The Avenue Evangelical Church
THE AVENUE EVANGELICAL CHURCH ANNUAL REPORT
1[ST] APRIL 2024 – 31[ST] MARCH 2025
The Avenue Evangelical Church 42 Warwick Avenue Melton Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 1JX
Tel: 01394 383479 Email: enquiries@avenueevangelicalchurch.org.uk Website: www.avenueevangelicalchurch.org.uk
Report written August 2025
Aim and Purposes:
The Membership of The Avenue Evangelical Church works with the Pastor to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the surrounding community, through pastoral, evangelistic and social activities and working with other churches in the locality.
The Church has a passion to see revival in the Christian faith in our church, local area and wider.
The purposes of the Church shall be:
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The advancement of the Christian faith in accordance with the Basis of Faith, primarily, but not exclusively, within Melton and Woodbridge and the surrounding neighbourhood; and
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Such other charitable purposes as shall, in the opinion of the members of the Church and the Managing Trustees, further the work of the Church.
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
Objectives:
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To witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith to those who attend the Church activities and those we meet with and interact with in our daily life and activities outside of the Church.
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To promote discipleship in those who are seeking to follow Jesus.
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To provide pastoral support to those who attend the Church.
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To reach out to those in our surrounding community in fellowship and social activities.
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To be open and welcoming to anyone, taking account of their personal situation, protected characteristics or expressed need and seeking always to include those who wish to join our church fellowship in line with our stated aim and purposes.
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To support those who actively promote the Christian Faith and support of others as missionaries – through prayer and financial support.
Activities:
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Church services and meetings are held throughout the week on a planned schedule and promote our faith through preaching, teaching on the Christian faith, prayer, music and bible study.
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The Church services and meetings are open to anyone who is already a Christian, or seeking to follow Jesus and / or wanting to know more about the Christian faith.
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Outreach and social activities are held on a regular and ad-hoc basis and anyone is welcome to attend. We seek to encourage people to come through personal invitation, posters and notices in the local press. We have a weekly coffee morning that is open to the community and have fellowship meals during the year to which we invite others.
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The programme of meetings and activities is planned and agreed by Members, Trustees and the Pastor at quarterly meetings. Minutes are taken of the meetings. There are three Trustees who also meet quarterly, or as necessary if there are issues that need consideration
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
before taking to the membership. The Trustees are the Pastor, Secretary and Treasurer for the church and are all members of the Church.
Achievements and Performance
Attendance at Church Services
We are a small Church with a membership of 12 and a larger fellowship of around 25. Members take an active part in the governance of the Church and take responsibility for the delivery of the aims and objectives of the Church and the maintenance of the church buildings and garden.
Our average weekly attendance is 20 to 25. We are visited frequently by holiday visitors to the area of Woodbridge. We have had new people start to attend our services since the beginning of 2025. A smaller number of our fellowship maintain faithful commitment to joining our Sunday morning worship and prayer, weekday bible studies and delivery of our outreach activities.
Our twice weekly bible study (one over Zoom and the other in person), and monthly Ladies Fellowship continue to be faithfully attended by small core groups of the Church fellowship.
We only have two children under 5 and two young people between the ages of 7 and 10 attending the Church currently. As a small church it has proved difficult to provide specific children and young people’s work but through prayer, member consideration and working with the parents of the children, we now hold a time of “Sunday School” separate from the last half of the Sunday morning service each week.
This is proving manageable and a Children’s Bible Club is planned for the summer of 2025, in the hopes that it will encourage more families to join our fellowship and learn about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
The Church Hall
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
Our current building started life as a chicken shed and was donated and converted for use in the early days of the Church. Amazingly it has provided a space for outreach and fellowship activities for over 40 years but is now very much in need of replacement.
We received a legacy donation in 2023/24 and a final payment from the same legacy in this financial year, specifically for the purpose of new church buildings, so have begun to look at what we can afford as a new hall with the amount received. It is clear that our initial hope for a brick-built building is not affordable, so are considering other options.
In the meantime, the legacy funds have been placed in savings accounts to generate as much interest as possible.
