Ministry Overview
Encouraging Christians facing same-sex temptations with biblical clarity and supportive community
MAY 2023 - APRIL 2024
“True Freedom Trust will help your church grasp hold of the culturally sacred topic of sexuality. They will carefully unpack it and help you see it in light of the gospel, whilst always remaining grace-filled and compassionate. Their testimonies and stories help to ground all of it personally and demonstrate a compelling understanding for how we can trust in the Bible’s view on these matters to be good news.” – Chris
2
Index
1
Introduction
2 Ministry Overview
2.1 - Resources
2.2 - Speaking and teaching 2.3 - Pastoral support 2.4 - Support groups 2.5 - Women’s ministry 2.6 - Conferences 2.7 - Outreach 2.8 - Online interactions 2.9 - Fundraising
3 Plans for 2023- 2024
4
Governance
4.1 - Membership 4.2 - Voluntary workers 4.3 - Staff 4.4 - Trustees 4.5 - Financial review
1 - Introduction
In 2023-24, True Freedom Trust (TFT) continued to provide churches and individuals with a consistent approach to biblical truth, whilst also adapting to the particular questions and pressures of the time. There was renewed interest in the question of whether same-sex feelings are intrinsically sinful. Also, many faithful Christians had to make hard decisions about whether to remain in churches where the leaders had shifted their theological position. Indeed, whole churches wrestled with the same question concerning their longterm future within their denomination.
In autumn 2023, Andy Robinson (Training Director at Living Out) came to our National Conference, providing encouragement from the book of 2 Corinthians under the theme of “Sorrowful... yet always rejoicing”. Andy encouraged us in the biblical truth that we are people
who might have sorrow at times, yet we can constantly rejoice in the hope we have found in Jesus.
At the end of April 2024, we held our first residential training weekend for Voluntary Workers (VWs). Over 30 VWs attended the event, which had a mixture of some training with everyone together and some training in areas of speciality (eg speaking, pastoral work, support groups). We also had a number of candidate VWs join us, in order to decide whether to join the team.
Stuart Parker, Director of TFT
2 - Ministry Overview
2.1 - Resources
In 2023-24, we produced quarterly electronic and printed editions of Ascend magazine. The themes were "Reaching others", "Being distinctive", "Resisting pornography" and "Pursuing good mental health". We continue to post out around 800 printed copies of the magazine free of charge: the rising costs of postage are largely offset by the growing number (around 1600) on our mailing list preferring to receive the magazine by email.
Most of our articles, testimonies and reviews from Ascend also get posted on our website, which extends our readership around the world.
connected with the theme of each Ascend magazine. Our most popular episode this year was entitled "Should I stay?": this episode considered the question of whether a biblically orthodox believer should remain in a church when the leadership has moved to a revisionist understanding of the Bible.
We also produced a 2024 version of our Recommended Resources leaflet, which continues to be popular at speaking engagements. This leaflet presents the books and podcasts that we think are the most helpful, grouped according to topic.
We have continued to produce our quarterly podcast, Ascend Higher,
2.2 - Speaking & teaching
During the 23/24 financial year, TFT speakers continued to be in demand, with the team delivering 40 speaking engagements. Many of these engagements were concentrated in the autumn term of 2023, as churches sought input on how to engage with others of differing theological convictions. This was particularly driven by contemporary discussions about human sexuality within the Church of England and Baptist Union.
It should be noted that some speaking engagements involve delivering more than one type of talk, and this is reflected in the chart below.
We’ve seen a growing demand for speaking events that deal with cultural engagement, as objections to what the Church has historically believed about sex and relationships now often take the form of moral criticism. The testimony of our speakers demonstrates that the biblical teaching is far from harmful and oppressive, but rather caring and liberating. It has been a great privilege speaking to churches about the good news of God’s kingdom in the area of sexuality and gender over this last year, and we’re grateful for the ongoing partnership of churches committed to God’s word.
2.4 - Support Groups
2.3 - Pastoral Support
Website forms from people requesting pastoral support have averaged at a rate of 4 per week.
