charity registered in England No 1147116 www.churchfromscratch.org
Annual Report and Impact Statement for the year ending 31 December 2021
Table of Contents
| Table of Contents | Page 2 |
|---|---|
| Annual Report and Impact Statement | Page 3 - 11 |
| Independent Examiner Report | Page 12 - 13 |
| Statement of Financial Activity | Page 14 |
| Statement of Assets and Liabilities | Page 15 |
| Notes to the Accounts | Page 16 - 19 |
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Annual Report and Impact Statement for the year ending 31 December 2021
Charitable status
Church from Scratch is a registered charity in England, No. 1147116. Principal address: 34 Cranley Road, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, SS0 8AL.
Trustees serving at 31 January 2021:
Mary Blake Ongoing Peter Dominey Ongoing Katy Parsons Retired 24.2.2021 Natalie Hughes Ongoing Alex Emery Appointed 24.2.2021
The charity is established by means of a constitution with trustees appointed by the Partners (members).
Summary of Objects and Activities
Church from Scratch is a Christian church, a member of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Eastern Baptist Association.
The principal purpose of the Church is the advancement of the Christian faith according to the ways of Jesus as found in the Bible and which uphold the fundamentals of the Baptist denomination. The Church also advances education and carries out other charitable purposes in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world.
In addition to the reports set out below, our activities include holistic mission, public worship, prayer, Bible study, teaching, baptism, communion, pastoral care and social action, through a community comprising of, and working with many disadvantaged people.
Public Benefit Statement
The charity’s trustees continue to have regard for both the charitable objects set out in the governing document and to ensure that the activities of the charity, as described, meet the public benefit test. In so doing, they take account of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance when planning the charity’s programme of activities.
The Trustees of Church from Scratch are confident that the activities of the charity demonstrate strong evidence of public benefit.
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Nature of the Church
Church from Scratch is a Jesus centred network of community groups, projects and initiatives concentrated in south east Essex; responding to local needs and opportunities – an inclusive church family of people who are often marginalised and disadvantaged. The church acts as a pathfinder in Christian mission and as a change-agent.
A network of community groups across south east Essex
At the heart of CFS is the network of community groups. These are often home-based and typically organise around a weekly meeting where people work out what it means to live as followers of Jesus. The six communities are located across south east Essex, from Pitsea to Shoeburyness. They provide opportunities for discipleship and transformation as people develop relationships of trust with each together over shared meals and through shared lives. Many marginalised and disadvantaged people are part of the groups, and British Sign Language is used in one to include the deaf. Two groups hold a weekly gathering in Shared Space stores (Shared Space is the social enterprise which CFS founded and now partners with).
Each community is guided by one or more facilitators who are coached, encouraged and supported by the church leadership. Small-group discipleship resources are created by an in-house team of authors to resource the meetings.
During 2021, people belonging to CFS have grown in faith and new people have joined as we share life and faith together, supporting each other with practical care for those among us facing serious mental and physical illness and difficult domestic situations.
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The 4 foundational values of CFS
These values have stood the test of time over the years and sustained us as we find continuing and new ways to express and live them out. They hold us to the ways of God’s Kingdom and are at the centre of all that CFS is and aspires to be:
We value Jesus at the Centre: doing it his way; changing as we follow him deeper; relying on him; recognising we're a little bit of his worldwide church; realising Jesus' Spirit is at work now.
We value Building Community: building real and loving relationships as we rely on each other; growing up in faith together; giving our community away to others.
We value All people: moving wider to all; encouraging participation by all; standing up with those who need us.
We value Living life to the full: finding Jesus in all parts of life; holding on to faith as we take risks; helping each other to grow into the full and unique people God wants.
Activities, events and programmes in 2021
We continued to follow these four priorities
We sensed these were needed to unlock our future and help us live out the values on which CFS is founded. The priorities were:
1. Fostering passionate spirituality
re-founding CFS on Jesus in a closer relationship with him.
2. Building deeper connections
helping us to belong to each other across the groups of CFS.
3. Reaching new people
with a focus on re-building opportunities for families, young adults and children.
4. Increasing capacity*
finding the people, time & money we need to help CFS sustainably grow and deepen.
* CFS is a church with poorer people than other churches in the area but we are strong on love, community, faith and life. We’re deeply grateful to Christians from other local churches who give generously to CFS, wishing to support our distinctive mission.
