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2022-12-31-accounts

THE KING'S CROSS BAPTIST CHURCH see, i am doing a • NEWTHING! ow it springs UP; ' DO YOU NOT Perceive It? ) 15AIAH 43..19 INIVI ANNUAL REPORT 2022

Annual Report 2022

Table of contents

Table of contents
Annual Report for the Year 2022 page 3
Reference & Administrative details 3
Structure, Governance & Management 4
Objectives, Aims & Strategies 5
Church Members Meetings & Membership 6
Trustee’s Report 8
Breathe 8
French Ministry 10
Hospitality Team 14
Life Groups 15
Media & Communications 16
Mission (Overseas) 19
Prayer 20
Sunday School 21
Tech team 22
Worship 23
Women’s Ministry 24
Youth, Students & Young Adults 25
Volunteers 27
Finance 27
Statement of Trustee Responsibilities 29
Annual Accounts 30
Notes to the Statement of Financial Activities 37

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Annual Report 2022

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Annual Report for the Year to 31 Dec 2022

The Trustees are pleased to present their report together with the independently examined financial statements for the charity for the year ended 31 December 2022.

The financial statements comply with current statutory requirements, the Statement of Recommended Practice - Accounting and Reporting for Charities (Revised 2005).

The KCBC Trustees would also like to acknowledge and thank Ashley Anderton who gave permission for use of her artwork in this Annual Report.

Reference and Administrative details of the Charity, Trustees and Advisors

Charity status

The King's Cross Baptist Church at Vernon Square, London, WC1X 9EP was registered as a charity by the Charities Commission on 4 February 2014 with Charity Number 1155614 following application on 13 December 2013.

Trustees

The Church is administered by the Trustees who act as the governance group of the Church. They are fully responsible as Charity Trustees under law but hold themselves accountable to Church members. The Trustees are as follows:

Chair Ms Elizabeth Boultbee ( appointed 1 October 2021) Secretary Ms Elizabeth Boultbee ( appointed 26 June 2022) Treasurer Ms Elizabeth Boultbee (re- elected 26 June 2022) Other Trustees Rev Allan Barbazza ( appointed 8 December 2021) Mr Daniel Coelho da Silva (re- elected 20 March 2021) Mr Amos Dzumbira (re- elected 20 March 2021) Ms Kadi Mbakadi ( appointed 8 December 2021) Ms Eunice Obianagha ( appointed 26 June 2022) Principal advisors Bankers Bank of Scotland, 33 Old Broad Street, London BX2 1LB Independent Examiner Rev Brian Wightwick, 6 Glynde Avenue, Eastbourne, BN22 9QE

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Structure, Governance and Management

Governing document

The Charity's governing document is the Constitution, which was adopted on 11 May 2013, amended on 20 March 2021 and sets out the objects of the Charity.

Recruitment and training of Trustees

The Charity Trustees are defined by the Charities Act 2011 as the group of people who have the general control and management of the administration of the charity. The Trustees are all Church Members who show the reality of their faith by the consistency of their Christian character and by their belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Trustees include three Church Officers – The Senior Pastor, Church Secretary & Honorary Treasurer, although, at the moment the Senior Pastor role is vacant and some of those functions are fulfilled by Pastor Allan Barbazza.

Elections of Trustees can take place by ballot at any Church Members Meeting. Nominees must secure a vote of at least 66% of those present and eligible to vote and serve a term of three years. The Trustees have training made available to them during their terms of office.

Organisation structure

Early in 2016 the Church Members agreed to a transition to a new governance and leadership structure as follows:

Trustees are responsible for the governance of the Church and the fulfilment of the Purpose through its activities acting according to the will of God as discerned by the Church Members’ and for ensuring that the Church complies with Charity law and that the Charity is well run.

Core Leadership consists of all the paid employees of the Charity, the Church Secretary and Treasurer and elected representatives from the congregation. The Core Leadership has the responsibility of setting the spiritual direction of the Church across the five strategic purposes of Membership, Maturity, Ministry, Mission and Magnification.

Ministry Coordinators include the Core Leaders and the elected Ministry Coordinators who have the responsibility for a particular area of ministry. For example, teens, prayer, students, young adults, hospitality, welcome team.

The Church is governed and regulated by its own members and all aspects of the work of the Church are subject to the approval of the Church Meeting which is normally held every three months.

Baptist Union of Great Britain and London Baptist Association

The Church is part of the wider Baptist family and is therefore a member church of the London Baptist Association (LBA) and also of the national body, The Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB). Both organisations are registered charities. The Church pays an annual subscription to BUGB based on its membership numbers and also makes a donation to BUGB Home Mission for the Baptist family in the UK. Please see Note 3 of the Financial Accounts.

