Completed by: Revd Phil Carman, vicar
What is the context of the church?
St Andrew's church sits on the High Street in Starbeck right at the heart of the community. Starbeck is situated between Harrogate and Knaresborough. We are a lively and welcoming church. During the week we offer a range of events for all ages including youth and family groups.
What was your project?
Cornerstone.
Why did you do your project?
We were invited to take part in the Cornerstone Project as part of the Leeds Diocese pilot in Harrogate Deanery.
How did you do the project? Please tell us a bit about the works.
Myself, as vicar along with our Church Warden and a member of our finance team were invited to an intro session with other churches in the Harrogate Deanery. The intro session was led by leaders from the CofE Finance team. They outlined the vision and purpose of cornerstone and introduced the resources. The main recourse being the Cornerstone online dashboard. We have used the dashboard to set up action pathways to help us encourage a generous culture in our church.
How did you fund your project?
Cornerstone has come free to us at point of use.
What support did you get for your project? Who did you speak to about it?
Janet Edmond, Senior Stewardship Officer for the Diocese has been a great help.
What went well with your project? What difference is it making?
It is helping view and communicate what it means to build a generous church. We have evaluated our current culture and looked at what needs to change. One of the main learning points for us has been about how we communicate our impact and not just our need. We have started to better share with the church and the community the impact that the church is having, the good things that the church is doing and the difference that it makes. This then encourages generosity towards need.
What did you learn during your project? What would you do differently?
We learned how to build a generous culture by looking at giving practice in terms of the mechanisms we use for giving. Communicating the impact of what we do as a church. Making it clear why people need to give and building trust with givers. We have also explored generous culture looking at how we inspire people to give, how we see giving and generosity as part of our discipleship, how we imbed generosity and how we activate generosity in the life, mission and ministry of our church.