The current hall is used for our outreach activities and also by the local district council as a polling station for election purposes. It is also occasionally hired out for other uses that are in line with our aims and purposes.
Pastoral Care and Outreach
The Pastor and Members of the Church seek to give support such as transport, prayer, visits, when aware that it is needed.
We hold a weekly coffee morning which has continuously attracted people from our local community who do not attend the church. It provides a lively morning of conversation, light refreshments, social connection and opportunities for Christian witness. On occasion a light lunch is also provided. An average of 10 people come each week. It is advertised on our website and through the local district council’s information sources.
Monthly Men’s Breakfasts are held on a Saturday morning. Men from the church attend and bring friends – numbers attending have grown over the year. It is a social activity and sometimes accompanied by a short talk / testimony from someone in the Church. Around 8 men regularly join in with the activity.
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
We held a successful Christmas fayre in November 2024, which benefitted from people from the local community having their own stalls for a small fee and widened the range of what was on offer. It was very encouraging that it was people who don’t attend the church services but who do come to the coffee mornings who suggested the fayre as a fund raiser for the church. These people also helped out on the day, for which we were very grateful.
Mission and Evangelism.
The Church supports 6 missionaries / missionary organisations with whom we have personal contact in some way. We provide support to the missionaries through prayer and financial donation.
Missionary meetings are held once a month, led by the Missionary Secretary, (who is a member of the church), giving updates on the work of all the missionaries we support and a time of dedicated prayer for each. Once a month, a church member gives a short talk on one of the missionaries activities and prayer needs during the Sunday morning service. This has been welcomed by the fellowship.
During the year the Pastor and Members have undertaken two door-to door deliveries of information cards about the church and cards to enable people to ask for prayer. Pastor and others have also worked together to ‘knock on doors’ in a nearby housing estate so that a more personal opportunity to share the Gospel and let people know about our church was afforded.
We have a Church website and have received encouraging feedback from many of those who have come to the services that they found us through the website.
The website has been updated this year and now includes a video of what our church is like, the basis of our faith in Jesus and a facility to donate directly to the church, facilitated through partnership with the Stewardship organisation.
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
Ecumenical Relationships.
The Members took the decision to leave the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) in April of 2024 because of disagreement with some of the doctrinal standpoints that they were introducing. After some discussion with the FIEC this departure was finalised by December of 2024.
We are seeking where best to now affiliate our church, such that we can remain involved with wider Christian support, mission and evangelism whilst retaining our independence.
As such, our Pastor is supported, and works with, pastors of other evangelical churches in Suffolk who are jointly seeking to establish a network of faith to spread the Gospel and pray for revival and restoration of the Christian faith. This ‘Kinetic Network’ is becoming more formally established in Suffolk and a leader of the Network is due to preach and give more information to the fellowship about the network at our church on a forthcoming Sunday morning service.
The Church joined the “Churches Together” network in Woodbridge and Melton in September 2024 – something we were precluded from doing when affiliated to the FIEC. It is our hope to have a sense of unity with our fellow Christians across other denominations, whilst acknowledging that there are some doctrinal differences.
Financial Review April 1[st] 2024 – March 31[st] 2025.
The church holds a business account for day to day running costs and a number of savings accounts across which the restricted legacy fund is distributed.
Unrestricted Funds
These are made up of:
Business Account:
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
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The General Fund, which is the available balance for the day to day running of the church, including salaries, utilities, maintenance and church activities.
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Designated Missionary Fund for the financial donations to the missionaries we support, formed from 10% of the monthly planned giving to the church and loose giving received at service collections.
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Designated Building Fund, used for ongoing structural and utility maintenance and/or contribution towards new building costs
Instant Access Savings Account:
- Contingency Fund, to act as a buffer should the church experience a financial crisis. This fund was set up using a £10,000 donation for contributing towards the running of our church and / or future development. This donation was received in 2023/24 financial year.
Total receipts on unrestricted funds in 2024/25 were £33,101.89.
Total expenditure on unrestricted funds in 2024/25 was £33,962.24
Restricted Funds:
A Restricted Fund was set up in the 2023/24 financial year subsequent to receiving a legacy donation of £199,000 specifically for new build purposes. We received a final payment from this legacy donation in this financial year.