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The London Baptist Property Board holds the title deeds of the Church building and associated buildings situated at Vernon Square, London, WC1X 9EP

Risk management

The Trustees have implemented a process of ensuring that risk assessments are completed, especially for activities that involve children and young adults and activities outside of the Church.

The Trustees updated the Safeguarding policy and procedures in February 2022.

Objects of the Charity

The principal purpose of the Church is the advancement of the Christian faith according to the principles of the Baptist denomination. The Church may also advance education and carry out other charitable purposes in the United Kingdom and or other parts of the world.

Charity's aims

As a member of the Baptist Union the Church subscribes to the Union's Declaration of Principle. The basis of this Union is:

That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.

That Christian Baptism is the immersion in water into the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, of those who have professed repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ who ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures; was buried and rose again on the third day'.

That it is the duty of every disciple to bear personal witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to take part in the evangelisation of the world.”

The King's Cross Baptist Church seeks to be an active Christian community / fellowship bringing Christian witness and care to the area of King's Cross. The Church acknowledges its Christian responsibilities beyond the local community and seeks to engage in both national and international situations.

Charities main objectives for the year

The Church continued to offer public worship in English at 11am on Sunday morning followed by a service in French at 1.30pm and a worship and prayer service on Thursday evenings. These services are offered on-line and in person in the church building.

The Church premises are situated just a short distance from King's Cross & St Pancras stations which makes the use of our premises attractive for a wide range of organisations and other charities and local community groups.

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Charity's strategies

The Church Members continue to adopt the following five strategic purposes:

  1. Membership – to bring people within the Church community into membership by baptising believers and providing classes to explain the benefits of membership and the commitment required

  2. Maturity - to develop programmes to promote Christian knowledge, through activities enhancing greater understanding of the Christian faith and life as well as the church's purpose, the Baptist denomination regionally and nationally and its links to wider Christian activity.

  3. Ministry – to help members develop their gifts and to use their gifts in the life of the church.

  4. Mission - to actively encourage, promote and participate in activities to serve the needs of others both locally, nationally and internationally through such groups as the Baptist Missionary Society, World Mission and other Christian charities.

  5. Magnification - to provide appropriate spaces for worship to God, and the building of fellowship with, and pastoral support for, one another as a community, reviewing these activities on a regular basis.

2022 Church Members Meetings & Membership

Church Members Meetings took place on 26 June and 11 December 2022. The Annual Report and Accounts for 2021 were received and approved at the AGM and Members Meeting held on 11 December 2022.

Church membership stands at 105 as of the end of 2022 (102 at the end of 2021) with 6 new members added during the year and 2 resignations and 1 removal on the death of our beloved Pastor, Steve Latham.

There were 6 baptisms in 2022 and there were 2 dedications.

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Trustee’s Report 2022

2022 was a challenging year in many ways. The year started with uncertainty as we watched cancer take hold of our Senior Pastor, Steve Latham, before the Lord took him home on 31st March. That brought us to a place of grief and waiting on the Lord. We set up a room in the church for those that wanted to pray, mourn and reflect, thanking God for the ministry of Pastor Steve whilst he was with us.

God carried us through and turned our mourning into dancing (Psalm 30:11). A greater sense of God’s presence grew throughout the year through a new depth in worship, God’s word being preached and people being encouraged to participate in God’s mission wherever they are placed.

One of the sermon series of 2022 was on the book of Ecclesiastes. This helped us as a church to reflect on the brevity of our lives on earth as well as God’s goodness and kindness for an everlasting future with Him.

A Steiger Mission team joined us in October running outreach in King’s Cross and different parts of the city. The team provided training in evangelism to KCBC members and those from other churches twice a week. We have seen God move through them in the services at KCBC as well as on the streets talking to people.

In October we held the first ever live worship recording at KCBC capturing songs written by our Pastor, Allan Barbazza, and from other members including the song ‘Faithful’. The videos and songs will be released in 2023 and more plans for songwriting and recording are to come! Our Mission Sunday was celebrated by two baptisms and a great encouraging message from Alex Garcia, a missionary from IMB.

We were blessed to be able to host and partner with our friends from Peaceful Borders to support asylum seekers and refugees based in the area. We were able to provide them with free rentals thanks to the contribution of funds from Clerkenwell Charities. We were also able to support other Christian groups such as True Freedom Trust with access to a safe place.