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Covid-19 and a new lockdown
After an easing of restrictions in mid 2020, the beginning of 2021 brought the return of lockdown and the church adapted as physical meetings were not possible. The following were features of Church from Scratch’s lockdown:
Food for those among us who were hungry We provided a food programme to people in CFS, Shared Space and the wider community who were going hungry, and we mobilised three other Baptist churches to join us in this and applied to Southend Emergency Fund for financial assistance in this.
Weekend Workshops
A series of on-line Weekend Workshops were held which was a fun way to connect and also meet other people on-line. Themes included learning British Sign Language, a cooking lesson (bring your own ingredients and cook along), etc.
Online weekly Community Groups
These groups were our best attempt at a continuation of our face-to-face meetings and helped us stay connected using tools such as Zoom – it was evident that though h elpful, online meetings are limited in what can be achieved, when the aim is to share life together and we normally meet in each other`s homes"
CFS Daily
A 30 minute online gathering every weekday of lockdown, held in the early evenings to spend time with God and each other. Each day was facilitated by a different person and was multi-voiced, helping us sustain a rhythm of prayer and to stay connected with God and each other – especially for those on their own during lockdown.
Night Owl
These weekly meetings on Fridays at 10:30pm provided an hour-long end to the day and week, providing a quiet and reflective space. And they have endured beyond lockdown as part of the online presence of CFS.
Supporting the Shared Space volunteer community
We helped facilitate weekly meetings for the 70 Shared Space volunteers during lockdown as we were not able to run Making Space groups in each of the stores during the restrictions.
Talking God - Theological Reflections
We held theological reflections over zoom to develop people’s ability to think as Christians and teach theological reflection skill to an invited group of participants.
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Crucible Course
Five of CFS undertook an online module on discipleship processes, called Becoming Human which was provided by Crucible Course.
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Restrictions Eased
With Covid restrictions easing we could meet again the week before Easter. This included:
- Baptisms
It was wonderful to baptise Laura, Ash and Marie during the year with baptisms in a church baptistry we borrowed and in the Thames Estuary.
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Kick Start – a 4 session course we created, for Shared Space volunteers to learn to cook a dish each week and discuss a theme. These were held outdoors due to Covid.
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Safe Place for our Storie s - a safe space for women and non-binary people to share their experiences of violence and harassment. This included ‘Rage Around The Fire’. A gathering around a fire.
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Denial Round The Fire - we met in gardens around fire pits and reflected
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on Peter’s denial of Jesus whilst warming himself round the fire after Jesus was arrested.
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Bless Week – we held this 3-day event:
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Day 1: Be Blessed - Waiting for God’s blessing
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Day 2: Bless Others - Baking Bread together to share
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Day 3: Bless Jesus - A time of worship together.
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Ivy Farm Summer Camp 30 of us went on a camping holiday to Mersea Island, where we explored the stories Jesus told of the lost coin, sheep and sons in Luke’s Gospel.
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Forge Wood – 14 of us went wood camping in Sussex, cooking over log fires, sleeping in expedition tents and gathering around the fire to connect with Christ. For some of us this was the first holiday in many years.
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Immersive Experience – our immersive training experience returned for church leaders and ministers from
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Baptist churches across the country. 100+ church leaders have completed this 4-day programme with us.
- Monthly Gatherings - For people from across the church in various venues, with worship, exploring themes and discerning what Jesus has for us.
Resource creation and sharing
In 2021 we wrote and published online a range of small group resources including the following series:
●Jesus Is The Question
A 7 week course to help us engage with questions which Jesus asked.
●Jesus The Misunderstood
A 7-week foundational course on Jesus. This is an early attempt at a new enquirers course to express the Christian faith, that helps people to see God as non-violent and is shaped by anabaptist and other distinctives.
●People Who Pray
A series to help our spirituality.
●Christmas From Scratch
10 monologue videos and small group resources which we made the year before - this year we re-edited the videos for social media and made them available for download by other churches from the UK and abroad.
●Colossians
A short series based on this book from the Bible
●Radical Roots
We started to develop a new video training course to help Baptist churches reconnect with the historical founding stories of our movement.
To aid production we secured funding from the Baptist Historical Society (who have become our partner), Baptist Union of GB, 8 Baptist Associations and 2 Baptist Colleges.