The Restricted Funds are held in savings accounts across different banks in order to reduce the risk of losing funds due to individual bank instability.
The planned giving and loose collections have fluctuated throughout the year and overall, we are experiencing a decrease in our unrestricted funds. This has been highlighted to members at each of our quarterly members meetings. A small group has met twice to discuss how best to generate income for the Church. Their recommendations have been fed back to the Members and are being actioned as and when able.
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
We are grateful that we are able to claim Gift Aid on the majority of our planned giving and other donations as this helps to offset any deficit.
A financial report is presented to the whole church on an annual basis to ensure that all those attending are aware of how our work and ministry is financed, current plans for ministry and potential difficulties regarding finance. This presentation acts as our AGM and is given at a Sunday morning service when the majority of our fellowship will be attending. This event is combined with an annual Gift Day to the church in an attempt to raise additional funds and is generally well received and responded to.
The accounts were independently examined in July 2025 for the financial year 1[st] April 2024 - 31[st] March 2025. The report is included with the submission to the Charity Commission of this Annual Report.
Reserves:
There is no formal reserves policy in place currently but as our unrestricted funds have been showing a decreasing trend over the past year we will look to putting a formal policy in place.
The majority of our expenditure relates to Pastor’s employment costs and we have no outstanding debt or loans, and do not intend to have such in the future.
We currently have over 2 years available in our General Fund to meet expenses as they currently stand.
Volunteers
The church does not have official volunteers, apart from the secretary, mission secretary and treasurer, but all the members undertake the range of activities and responsibilities that are necessary in achieving the aims and objectives of our ministry. In particular, mention is given to those who
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
maintain the sound system and website, building and garden maintenance and fellowship activities such as the coffee morning and men’s breakfast.
Structure, Governance and Management
The activities to deliver and oversee the ministry and business of the church is undertaken by the Trustees and Church Membership.
Trustees are those holding a position of responsibility in the church, in line with the church rules, i.e. The Pastor, Secretary and Treasurer.
The Pastor, Secretary and Treasurer post holders are agreed by the Church Membership.
The Church appointed The Church Growth Trust as the Holding Trustees for the Land and Buildings in May of 2023. Previously we had used the Fellowship Property Trust but they had notified us that they were no longer going to be providing this service.
Invites to membership are frequently given out and those of the church fellowship who wish to become a member make this known to the Pastor. They receive copies of the Church Constitution and Rules and the opportunity to discuss further the responsibilities of membership. They are then visited by the Pastor and a current member for an informal discussion about their Christian beliefs and expectations of membership. If they still wish to become a member following this preparation, the Pastor will give the recommendation at the next Members Meeting and Members indicate their approval or otherwise. Once approved for membership, they are formally welcomed as a member in a forthcoming Sunday morning service.
Invariably, this process means that people expressing a desire to become a member is responded to and individuals supported to become active in the running of the Church.
Members Meetings are held quarterly and followed by separate Trustee Meetings, if there are confidential matters to be resolved. Minutes are taken of all meetings.
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
Members meetings are chaired by a Member, who has offered or been nominated, for the position and then voted in by the other members. The position of Chair is reviewed on an annual basis.
The fellowship of the church is kept informed of activities, developments and organisational issues in the notices section of the Sunday morning service and specific updates / information as and when required.
Policies:
- Safeguarding:
The Church has a Children and Vulnerable Adults Safeguarding Policy and a Lone Worker Policy, both to be reviewed in 2025.
Disclosure and Barring Service Checks have been carried out in January 2025 for all those who deliver the church activities, such as the coffee mornings, children’s work and pastoral care.
Food Safety and Hygiene:
We generally do not cook on the premises, except for the Men’s Breakfast, but do hold fellowship meals on occasions when people bring food for sharing. We have three of our members who hold food safety and hygiene level 2 certificates.
Confidentiality and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR):
Confidentiality and GDPR requirements are adhered to at all times. Personal information necessary for Gift Aid, Flock List and correspondence is all that is stored, and that is only accessible by the Pastor, Secretary and Treasurer, using password protected electronic storage.