We would like to extend our appreciation to our leaders, staff, volunteers, and givers who worked tirelessly to ensure that we fulfil our vision of serving others with the love of Christ.

Despite the challenging year, by God’s grace, we have managed to come together as a community of Jesus and following reports from the various ministries attest to our Godly and charitable purposes.

Breathe

Pastor Allan Barbazza and Rochelle Etienne

Our evening church service continues to go from strength to strength. Our focus during 2022 was on worship, biblical reflection and apologetics. This consisted of worship led by various congregation members, encouraging them in their different gifts, such as worship and teaching.

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_____________ The apologetics events were led by the church leadership touching on a plethora of questions such as “ God is Love vs Love is God.” The apologetics events were advertised around Islington via leaflets and social media.

At the end of the year, Breathe became focused more on outreach and equipping our members for street evangelism. We developed two events called Breathe-out and Breathein on alternate Thursdays. Breathe-in is a time of worship and prayer, biblical reflections and testimonies, and our Breathe-out events are outward looking and consist of going out onto the streets of our local community and evangelising.

The church members have been highly proactive and encouraged in their faith. They are more on fire than ever before and hungry to see the Gospel proclaimed and people coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Future Plans

Our plans for the future are to continue as we are going with the addition of regular Alpha courses and Friday non-religious Bible studies for those who are interested in learning more about the Christian faith. It is our desire at KCBC to see many come to Jesus and Breathe be used as a means.

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Annual Report 2021

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French Speaking Service Pastor Patience Mbakadi

The year 2022 has seen the French speaking congregation return to some normalcy after the lifting of most restrictions from the COVID 19 pandemic and upon reviewing the departments post COVID and social distancing restrictions, we were able to reinstate activities that we previously put on hold:

Refreshment / Catering Team

The team now offer small refreshments after the service and are also responsible for catering should our congregation hold a small event, e.g. a birthday or graduation for one of our members.

Media Team

The head of media in our congregation relocated for work for the first half of 2022, leaving 5 of the youth in charge of the technical side of the service. Their training was extremely successful as each member can operate the media desk by themselves. The equipment was also upgraded to allow for more efficient live streaming. The service now uses two cameras to stream, allowing more visual variety for our online viewers. The media team continue to look for new ways to improve the quality of the technical side of the service.

Youth Group - Favoured and Blessed

The youth had an emphasis on unity this year, encouraging the young people to feel empowered to make decisions in their spiritual lives and coming up with new ways to do it together. The youth decided that it was easier for them to gather on Thursdays from 8-8:45pm. The group also have made an effort to gather together outside of the church, engaging in activities that will allow them to bond. They aim to go on some kind of group outing/activity every year in the summer.

They also continue to invite youth from outside of KCBC to join their online prayers on Thursdays via Zoom. The three leaders of the youth, wanting to set an example of regular prayer (according to Matthew 17:21), have also arranged their own smaller prayer schedule in which they gather to pray for the youth every Wednesday for the first 3 weeks of the month, and on the 4th week they prayer together every day. They are pleased to report the progress and enthusiasm in the rest of the youth to pursue a relationship with God and grow over time.

The leaders have also made note of the young members’ interests and aspirations, so that the older youth may be able to send them training sessions and job/work experience opportunities in those fields, so as to help the youth in more areas of their lives rather than just spiritually.

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Deborah Ministry

Based on Judges 4-5, the ministry dedicated to women, mainly praying and outreaching among single-parent families and young mothers to build strong women of God and stable families. Following the success of “Table de sagesse” (table of wisdom), a monthly Q&A session launches in 2021 where the women could gather to speak on social matters that link to Christianity, the women made a point to still gather together monthly in prayer sessions held every first Saturday of the month via Zoom. They also held various prayer sessions throughout the year to encourage unity in prayer.

Intercession Team

The intercession team (of 5 members) continue to prayer Monday - Friday from 5-6am. These prayers mostly consist of interceding for the rest of the members who bring their prayer requests on the members of that team.

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WEEKLY ACTIVITIES

General group prayers involving the rest of the church continue to be held every Wednesday from 9-10 PM using the EE Group Call conference service.

Bible Study is every Friday on Zoom, beginning at 9 PM and lasting for around two hours. We have held many different teachings throughout the year which has gained a lot of interest from people in and outside of our church. In January, the bible study series was named “School of Wisdom”, in May it was “Who Are You?”, and in September it was “The Beloved of God”.

EVENTS & EVANGELISM

During the year 2022, we welcomed 10 new members/families to our congregation.

