2024-12-31-accounts - Bentley Baptist Church

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REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES OF BENTLEY BAPTIST CHURCH 2024

Minister’s Report

Looking Back on 2024

Our Leadership focus for 2024 was ‘Be holy’ taken from I Peter 1:16, referencing numerous pronouncements of these words in Leviticus. This informed much of the teaching for the year, as well as the direction of devotions and prayer within the leadership.

We also saw many people making choices to embrace holiness in their lives, confronting unforgiveness and habitual sins, and striving for the presence of God in their lives and our services.

In line with our vision to Make Disciples who Make Disciples and informed by our Discipleship Journey Strategy , five key strategic goals of the Minister and Elders in 2024 are listed below (alongside the outcomes):

Strategic Goals for 2024	What did we Achieve?
Run two Alpha Courses with Life groups to follow on	One Alpha course ran at Renew 127 on Tuesday mornings, resulting in a new Life Group meeting at the same time. A second Alpha course took place in the evenings, also resulting in a new Life Group being formed. Both new Life Groups consist of new believers who came to faith on the relevant Alpha courses, along with other recent newcomers to the church.
Raise up new leaders	Delivered the ‘Empower’ Leadership course to help further develop existing leaders and those with potential. Several of those on the course have now taken on new leadership roles in the church, changed their ministry focus, orstartednew ministries outside the church.
Summer Missions – K180 Big 4 and American visitors from ‘Church of the Cross’	The K180 ‘Big 4’ Evangelism team came on 4th-5thMay to train a team from our church to go out onto the streets of Doncaster. After training on Saturday morning, around a dozen people from the church went into the city centre to share testimonies and connect with people. Whilst some good conversations were had, the attendance numbers were low. It doesn’t fit well with our disciple- making strategy and the Elders decided that this was probably not something we would do again The visiting team from the ‘Church of the Cross’ came to us through Doncaster Youth for Christ from the USA. The team joined us on Sunday, worked in local schools, helped do some redecorating at church, and ran evening events in the community. This raised the profile of local churches, and we heard stories of young people giving their lives to Jesus. We would welcome another team but recognise that we need to improve our follow-up methods

Explore opportunities to plant the next church outpost	At the end of 2024 we determined that it was right to extend our monthly evening worship service and monthly Sunday prayer meeting to run every week, with a different focus each Sunday in the month. A team was formed to start weekly evening services from January 2025
Develop youth and children’s work with newly-employed worker	Despite some good work with our children/youth, it became clear that our Youth and Children’s worker, Toby Davies, was struggling with the leadership and organisational aspects of the role. In conversation with Toby, we discerned that it was not in the best interests of him or the church that he continue. Toby formally submitted his resignation by email on 10thMarch 2025 and we express our thanks for his efforts and wish him every blessing.

Explore opportunities to
plant the next church
outpost

At the end of 2024 we determined that it was right to
extend our monthly evening worship service and monthly
Sunday prayer meeting to run every week, with a
different focus each Sunday in the month. A team was
formed to start weekly evening services from January
2025

Develop youth and
children’s work with
newly-employed worker

Despite some good work with our children/youth, it
became clear that our Youth and Children’s worker, Toby
Davies, was struggling with the leadership and
organisational aspects of the role. In conversation with
Toby, we discerned that it was not in the best interests of
him or the church that he continue. Toby formally
submitted his resignation by email on 10thMarch 2025
and we express our thanks for his efforts and wish him
every blessing.

Sunday Hub and Outpost Church Teaching

During 2024 we had teaching series covering I Timothy, different gifts of the Holy Spirit, Holiness, Isaiah, Jesus’ teaching about Money, Personal Prayer, the Mission of the Church, Victory through Worship, and seasonal services at Easter, Christmas and on the theme of Thankfulness.

We also welcomed guest speakers to our Sunday services, including Adam Lynch (the minister of ‘Hope is Here’ Mexborough Baptist church), Jenny Baines from CARE, and a team from the Kerygma 180 Evangelistic Ministry.

– Looking Up What is God Saying?

Throughout 2024 God spoke to us repeatedly about the ongoing mission of the church, with repeated prophetic words that God was going to fill the church to overflow into the local community.

We have seen this in continued growth and new faith as Jesus has led both existing believers and non-Christians to the church.

