blessed to be a blessing!

As we all delve into our finances at the end of another tax year, I thought I would also delve into the church's finances for the last 12 months. My suspicion was that after crunching the numbers I would find an incredible story of faithfulness, blessing, generosity, answered prayer and lives changed not just here at ashgrove but throughout the world - because of the financial giving of this community.

My suspicions have proved correct! We have been blessed to be a blessing and are outworking this truth through incredible generosity. ashgrove has a rich history of seeing God's faithfulness through the giving of His people. This year adds to that history by even greater measure. Here are some facts and figures from the financial year (09/10) that was:

Our General Offering Budget of $480,000 was met. This was a $30,000 increase on the previous year's giving - Praise God! Over and above this, God's people continued to give as you'll see below.

In addition to the support of our Global Missions Team from general offering ($60,000), it has been our privilege to pass on an additional $25,000 in designated giving to individual team members and people experiencing short term global missions and another $3,000 to global missional organizations.

In addition to the support of The Gap Chaplaincy Cluster from general offering ($8,500), we raised another $2,500 from the easter@ashgrove art competition art auction.

Over $4,500 has been given in order to bring out our next Thai Intern from the Karen Baptist Church as well as another $5,000 for projects with the Thai Karen Church.

Over $3,600 has been given via Good Friday and Christmas Day offerings for Crossover Australia to assist Baptist churches to live missionally and do cutting edge ministry beyond the walls of the church.

Over $500 has been given towards Rainbow Beach Community Outreach which we support over the Christmas and New Year period in partnership with Scripture Union Qld.

Over $2,500 has been given towards Cunnamulla Mission, an incredible training ground for our youth and young adults, as well as being an great opportunity to bless this outback community and encourage and support the local church. Much baking and barbequing went into raising these funds.

In addition to the support of Qld Baptist Care from general offering ($1,000), we raised another $900 to support the homeless and disadvantaged through our annual Soup Days.

$12,000 has been given to further the incredible work of the Playcentre which operates from the hall 3 mornings each week - It is THE playcentre of the local community!

Over the past 3 years over $54,000 has been given to fund the role of Program Director - Children, to which Tim Sweetman has been recently appointed.

Over $4,500 has been given as sponsorship to supplement our budgets for community events at Christmas and Easter. It is so good to be able to bless our local community at these times of the year.

And in June, we ran our first ever Ashgrove Community Care Appeal giving you the opportunity to make tax deductable donations towards the extension of our Care ministry into the local community. God is good as we saw our target of $20,000 reached on the last day of this appeal.

Figures may not be your thing - you might not be inspired by this list of numbers and $ signs. But when I look at these figures I see much more than black ink numbers on a page. I see giving without restraint, I see opportunities for training, for development and growth, I see love in action, I see God's kingdom being expanded and the darkness of lives without Jesus having the light of hope that only Jesus can bring shone into them.

I want to be part of that light and so with much joy I continue to give! But with a new budget year having just commenced and an even great challenge having been laid before us in an increase of $61,000 for general offering, I feel the niggle of God to assess my giving. I am choosing to rise to the challenge of giving not just with joy, but with sacrifice. I am choosing for my giving to not be confined to the comfortable but for it to be sacrificial. What other response could I possible bring to my King?