Zoom, being an online platform that anyone can join using a link, has been a great help in terms of evangelism. Members of the church have dedicated themselves to sharing the Zoom link with the meeting ID to their contacts every Friday.

Strategies for Evangelism

We encourage members to share our sermons to their Facebook pages, as Facebook makes it easy for contacts to access our members' pages. Sharing our zoom meetings using PDF leaflets via WhatsApp also allows easier access to our Friday gatherings.

Events

As well as having many topics of bible study during the year, we also held corporate prayer and fasting sessions for our members throughout the year where we would gather in the church building. We made leaflets to fast on the 3rd June, most of July, the 28th October, 25th November. To crossover into the new year, we held a service on New Year’s Eve on from 10 PM, allowing the members to gather together to celebrate and leave the new year in God’s hands in prayer. The emphasis and focus on cooperate/group prayer this year has in turn increased attendance on our Wednesday prayers and Friday bible study.

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OVERVIEW AND FUTURE PLANS

By God’s grace, these are the goals for 2023:

We hope to encourage more members to regularly practise this and hopefully see the youth implement their own fasting schedule, at least once a week. We also hope to reduce time taken by the choir or preachers to allow members to have at least 15 minutes of prayer time during the Sunday services to better empower old and new members alike to feel more confident in prayer.

As the church grows, so do the amount of infants and children who tend to cause distractions during the service. We hope to assign a full-time nursery supervisor or Sunday school teacher to care for them so that they too can have a Godly experience every Sunday, in their own way.

As the youth grow, so does their taste for the Word of God. The leaders are looking to introduce more abstract teachings for the youth to better aid them in making scriptural connections in their private bible studies.

We plan to introduce more training sessions for all of our departments, as well as encouraging different members (mostly from the leadership/intercession team) to preach the word on Sundays and lead prayers in the week in the event that senior Leadership isn’t available. We hope to help our members to discover their different callings in relation to ministry.

At the moment we do not have enough singers or instrument players to form a proper choir so we plan to gather some of the youth to begin rehearsals every Friday evening to reintroduce live music back into our services.

We also want to dedicate a specific time during the Sunday service for testimonies for the members.

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Hospitality Team

Grace Oyedemi

2022 has been a quiet year following the relaxation of COVID rules.

The team have been able to serve within other ministries in the church as well as organise several events.

The first event in 2022 was the celebration of life for our dear late Pastor Steve Latham. He is greatly miss by all the team as he was a great help to the team as a whole.

The team was able to serve our first tea and coffee after the English services on the first Sunday in September 2022 and also able to serve on two bring and share meals. One after the church Harvest service in October and the other in December 2022 after the Christmas carol service.

Future plans

Many thanks to all the team members and to our new team members Bruno and Janes.

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Life Groups

Mayowa Akinloye

The purpose of Life groups at KCBC is to enable people to develop deeper intimacy with God, experience real community with fellow believers and increase their influence and witness with unbelievers. At KCBC our life groups are small groups of believers who meet weekly or bi-weekly, online or in person; for fellowship, food, Bible study and prayer in an effort to grow closer to God and one another.

Life groups follow the format known as ‘The 4WS’ Welcome, Worship, Word and Witness. It is not intended to be a rigid structure but a simple vehicle which is intended to easily and quite naturally allow the group to participate in the vital aspects of our Christian life and service. It also means that a great number of people can led a group and in turn facilitate their own life groups!

Life groups in 2022 have continued to flourish. Life group leaders have reported consistent attendance, spiritual growth, a hunger for the word and baptisms! There are a total of 9 life groups running a mix of online and in person. Whilst online is convenient there has been a strong desire for people to meet in person either in homes or in the church. However, a challenge for this is a lack of leaders for new groups and proximity.

During the earlier part of 2022, life group leaders were either following Sunday sermons or using their own material. From September 2022 there has been a much more joined up approach to materials. This is to ensure accountability and spiritual direction. Studies included:

I am grateful to the Life Group Leaders; Barbette, Nicky, Stella, Amos, Duke, Luciana, Rochelle and Uncle Sam for their love and commitment to the spiritual growth of others as well as their pastoral care of others. We meet regularly to feedback, plan and pray for one another.

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Media & Communications

Amos Dzumbira

Overview

The Media and Communications Ministry is responsible for amplifying the voice of The King’s Cross Baptist Church to the local community, London and the World. This is done through several means including the website, social media and email newsletter. 2022 was a difficult year for the whole church because of the loss of our Senior Pastor. Efforts were made by the leadership to prioritise the grieving process and the running of the church. This resulted in less focus on some aspects of media as detailed in the sections below.