– ’ Looking Forward Minister and Elder s Strategic Objectives for 2025

Responding to what God has said to us, we aim to:

Multiply our existing services to create capacity for more new believers (Hub and Outposts)
Explore a new staff appointment to equip every believer for works of service and/or church outpost planting
Appoint a new worker and redevelop existing ministries to develop highquality ministry with youth, children and their families from and in the community

Joel Ward

Secretary’s Report

The Admin Team exists to resource the church to fulfil its mission to “make disciples who make disciples”

2024 saw an even greater number of new people coming through the doors and becoming part of the church, many of them finding us online. Average Sunday morning attendance was 73 adults, 13 children and 6 youth (92 people in all). However, eleven services over the year saw the numbers hit 110+

We ended the year with a membership of 74, down three on the previous year. Although we had five new people come into membership, we sadly had four pass away (our loss but their great gain), two who transferred their membership to Mexborough Baptist, one who resigned due to moving away, and one whose membership lapsed through non-attendance.

Two Alpha courses were run, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful teams who help on a practical level to ensure their success. The first course was a daytime one at the start of the year and held at Renew. This was followed by an evening course in late Spring/early Summer in the church building. Both of these resulted in the formation of two new Life Groups.

We had the great joy of seeing five people commit their lives to God through Believer’s Baptism, three of whom came to us through the second Alpha course and are in fact all from the same family.

Following the initial uptake in 2023, we have now expanded our use of the Church Suite platform to include on-line check-in of our children and young people, improving their safeguarding and ensuring all essential data for their continued wellbeing is immediately available to the leaders and helpers.

Towards the end of the year, the Admin team was expanded with the appointment of Denise Russell as our Purchasing Officer. She is already proving to be a great addition.

Thank you to all those who faithfully step up each week to provide a warm welcome or serve refreshments. If anyone would like to volunteer to help in either of these areas, then please come and let me know.

Finally, 2024 also saw a change in the church leadership team. After 26 years of faithful service as the Fabric Deacon, Colin Russell stood down at the end of 2023. Adrian Humphris stepped up pro tem before being officially elected to the role at the 2024 AGM. Andrew Thompsett resigned as Church Secretary/Admin Deacon at the 2024 AGM, and Ruth Bellerby was elected in his place. The number of Elders was reduced by one when Ruth was not reelected to that role at the same meeting.

Three of the Leadership Team attended the Fresh Streams conference in January, and in November the wider leadership once again had an away-day to seek God together for the way forward in the coming year.

And so we come to end of my first report as Church Secretary/Admin Deacon. I would like to thank Andrew for the smooth handover, and his willingness to be available to answer queries as I adjust to the new role.

Ruth Bellerby

Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Bentley Baptist Church.

I report on the accounts of the Trust for the year ended 31 December 2024, which are set out on pages 2 to 3.

Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner

As the charity trustees of the Trust you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act..

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in respect of the Trust as required by section 130 of the Act; or
the accounts do not accord with those records.

I have no concerns and have come across no 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.

Signed:

Name: Mark David Kidney Qualifications: BA (Hons), ACMA Address: 6 Akeferry Road, Westwoodside, DONCASTER, DN9 2DX Date: 1[st] February 2025

Independent Review of Bentley Baptist Church Accounts for Year Ended 31[st] December 2024 1

Bentley Baptist Church Accounts - Year Ending 31st Dec 2024

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Summary
Income £111,281.02
Expenditure (£114,363.86)
Deficit for the year (£3,082.84)
Bank Accounts (Instant Access, Instant Access & Petty Cash)
Brought Forward £37,532.84
Transfer from/(to) Saving Account £10,000.00
Movement in Year (Net Income & Expenditure) (£3,082.84)
Sub Total as per Dec 24 Statements £44,450.00
Business Reserve Account / Longer Term Savings
Opening Balance £37,879.79
Transfer from/(to) Current Accounts (£10,000.00)
Bank Interest £729.87
Sub Total £28,609.66
Net Funds £73,059.66
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Summary of Income & Expenditure

Income: Offering / Donations Income: Grants/Loans Income: Gift Aid refund Income: Other Expense: Staff Costs Expense: Building Expense: Youth Expense: Gifts Expense: Repairs Expense: Loan Repayment / Loan Given Expense: Other Net Inflow	£84,034.66 £0.00 £16,078.22 £11,168.14 £111,281.02 (£42,287.87) (£26,395.24) (£14,124.25) (£4,679.52) (£8,863.09) (£1,100.00) (£16,913.89) (£114,363.86) (£3,082.84)