Voluntary Workers have provided face to face support, as well as remote help via video calls or by phone; many new members have already joined our support groups (Barnabas Groups). Most of our contacts are from people in the UK, but we have received some requests from people looking for support from other parts of the world, for example, Japan, South Africa, Cameroon or the US.
Most of the requests have been related to same-sex attraction (SSA) and gender dysphoria (the requests for support in this area are growing).
Parents of children with SSA and/or gender dysphoria have also been cared for individually and through support groups. We can see that this area of ministry continues to grow.
Our Barnabas Groups (BGs), provide support for people who experience SSA, gender incongruence or both. They generally take place monthly. We have face to face groups in Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds, Guildford, London (2 groups), Essex, Wirral, Cambridge, Manchester and Birmingham. There are 7 online groups, 5 of those groups are women’s groups, 2 are men’s groups.
Finally, there are two BGs that have a hybrid system of simultaneous inperson gatherings and online connection for those members unable to travel. We also have a support group for married people and for parents. Typically, there is time for a Bible based thought or a group discussion based on a relevant topic generally related to sexuality or gender, and prayer. Many BGs meet socially as well.
In April 2024, we were able to provide training in pastoral care, safeguarding and TFT policies for our VWs, in an in-person event that took place over a residential weekend.
2.5 - Women’s Ministry
The women’s ministry is thriving with women contributing in every sphere – recording podcasts, leading worship at conferences, taking seminars, writing articles and testimonies for the Ascend magazine, representing TFT at events and speaking and teaching. Regular new members are added to support groups and join the committed and faithful core of existing members.
This reporting year started with our annual women’s weekend away in Wirral. This was a time of community, a study on prayer and support and encouragement. Sarah completed a three-month internship with TFT in Autumn 2023, where she gave valuable input with the staff team at the National Conference, helped with planning Voluntary Worker training, taught at speaking engagements, led women’s groups and set up a Facebook VW Information Hub.
Two women gave moving testimonies at a Zoominar, with
questions from attendees about their stories. We held a day conference in February 2024 entitled “Pleasing God”, where 40 members attended, with Jane Gibbs as our speaker. 4 new Voluntary Workers applied to join the team of 13, two who will work from overseas and one will be appointed with her husband. Three online Barnabas Groups run for those unable to join a physical group near to them and two book clubs meet monthly online. Several members are from abroad, who also attended the Women’s and National Conference. An overseas WhatsApp group was set up for leaders, VWs and members of burgeoning ministries in Europe, South Africa and the US. A couples group is now well established, where the wives experience same-sex attraction.
There are 48 members in our private Facebook group, “Women of Light”, and the majority of those women are also connected to each other in WhatsApp groups.
2.6 - Conferences
In June 2023, we held our joint conference with Living Out in London. The theme of the conference was “Being the family of God”. We repeated the talks from this conference online in November for those who were unable to attend in person. We also held day conferences in Belfast and Edinburgh.
Our residential National Conference, “Sorrowful yet always rejoicing”, in October 2023, had Andy Robinson as our speaker. About 100 delegates attended.
Our annual Women’s Conference in February 2024 was on the theme of “Pleasing God”.
2.7 - Outreach
We are always looking for ways to raise the profile of our ministry. This helps those who might benefit from TFT’s services to find us and also helps us to form new partnerships with individuals and other organisations who may choose to support us financially or in prayer.
In the 23/24 financial year, for the first time, we applied for exhibition space at several large national Christian conferences. The highlight of our year for our outreach work came in the form of a chance to exhibit at one of the three weeks of the Keswick Convention. We’re thankful that a group of TFT ladies gave up a portion of their holiday in
order to staff our stand, as well as members, Simon and Jonny.
We had a variety of conversations with conference delegates, other exhibitors, and even a few paramedics! To get the conversation flowing, we had a small whiteboard on which we wrote a new case study each day that spoke into a particular area that TFT ministers to. We’ve had a few contacts off the back of our time at Keswick, including a request to speak at a church in Scotland.
Simon has continued to liaise and build relationships with other Christian organisations. We were blessed with an opportunity to speak to a group at London City Mission in summer 2023, and Simon recorded a podcast with Affinity as our financial year closed. We thank God for all our partners in the Gospel, and pray we can continue to encourage one another as we continue to contend for the Gospel in the months and years ahead.