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Range of Activities Undertaken

Website (www.kcbc.org.uk)

The KCBC website was up and running throughout 2022, and the design is still current. There has been no update to the website after the passing of Pastor Steve Latham. Some elements that were put in place during the Covid pandemic also need to be updated or removed. As there has not been any blog posts written since Pastor Steve’s passing, attention has moved slightly away from the website and more to social media efforts.

Social Media

(T: @KCBCLondon, F: @kingscrossbaptist, I: @kcbclondon, YT: @kcbchurch)

Instagram has continued to be the main social media platform used by KCBC. The handle has been updated from @kcbclondon to @kcbchurch. The logo was also modified to keep it fresh. Facebook is the second most used platform by the church followed by YouTube. YouTube has become vital for streaming services every Sunday morning and occasionally on Thursdays for the Breathe service. Twitter needs to be utilised a bit more and some focus needs to be put towards TikTok if we are to realise the full Media vision.

Newsletter

The email newsletter was restarted in the summer after Pastor Steve’s passing. Assistant Pastor Allan took over writing and sending it out on a weekly basis. It is being sent to current members and attendees in accordance with UKGDPR. It is being sent straight from his email account temporarily so there is no figures on open rates or subscriber growth being tracked.

Meetings

Google Meet is the official platform used for meetings by the church. This is part of the church’s Google Suite subscription. All official church meetings are held on this platform. Zoom is also used on an informal basis, usually for Life Group meetings. Subscriptions to Zoom have been made on an individual basis.

Podcast

The KCBC SoundCloud account, soundcloud.com/kcbc-london, is still active. Sunday sermons were uploaded to it, and more recent ones need to be put up. There has been 6-10 plays every month without any promotion. When the website is updated, this will also be promoted and an increase in the number of plays is expected. SoundCloud is set up so all recordings that go up are also available as podcasts on Spotify and iTunes. Spotify has 15 followers and had 165 unique listeners in 2022.

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Other

KCBC has a Google Suite account allowing us to use emails with the same domain as our website, that is name@kcbc.org.uk. Only church staff, trustees and a few other leaders have use of this at the moment.

Staffing and Recruitment

Amos Dzumbira has continued to provide a level of overall coordination and oversight on all aspects of the Media and Communication Ministry at KCBC. Some volunteers have taken on different aspects of the media efforts, such as Instagram and YouTube. Work has been done on an ‘as needed’ basis but a higher degree of coordination is planned moving forward.

Vision

The overall vision continues to be:

To bring the KCBC message of “Having life to the full” in Christ to all corners of the world by making all publicity (live, print or web) coherent and uniform, in line with the church’s overall branding.

The goals for the 2023 (dependent on volunteers) are:

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Mission (overseas)

Funmbi Adeagbo.

Vivian

Continues her outreach work in Manchester working with local women in a predominantly Muslim community. She has been down to London on a few occasions this year to visit the KCBC family as we are always close to heart.

Uganda

Caroline Bell returned to the UK over Christmas to spend time with family. She was taking a short break to refocus. She sends her regards and sent a small token in January. Please keep her and her family in your prayers as she was also due to visit in January but unfortunately unable to attend.

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Prayer Ministry

Liz Akinloye

The intercessory prayer group meet every Monday morning via zoom from 7 to 7.45 am. They prayer fir the following areas:

During the week of Prayer and Fasting there was a gathering every evening over this period in 2022.

Goals for 2023.

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Temitayo Olugbade

From the lips of children, God has called out His praise! Amen. It was a challenging year with very low attendance (range of 0 to 7, median=2 for days with children number > 0) and also less volunteer time available. However, God sent both children and helpers all through (37 Sundays). We got two additional volunteers, Aunt Stella and Aunt Tina, who both contributed beyond just the period of any Sunday School lesson: they prepared lessons and hand-made craft materials during the week. We are further indebted to ad hoc volunteers who made themselves available impromptu whenever asked to assist on a Sunday (including but not limited to Jonathan, Luciana, Aunt Mami, Aunt Vivian). One less major challenge of the year that I should additionally highlight was the difficulty faced with setting up a dedicated audio-visual system for Sunday School. While the mobile TV previously used in the main services was allocated to it, there were several factors that undermined its availability in practice, such as seemingly trivial issues like it being moved out of the room used for Sunday School (possibly by renters) during the week.

