opinion of his Finance Director that he asked him to start a new business selling spare parts. Lord Edmiston’s financial acumen came to the fore. He began International Motors with his £6,000 redundancy cheque, turned a profit in the first year of trading and continued to grow the business. Boldly, he never took his annual dividends, but steadily increased his shareholding until it reached 100% in 1988.
As Lord Edmiston became wealthier, he felt that God was directing him. 1988 was a key year, thanks to a dream he had one night: “I was standing in front of God and he asked me a direct question: what did you do with your life? You made lots of money. What else?” He had often felt challenged by the scripture ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’. Now was the time to take generosity in a new direction. With his wife, Tracie, Lord Edmiston started the charity Christian Vision. The organisation has two complementary strategies, Touch A Billion and Impact A Nation. The first utilises radio, internet and social media platforms to introduce people to Jesus, while the second supports a variety of projects within local communities. As well as predominantly church planting, Impact A Nation engages in social areas (such as education or health) depending on the needs and skills of the missionaries and workers. Lord Edmiston doesn’t follow the usual practice of sending workers out from UK churches. “I want people to hit the ground running,” he explains. “Impact A Nation works in a number of former Portuguese colonies, so it makes sense to send out Brazilian volunteers who are already familiar with the language and culture of the place they’re going to.” Touch A Billion reaches people in countries all over the world, including South America, Indonesia, Africa, China, India and Russia. The numbers are impressive, as even the Touch A Billion website reveals: on 31st October 2011, there were over 1 million visitors to the website, over 72,000 web shares and 471,834 Facebook Fans. In India alone, 30,000 phone calls are logged to the radio station every month. That’s a lot of people being touched. Some 200 missionaries have been sent out to Angola, East Timor and Mozambique through Christian Vision. Lord Edmiston has huge respect for them. “I say thank you to them for
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Image reproduced with kind permission of Lord Edmiston
I was standing in front of God and he asked me a direct question: what did you do with your life? You made lots of money. What else?
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So how does he define generosity? “As Christians, we need to look at the stories of giving in scripture: the rich man in the temple boasting about how much he’s donated, compared with the widow’s mite. It’s about how much you’re prepared to give away, not how much you’ve got in the first place. When God asks us to give, whether it’s money or time, we should obey.” Clearly, this is something he has always done as a Christian. “Everyone can be more generous than me. However much I give away, I’ll always have more left than most people do.” We talk about how a millionaire approaches the concept of sacrificial giving. When he obeyed God’s command as a cash-strapped teenager, he was giving sacrificially. These days, it’s his time which is in short supply, but that’s what God often
asks him for. That, and money: “So far, I’ve given away £180 million. By the time I die, I want to make it £300 million.” We chat about his feelings on legacy giving. His views are forthright. “Honestly? I think it’s better if you give when you’re alive. Christian Vision will be a legacy, but when I die and stand before God, I want Him to say ‘well done, good and faithful servant’.” At least part of his legacy through Christian Vision’s work can be summed up by the following, written by a woman who was reached by Touch A Billion: “Your efforts are changing not only lives today but transforming destinies as well. I am one who was initially a sinner and had my life connected to Christ. This is a drop in the ocean of the full impact because there are many lives just like mine that have been touched.” I ask him what he’d like his legacy to be. “I’d like people to say ‘he tried’. Only God can judge my motives and my achievements when that day comes, but I’d like to think that I did my best.”
For more information on Christian Vision, visit: christianvision.com
Photos by Martin Smith (www.martinsmithphotography.com)
helping me serve God,” he explains. “Look, I’ve just given money and I’ve got plenty more left. But they’ve given their lives and you only get one of those.”
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When I die and stand before God, I want Him to say ‘well done, good and faithful servant’.
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g is for generosity Ruth Valerio is part of the leadership team for Spring Harvest and runs Living Lightly, a web-based initiative encouraging Christians to tread more lightly on this earth. Debbie Wright caught up with her.
: In the 1990s you and your husband purposely moved to a housing estate in Chichester. How did you go about creating a community there? R: We felt very strongly called to live on a sink housing estate and it was extremely challenging. All anyone wanted to do here was move out! I had read somewhere that self-esteem and contentment are very much related to the physical environment where you live, so we started a Community Association with local residents and set about changing what the estate looked like – simple things like low fencing to stop cars driving on the green spaces, street and path lighting. We planted trees, borders, built a play area and a pergola for the teenagers. More landscaping and some community-created mosaics followed. Over the last 10 years the estate has been transformed: I now feel safe to walk about at night and most people take real pride in where they live. Our local councillor has recently told me that now our estate is the most desirable place for people in this income bracket to live.
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now our estate is the most desirable place for people in this income bracket to live.
Make Your Lent Louder 22nd February to 7th April
: Can you describe what Living Lightly is? R: An initiative to live simpler, greener Christian lives. It was set up by the Christian environmental charity, A Rocha UK, and I now run the website and speak and write on behalf of the movement. The idea is to try and live a more sustainable lifestyle and to apply it to every part of our lives. I try to practise what I preach and am now part of a pig-keeping co-operative and have an allotment. People think I live on a smallholding rather than in a town.
: Stewardship’s strap line is transforming generosity, what does that mean to you? R: Being generous is about how l live my life in relationship with God, with other people and the wider creation. Our society has become inward looking and individualistic: generosity is about looking outwards with my time, my gifts and my money. I am not vouching for a list of rules and dos and don’ts. I don’t think people should feel overwhelmed and feel they have to keep pigs – this is my particular passion and calling. But we can start with some small things – not taking the car for one particular journey, having a meat-free day once a week. My main philosophy is to live well as followers of Jesus and to look outwards to God and to one another.
Ruth is the author of L is for Lifestyle: Christian living that doesn’t cost the earth (IVP: 2008) arochalivinglightly.org.uk
At the heart of the Easter message is God’s amazing generosity – His gift of salvation. 40Acts will change the way you think about Lent. If you give something up for Lent, why not build on that and give something out as well? Take the 40Acts challenge with us and live generously each day. Each day we will send you a new Act, the sort that embraces kindness and generosity to help you make an impact wherever you are: at work, home or school. Each Act is designed with generous living in mind and – combined with a special thought for the day – will help you focus outward this Lent. Together we’ll benefit passers-by, the environment and our global neighbours. Last year’s 40Acts was a great success, and this year we’re offering some new twists, including a downloadable wallchart full of activities and challenges suitable for children. To sign up for 40Acts visit 40acts.org.uk 23
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growing generosity Inspired by a story in Share 17, Anna took planned giving to a whole new level. Reprinted with kind permission of the North West Evening Mail
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