2.8 - Online interactions
Our website serves as the ‘shopwindow’ for TFT’s work, and we praise God that it has been free of any technical gremlins in 2023/24 that might have prevented access to the resources and services we offer. Articles from Ascend magazine continue to find their way onto our website in the weeks following the magazine's publication.
There are now 16 episodes of the podcast Ascend Higher available and, at the time or writing, the podcast had 4,354 downloads in total.
2.9 - Fundraising
This year we focused out fundraising efforts on encouraging members of TFT to consider giving. We ran various adverts within the Ascend magazine as well as emails and adverts in our prayer newsletter. The aim was to encourage regular giving to help us budget well. We have continued to be supported by many individuals, churches and trusts throughout 2023/24. We are very grateful to them for their financial support.
3 - Plans for 2024-2025
In June 2024, we are holding two one-day conferences. The first will be in Edinburgh on the theme of God’s mercy, and is particularly for those members in Scotland and the North of England.
The second day conference will be in central London. After a number of years of wanting to hold a conference on the theme of emotional dependency, we are excited to have found a wellqualified speaker on the subject. Andrew Collins, a consultant psychiatrist who now works for Biblical Counselling UK, is going to explain how sometimes our heart attitudes to friendships can become idolatrous, as well as showing us from the Bible how we might find freedom from this unhealthy pattern.
We intend to repeat the teaching elements from this conference later in the year in an online format, for the benefit of those unable to attend in person in June.
In Autumn 2024, we have Dr Jim Paul, Director of L’Abri Fellowship in England, coming to our National Conference to speak on the theme of “What on earth is heaven?”. He will be showing us how we can be part of bringing the kingdom of heaven to our part of this earth in this life.
- “It was good to hear the TFT talk. It was interesting, engaging and the most compassionate I’ve heard on this subject." - (Joel, 19)
4 - Governance
4.1 - Membership
In the past year we have been able to maintain contact with our long standing members and we are glad to see that they have renewed their support to TFT. As a result, 1670 people continue as members.
In the past year, we were able to welcome 67 new members, taking
the total number of people supporting the ministry to 1737 individuals.
As well, 207 churches and partnership ministries have decided to support the work of TFT throughout the UK and Ireland.
4.2 - Voluntary Workers
We have 41 Voluntary Workers (VWs). 30 provide pastoral care exclusively. 7 volunteers, besides their pastoral work, also help with speaking engagements and 3 volunteers take speaking engagements exclusively. 20 of them lead or help co-lead support groups.
We are currently working on appointing 6 new volunteers in the coming year.
This year we were able to host a weekend long training event where our VWs were able to deepen their knowledge in leadership, group management, people retention and pastoral care as well as TFT policies and values.
Pastoral Voluntary Workers provide spiritual support to people who are often in vulnerable situations, seem to be unable to break unwanted habits or have never been able to open up about their struggles to church or family members. The difference they make in people's lives can be assessed by the powerful testimonies we hear every day.
Speaker Voluntary Workers are frontline workers who promote our Bible based values and convictions through their public speaking gifts. Of particular importance is their role in Q&A sections of the events they partake in, where they manage to speak the truth in love, answering questions related to gender and sexuality from a biblical perspective.
“ The highlight for me was having the opportunity to connect with other men and women to whom I can relate, when it comes to sexuality and singleness. These are people who are also trying to navigate life with same-sex attraction while following Jesus.”
4.3 - Staff
Sarah Britton joined the staff team for a few months after the October conference in 2023 for a short internship. The staff team going into 2024-25 consists of Stuart Parker (Director), Simon Byrne (Teaching & Outreach Manager), Liam Dietrich (Pastoral Intern), Ruth Daly (Women's Worker) and Owen Leadbetter (Digital Media Technician & Team Administrator).
4.4 - Trustees
The Trustees met three times in 2023-24. Two meetings were in London and one was at the Wirral office with the staff team. The Trustees going into 2024-25 are Iain Baker, Donald Dewar (Chair), Graham Baker, Naomi Skull, Robert Walsh, Laura Oliver, Duncan Beet and Jane Gibbs.