Most of the year, we focused on learning about God and His relationship with humans through the stories of Genesis. We spent the last quarter reading and studying the parables of Jesus. As usual, our lessons were very interactive and enabled the children to explore knowledge of God through several different media. Importantly, we created space for children to reflect and ask hard questions. Some of the thoughts from the children that l noted include: “Why does God sometimes take a long time in

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keeping His promise?”, “the only things we have to give God are things that He gave to us in the first place!”. These helped us (both children and adults, I should say) further reflect more deeply. We had good fun too. The poem above that the children created together (with minor input from the adults) is one of my favourite examples. Another is the painting above from Easter where we had a large turnout of children (7 children) and had a lovely egg hunt. Some of you might have seen these pictures in the weekly(-ish) church newsletters where we shared Sunday School news.

The year ended with a goodbye from me due to changed circumstances. Although the future of Sunday School has looked uncertain for most of the year, we must believe that it is firmly established in God’s hand and that our God of perfect timing has a good plan for it. The year itself is a witness to that truth. To conclude, some prayerful reflection has led to me to the thought that to move forward with the Sunday School and make it sustainable, it is necessary to balance time for the children to learn about God in a way appropriate for their ages with time for the adult volunteers to themselves get nourished at God’s table. (I am reminded of dear Martha, Mary’s sister, who was too busy serving). One possible direction to enable this could be restructuring such that Sunday School becomes a once/twice-a-month programme, at least for this time where both children and volunteer numbers are minimal. A meeting with parents and volunteers could be valuable in developing the most suitable arrangement.

Technical Team

Renato Delaqua and Pastor Allan Barbazza

2022 was a great year for the tech ministry. We met monthly with the Worship team for team building and new developments across Audio Visuals. Renato brought new systems for integration between AV and worship leaders through the Planning App by Worship Tools. That allowed us to plan services better and to organise songs and orders of service more effectively.

The team grew in numbers and in expertise, thanks to all volunteers who are so dedicated to make things run smoothly during our services. Thank you all!

We had a massive upgrade in our sound system with a new mixing desk, in-ear monitoring and better functionalities for our services and events in the room as well as online.

We’re now operation with two cameras for the live stream, with a dedicated monitor and camera switch.

Renato has blessed us massively with his hard work and service, and by the end of the 2022 he stepped down from his activities in order to focus on a new season he’s entering to with family.

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Future plans:

One of the things we need upgrading is our live stream. Sound needs to be mixed separately from the main PA and we will look into finding solutions for that and training new people for this specific role. Video is looking fine but can be improved by changing one of the cameras to match up with our main one, as well as adding a third camera for details on musicians and participants.

We’re looking into meeting monthly alongside the worship team for more practices, training and fellowship.

Worship

Pastor Allan Barbazza

The Worship team has grown in fellowship with one another beyond Sundays. Almost every month we had a meeting for prayer, food and learning alongside the tech team. We believe that when we become friends, we serve better together.

We’ve seen a great depth of freedom in God’s presence throughout the year of 2022 and we believe this is a work of the Spirit of God that we can’t manufacture. However, we believe that when we grow in our spiritual life and devotion to Jesus, we prepare room for his Spirit to pour out more of the Father upon us.

We held of our first live worship recording at KCBC in October, featuring the ‘song Faithful’ written by Rebecca, Eunice, Pastor Allan and worship leader Allan Silva who is a friend of our house.

Future plans:

We seek to focus on training in 2023, equipping our worship leaders, musicians/singers, and tech team. Normally we invite guest preachers, but in 2023 we will be inviting worship leaders to come and bless us so we can receive from different churches/ministries and learn from them too.

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WOMEN’S MINISTRY

Anya Barbazza, Rebecca Harrison & Mayowa Akinloye

The women at KCBC have sought to develop deeper female relationships, build community, worship, pray and learn together.

The highlight for 2022 was the collaboration with Mirte Jorine (All Nations Bible College Student) for the annual women’s conference. It took the format of a series of workshops under the title ‘Beauty out of Ashes’. It was an art-based conference across 2 days which explored; Identity, Brokenness and Beauty. The women explored the themes through drama, art and worship. There was a real sense of openness and vulnerability as well as deeper connections and more of God. The feedback from those that attended was positive and there continues to be a great desire for more opportunities to gather.

Plan for 2023

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Youth, Students & Young Adults Rochelle Etienne

2022 things have been going particularly well with the students and young adults. We have seen an increase in young adults attending the Sunday service. I have focused my attention mainly on the students and young adults in the church and surrounding universities.

Our focus remains the same as last year, building and equipping students and young adults in their faith through intentional discipleship, identifying their skills and talents and creating opportunities for them to further develop these by using them in service to the church. I have seen a great desire to share their faith with others, particularly in their places of work.