This docudrama script is now written and in 2022 we will film and publish the course.
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We are committed to actively sharing these resources with other churches and church plants. A hallmark of the resources is their highly participatory and interactive approaches that cater for a range of learning styles and their fresh take. We also re-edited some of our old series of small group’s resources to the new standard for their ongoing use.
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Other things
CFS and the LGBTQIA+ Community
We are blessed to continue to welcome people from this community, to be invigorated by their participation, and to provide a safe home for them.
During the year we published further resources to help churches on their affirming journey, met with several ministers who seek to lead their churches into being more inclusive, and we worked in other ways to make church a safe place for the LGBTWQIA+ community.
We continue to remotely support LGBTQIA+ Christians who reach out to us from across the country, finding themselves isolated and rejected by local churches.
Our Minister in Training
Natalie Hughes has continued to be a blessing, encouraging us all as she has developed as a minister. In 2022 she will complete her time with us. She acts as the chaplain for Shared Space, the social enterprise we started and has been involved in many areas of CFS community and leadership.
Our Minister
Peter Dominey as well as being part of us, he has led our partnership working with Shared Space, taking them through Covid-19; working towards opening further Shared Space sites, deeper work with the 70+ volunteers; and supporting other churches in establishing social enterprises and church plants. He has led the handing over of Southend Emergency Fund which was setup as part of Shared Space with our enabling. Southend Emergency fund drew together a coalition of 40+ local charities and in the middle of 2021 was handed on to operate under another local charity. To date it has raised £494,311 to support local people. Peter continues as a founding trustee of Together Free the Southend based national charity which works to set people free from modern day slavery and human trafficking.
International Deployments
We continue to support Dan and Annie Dupree. Dan was our student minister until 6 years ago and they now work in eastern Europe with the Roma people among others.
We continued to support and encourage them as they work under the auspices of BMS World Mission, and it was a blessing to have the family with us at our summer camping weekend at Mersea Island in Essex.
Partnership with Shared Space
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Shared Space is the social enterprise CFS founded with which we partner:
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●Our student minister acts as chaplain to the two stores and their volunteers.
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●We run ‘Making Space; groups in the two stores.
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●Our minister leads their work.
CFS Aims for 2022 includes
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●Centre all we do on Jesus, so we become more like him.
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●Live out and express the values of CFS.
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Develop and work from the CFS Development Plan.
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Equip people of CFS to express and share the good news of Jesus, so Southend and people are transformed.
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●Write and publish small group courses and videos, to assist CFS and other churches.
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Build upon our partnership with Shared Space social enterprise , further replicating the Shared Space model.
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Develop the Community Groups in depth and number so we become more authentic and prevalent.
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Identify, train and nurture CFS people, so leadership is shared, and new Community Groups can be planted.
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Encourage greater generosity of time and money within and beyond CFS, to release resources for the mission we are called to.
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Develop children’s work.
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●Support Baptists and others in pioneering so other people venture out in incarnational mission.
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●Share our resources and insights through significant developments to the CFS website and through training events including Immersive Experiences.
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Be receptive to opportunities and needs as they present and respond with agility, so we don’t miss the party.
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Support the newly formed anti-slavery and human trafficking charity called Together Free through one of our minister’s time, given as a trustee.
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Run residential events as Covid-19 allows, including weekends and holidays.
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Accounting Basis
The accounts were prepared on a receipts and payments basis.
Reserves Policy
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●Reserves will be maintained to ensure core activity can continue during any period of unforeseen difficulty.
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●A proportion of reserves will be maintained in a readily realisable form.
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●The calculation of the required level of reserves is an integral part of the organisation's planning, budget and forecast cycle and it considers:
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Risks associated with each stream of income and expenditure being different from that budgeted
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Planned activity level
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The church’s commitments
On this basis, and having reviewed the policy during the year, the Trustees believe that for 2022 a reserve equivalent to six months’ running costs should be maintained. The reserves policy will be reviewed annually.
Mary Blake Church Secretary on behalf of Church from Scratch 11 February 2022
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Examiner’s Report
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Independent Examiner’s Report
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Statement of Financial Activity for the year ended 31.12.2021
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Statement of Assets and Liabilities for the year ended 31.12.2021
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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31.12.2021
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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31.12.2021
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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31.12.2021
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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31.12.2021
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