Presbyterian Church's 'United Appeal' balances the books

​The assembly also discussed and debated various pressing social, moral, political and public issues of the day. From the controversial to the far-reaching, the mundane, but necessary, it discussed reports from the church’s various councils and commissions, which carry out the work of the church, that included matters financial centred around the United Appeal for Missions.

This year, the church agreed to ask its congregations to contribute £3.4million to the 2024 United Appeal, which will support projects, programmes and staff at home and overseas. The church's United Appeal committee, with responsibility for assessing council budgets, recommends to the general assembly the grants to be allocated to each of the church councils and the appeal to congregations required to meet what has been agreed.

Martin Hampton, an elder in Strand Presbyterian church in East Belfast, and appeal convenor, said the United Appeal for Missions is at the very heart of Irish Presbyterianism and every aspect of the church's mission and ministry depends upon it.

“There is a kind of catch phrase that goes with the Appeal - it is ‘Presbyterians doing together what none of us can do on our own’ and it is true, as it hits the nail on the head. It supports mission and ministry at home and around the world helping congregations and individuals to build God’s Kingdom through youth and children’s ministry, social action and the training of leaders, for example," Mr Hampton added.

“Each year, the church steps out in faith as it agrees grants and sets the level of the United Appeal. As we do so, we continue to trust in the Lord and thank Him for being such an incomparably kind and generous God,” .

Explaining how the United Appeal is calculated, Mr Hampton said a congregation’s contribution is based on how many contributing families a congregation has and its ‘assessable income’. This income includes weekly freewill offerings, income for the stipend, Sunday and other collections for general use.

“Each congregation is given a ‘target of honour’ to meet during the course of the year in terms of its contribution to the United Appeal. This is calculated on 50 per cent of the number of contributing families and 50 per cent on assessable Income.”

Last month, the General Assembly heard that the 2022 Appeal to congregations had raised £3,225,400, which was 98.8 per cent of the target set, which was the second year of a reduced target set due to the covid pandemic.

While the 2023 United Appeal is in ‘mid flow’, the report to the General Assembly that, of 527 congregations listed for contributions: 221 (41.93 per cent) had exceed their target of honour 168 (31.87 per cent) had met it exactly, 111 (21.06 per cent) had contributed to but not met target, while 27 congregations (5.12 per cent) had not yet contributed.