Our life group numbers are beginning to increase. We now have ten regular attendees, and we continue to pray for growth and further development in this area.

Discipleship and Leadership

Discipleship is vital in our student and young adult ministry; this consists of Tuesday life group, which takes place every Tuesday at 7 pm. Where we unpack the scriptures and how to live these Biblical truths practically. It’s a place where they support and encourage each other in their faith; I meet weekly with students for one-to-one mentorship.

Our Breathe evening service has also been a great place of worship for students and young adults, where they have shared testimonies and led worship.

I curate the series based on popular topics and questions surrounding religion; I also participate in leading the worship and giving talks for the Breathe service.

We desire to see them further develop their skills and begin to take on more significant leadership roles.

Baptisms

This year we have had two baptisms, one student and one youth.

Mission and outreach

We have hosted several outreach events for youth, students and young adults. We hosted Summer Youth Camp and contacted the local community and youth centres. We hosted a fresher's week, with various events and reached out to the local universities and student accommodation.

Christian Union

We continue to build and strengthen the church's connection with the surrounding C.Us and UCCF workers in the area consisting of UCL, SOAS, and UAL. We have done

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several outreach events together this year and given several talks at the C.Us, which have gone well.

We continue to connect and work together with Scripture Union, Agape, UCCF and Fusion.

Student Accommodation

We continue to reach out to the surrounding student accommodation, seeking to build relationships.

Future Plans

1. Theology and Apologetics programme:

Create a theology and apologetics programme for students and young adults, further equipping and strengthening the congregation. When individuals feel secure in their understanding of their faith, they’re more open and willing to share it. We know that KCBC is a very transient congregation, especially regarding this demographic. It is a focus on equipping for wherever God may lead them.

2. Youth leaders mentorship program with the LBA:

Identifying youth between the ages of 15-18 who have shown leadership qualities and mentoring them in developing these skills and using the gifts and talents God has placed within them.

3. Evangelism and outreach training

Regular outreach in and around Kings Cross, small student teams, and open mic worship.

4. Welcome Coffee

We plan to have a welcome coffee stand situated by our church. To invite the new students attending The Royal Courtauld University of Arts. We share a wall with the university, and it is a burden on our hearts to reach the students there.

5. Student Weekend Getaway

A time of respite to fellowship and grow together outside of London during the holidays. To further strengthen our community.

6. Saturday Connect

Build a deeper community with students and young adults with fortnightly gatherings /events; this could also be used to invite non-believing friends so they can experience Christ centred community.

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Volunteers

Like most churches and charities we have been reliant on an army of volunteers and are thankful for the 50+ volunteers that have freely given hours, days and weeks in service to the Church and community. We thank them for their faithfulness serving in the kingdom of God.

Thank you!

Finance

Honorary Treasurer, Elizabeth Boultbee

2022 saw a return to pre-COVID levels of income from rentals; a stabilising of the general giving and increased gift aid. As a result, we finished 2022 with a surplus of income over expenditure of £2,541. This was after transfers of £48,000 to the emergency fund and putting aside a gift of £5,000 in the memory of Pastor Steve Latham and £800 from the Clerkenwell Charities. Overall total income at £207.5k was £10.6k better than 2021 and expenditure at £150.2k was £43.1k lower than in 2021. After the fund transfers there was a £3.5k surplus.

The majority of the offerings and tithes came from direct bank transfers, followed by debit or credit card giving and totalled £79,827 (2021 - £81,529).

The majority of the rental income came from the rentals of the manse; the car park; Hoopla and Snowball Church and generated £99,168. (2021 - £81,410). The car park agreement with Just Park was re-negotiated and with better pricing and a greater share of the income the monthly car park income was circa £2k per month toward the latter part of the year.

We are grateful for those that were able to gift aid their donations which resulted in £16,420 being returned to the Church from HMRC. (2021 £14,110).

Total expenses for the year were £150,194 compared with £193,314 in 2021. The majority of the decreased expenses arose following the death of the Senior Pastor and reduced repairs and maintenance. As a result we increased the support to Home Mission and BMS World Mission by £2k to £10k. As previously agreed by the Member’s

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meeting we put aside the manse rental for both 2022 and 2021 into the emergency fund. We had been unable to do this in 2021.

With YWAM moving out of the office in 2021 the space has been re-designated and is now used as the “Pastors Office”. However, Islington Council have yet to agree that council tax is no longer applicable on this space. We anticipate there will be a refund when resolved. YWAM also moved out of the manse at the end of September and internal decorations and repairs (£8.1k) were carried out prior to Steiger moving in on 1 October.