4.5 - Financial Review
As a charity, we rely exclusively on donations from our supporters, and we are very grateful to the TFT members, churches and other organisations who have donated over the last year. We are thankful to God for this provision.
Over the year 2023/2024, expenditure was higher than 2022/23 due to rising costs.
However, thanks to the generosity of so many, we ended the year with a surplus of £12,843. We increased our statutory reserve to £46,000 for the year.
The chart on the right-hand page shows how our financial resources were spent during the reporting period. A little under 80% of our expenditure went towards staff salaries and pensions, to enable the team to carry out our core activities. Please note that staff salaries are reflected in various expenditure allocation within separate ministry sections in the chart.
Expenditure for our Speaking & Teaching ministry increased on the previous 12 months, due to more speaking requests. Our conference costs and media resources also went up due to having more in-person conferences and producing more
resources for our outreach work. These also reflect inflation.
The expenditure shown for pastoral support is relatively low, because a substantial amount of care is
provided by volunteers. We remain grateful for our team of VWs, without whom our costs would be much higher.
TFT’s stated public benefit is “the advancement of the Christian faith, in particular (but not limited to) providing teaching based on the biblical principles in the Statement of Faith on issues around sexuality and by providing support for those who are struggling with such issues.”
In practice, this means providing teaching within churches on issues related to same-sex attraction, as well as providing pastoral care and guidance to church leaders, individuals and families affected. The main activities undertaken for the public benefit include pastoral support, creating resources and teaching at churches, colleges and other organisations.
TRUE FREEDOM TRUST (TFT) is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), governed by constitution dated 29/10/2014, registered in England and Wales with the Charity Commission. Charity number: 1159015
HR
True Freedom Trust . Charity Number: 1159015 a —% . True. Receipts and Payments Accounts for the period 01/05/23 to 30/04/24 rrecaom
| Receipts and payments | Unrestricted funds | Total funds | Last Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| tothe nearest£ | to the nearest £ | Total funds | |
| to the nearest £ | |||
| Receipts Total Donations Salesandfees |
£184,608 £15,312 |
£184,608 £15,312 |
£150,673 £15,776 |
| nn TeTTY Totalreceipts £199,920 £199,920 £166,449 |
|||
| Payments Expenses Media&Resources Salaries&Nat. Insurance OfficeRent& Utilities Post Comms&techSupport OfficeEquipment Transaction Fees Miscellaneousexpenses Conferences&Meetings Pensions |
£22,195 £3,221 £127,794 £4,913 £2,946 £1,596 £1,565 £1,205 £0 £14,665 £6,975 |
£22,195 £3,221 £127,794 £4,913 £2,946 £1,596 £1,565 £1,205 £0 £14,665 £6,975 |
£11,709 £3,286 £113,458 £3,917 £3,020 £2,094 £1,184 £1,864 £0 £14,986 £5,494 |
| i TotalPayments |
£187,075 | LOD £187,075 £161,012 |
|
| Netofreceipts/payments | £12,845 | £12,845 | £5,437 |
| Cashfundslastyearend | £101,831 | £101,831 | |
| Cashfundsthisyearend | £114,676 | £114,676 | |
| Statementof assets&liabilitiesattheendoftheperiod | Unrestricted funds | ||
| to the nearest £ | |||
| Cashfunds | Bank PayPal Cash |
£108,014 £6,663 £0 |
|
| eer ty EET |
No other assets or liabilities
P Sigh the Treasurer—— —“Bate: ~ walt. ty lacey
INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF TRUE FREEDOM TRUST I report on the accounts for the year ended 30 April 2024 Respective responslbilities of the Trustees and the Independent Examiner The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity's trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 (the Charities Act) and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibility to: examine the accounts under section 145 of the Charities Act, to follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5){b) of the Charities Act, and to state whether particular matters have come to my attention. Basis of independent examiner's ststoment My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees conceming any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a 'true and fair, view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below. Independent examlner's statement In connection with my examination, no material matt6rs have come to my attention gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect, the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act. or the accounts did not accord with the accounting records. or the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair, view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have not come across any other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Date 26 July 2024 Signed A. E. M. McGraa 18, Poulton Green Close, Bebington, Wirral. CH63 9FS