- Reserves Policy
In development
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The Avenue Evangelical Church
Church Constitution
An amendment relating to the process to be undertaken should the church need to be closed was agreed at the January 2025 Member’s meeting.
Church rules
An amendment relating to the process for holding a secret ballot to determine a decision, should it be proposed as necessary, was agreed at the January 2025 Member’s meeting.
END
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| Charity Name The Avenue Evangelical Church |
Charity Name The Avenue Evangelical Church |
Charity Name The Avenue Evangelical Church |
No (if any) | CC16a | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| For the period from |
Period start date 4/1/2024 |
To |
Period end date 3/31/2025 |
||
| Section A Receipts and payments | |||||
| A1 Receipts Donations 3,918 Legacies - Church Congregation Planned Giving 17,302 Church service donations 5,889 Hire of Church Hall 810 GIFT AID Reclaim 4,667 Interest 341 Christmas Fayre 175 33,102 - - Sub total - Total receipts 33,102 A3 Payments Wages 25,333 Pension 1,295 Training& Development 419 VisitingSpeakers 70 Gas 358 Electricity 881 Water 300 IT / Phone 438 Annual Church Insurance 1,835 Annual Licences 997 Support to Missionaries 2,900 Fire Alarm Upgrade 1,026 New BuildingCosts Running& Maintenance Costs 2,036 Sub total 37,888 - - Sub total - Total payments 37,888 Net of receipts/(payments) - 4,786 A5 Transfers between funds - A6 Cash funds last year end 44,724 Cash funds this year end 39,938 Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ Sub total(Gross income for AR) A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) |
to the nearest £ - 22,845 - - - - 637 - 23,482 - - - 23,482 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23,482 - 199,000 222,482 Restricted funds |
to the nearest £ Endowment funds |
Total funds to the nearest £ 3,918 22,845 17,302 5,889 810 4,667 978 175 56,584 - - - 56,584 25,333 1,295 419 70 358 881 300 438 1,835 997 2,900 1,026 2,036 37,888 - - - 37,888 18,696 - 243,724 262,420 |
Last year to the nearest £ |
|
| - - - - - - - - - |
3,918 | 12,592 | |||
| 22,845 | 199,000 | ||||
| 17,302 | 22,729 | ||||
| 5,889 | 2,179 | ||||
| 810 | 600 | ||||
| 4,667 | 8,369 | ||||
| 978 | - | ||||
| 175 | - | ||||
| 56,584 | 245,469 | ||||
| - - - |
- | ||||
| - | - | ||||
| - | - | ||||
| - | 56,584 | 245,469 | |||
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
25,333 | 23,772 | |||
| 1,295 | 1,258 | ||||
| 419 | 360 | ||||
| 70 | 215 | ||||
| 358 | 944 | ||||
| 881 | 1,161 | ||||
| 300 | 345 | ||||
| 438 | 660 | ||||
| 1,835 | 1,639 | ||||
| 997 | 1,749 | ||||
| 2,900 | 2,400 | ||||
| 1,026 | - | ||||
| 1,887 | |||||
| 2,036 | 1,492 | ||||
| 37,888 | 37,882 | ||||
| - - - |
- | ||||
| - | |||||
| - | - | ||||
| - | 37,888 | 37,882 | |||
| 23,482 | - - - - |
18,696 | 207,587 | ||
| - | - | - | |||
| 199,000 | 243,724 | ||||
| 222,482 | 262,420 | 207,587 |
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets B3 Investment assets B5 Liabilities B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees |
Details Details Details Details Details Signature Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) |
to nearest £ to nearest £ - - - - - - - - Agreement Error Agreement Error to nearest £ to nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - Cost (optional) - - - - - Cost (optional) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Print Name Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Fund to which asset belongs Fund to which asset belongs Fund to which liability relates Amount due (optional) |
to nearest £ Endowment funds |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| OK | |||
| to nearest £ Endowment funds |
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| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
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| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
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| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| When due (optional) |
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| Date of approval |
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The Avenue Evangelical Church Statement of Accounts 31st March 2025 42 WarwlGk Avenue Woodbrldge Suifolk IP12 IJX Reg Gharity1205892
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