The Treasurer is grateful to the welcome teams who have continued in the taking and recording the offering via the card machine and supporting the return to a cash offering.

We give God the thanks for the financial generosity and support given to us during the year.

Fund Raising Activities

The Church is not reliant on upon income from fundraising activities and as a result there has no income in this area.

Financial Review

Reserves policy

Reserves in the Unrestricted General Fund of £95k ensure that the ministries at the Church could continue for 7 months should the income sources not be available. Monies retained in designated funds at the end of the year totaled £109,572 divided between the emergency fund (£96k) and the building fund (£12k) of which £57k is deposited with the London Baptist Property Board.

Principal funding sources

The Church has three principal sources of income as follows:

All sources of income are extremely important to us in balancing our budget.

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Material investments and investment policy

The Church has invested funds with The London Baptist Property Board in line with the investment policy adopted in 2020.

Statement of Trustee's Responsibilities

Charity law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements that give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity at the end of the financial year. In doing so the trustees are required to:

  1. Select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently.

  2. Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent.

  3. State whether applicable accounting standards and statements of recommended practice have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and

  4. Prepare the financial statements on the ongoing concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

The Trustees are responsible as trustees for maintaining proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enables them to ensure that financial statements comply with charity law. The Trustees are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Church and for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Signature and Declaration

I declare, in my capacity of Charity Trustee, that the Trustees have approved the following report and have authorised me to sign it on their behalf.

Elizabeth Boultbee

Chair of Trustees & Honorary Treasurer

31 March 2023

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________ Annual Accounts for the Year Ended

31 December 2022

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________ Statement of financial activities for 2022

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________ Statement of financial activities for 2022 (2)

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________ Profit & Loss statement 2022

(1 of 2 pages)

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________ Profit & Loss statement 2022

(2 of 2 pages)

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________ Statement of assets & liabilities as at

31 December 2022

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________ Notes to the statement of financial activities

Additional notes to the accounts

1. Basis of accounts

These accounts have been prepared on a receipts and payments basis and in accordance with Section 133 Charities Act 2011.

2. Ministry

The Associate Pastor acts as one of the church’s trustees and receives remuneration and other benefits in respect of his services as Minister, including the provision of manse accommodation owned by the church.

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Minister’s stipend £24,750
Pension contribution £ 555
National Insurance £ 2,283
Total Ministry £27,588

3. Investment Assets

London Baptist Property Board £57,841

4. Assets held for the Church’s own use

The church is the beneficial owner (subject to the relevant trusts) of the following assets, the legal title to which is held by the church’s custodian trustee, The London Baptist Property Board:

5. Current liabilities

Current liabilities
Deposits held on rental properties £550
Sundry creditors £ 50
Total current liabilities £550

6. Pension Scheme liabilities

The Church is a participating employer the Baptist Pension Scheme (“the Scheme”), which is a separate legal entity administered by the Pension Trustee (Baptist Pension Trust Limited). The assets of the Scheme are held separately from those of the Employer and the other participating employers.

The Scheme, previously known as the Baptist Ministers’ Pension Fund, started in 1925, but was closed to future accrual of defined benefits on 31 December 2011. Prior to this date the main benefit provided through the Defined Benefit (DB) Plan was a pension of one eightieth of final minimum pensionable income for each year of pensionable service together with additional pension in respect of premiums paid on Pensionable Income in excess of Minimum Pensionable Income. Since 1 January 2012, benefits have been provided through a Defined Contribution (DC) Plan.

A formal valuation of the DB Plan as at 31 December 2019 by a professionally qualified Actuary using the Projected Unit Method. At the valuation date the market value of the DB Plan assets was £298 million, whilst the level of assets

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________ needed to pay benefits was £316m, giving a deficit of £18m (equivalent to a past service funding level of 94%). The Church and the other participating employers in the DB Plan are collectively responsible for funding this deficit. The next actuarial valuation of the DB Plan within the Scheme is due to take place not later than as at 31 December 2022.

On 30th June 2022 the Baptist Pension Scheme signed an agreement with the insurance company Just Group (“Just”) to secure DB Plan members’ pension benefits. Just are now providing financial backing for all pensions provided through the Scheme’s DB Plan and following this transaction, the Scheme no longer has a shortfall. An updated Recovery plan was then signed in August 2022 under which recovery contributions from each participating employer in the DB Plan reduced to £1 per month from August 2022.

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Registered Charity Number 1155614 Vernon Square, London, WC1X 9EW info@KCBC.org.uk

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