United Appeal 2024

United Appeal 2024 ‘Presbyterians doing together what none of us can do on our own’.

This Easter we welcome donations towards The United Appeal for Missions, which is a collection we take up twice a year that supports central Presbyterian Church funds for mission. Some of the mission takes place overseas. For example, last year £74,350 of grants were allocated to the Council for Global Mission for overseas projects and funding of partners. This is a really sizeable donation that makes a difference in many communities across the globe that no one individual church could do by itself. United Appeal for Mission is an example of the wonderful teamwork that can take place across our denomination.

Below is an extract from local newspaper, The Newsletter from 15^th July 23 describing a bit more about the purpose of the United Appeal and how it is distributed;

“This year, the church agreed to ask its congregations to contribute £3.4million to the 2024 United Appeal, which will support projects, programmes and staff at home and overseas. The church's United Appeal committee, with responsibility for assessing council budgets, recommends to the general assembly the grants to be allocated to each of the church councils and the appeal to congregations required to meet what has been agreed.

Martin Hampton, an elder in Strand Presbyterian church in East Belfast, and appeal convenor, said the United Appeal for Missions is at the very heart of Irish Presbyterianism and every aspect of the church's mission and ministry depends upon it.

“There is a kind of catch phrase that goes with the Appeal - it is ‘Presbyterians doing together what none of us can do on our own’ and it is true, as it hits the nail on the head. It supports mission and ministry at home and around the world helping congregations and individuals to build God’s Kingdom through youth and children’s ministry, social action and the training of leaders, for example," Mr Hampton added.

“Each year, the church steps out in faith as it agrees grants and sets the level of the United Appeal. As we do so, we continue to trust in the Lord and thank Him for being such an incomparably kind and generous God,”

Explaining how the United Appeal is calculated, Mr Hampton said a congregation’s contribution is based on how many contributing families a congregation has and its ‘assessable income’. This income includes weekly freewill offerings, income for the stipend, Sunday and other collections for general use.

“Each congregation is given a ‘target of honour’ to meet during the course of the year in terms of its contribution to the United Appeal.”

As a church we have been given a target of honour to reach for this year’s Appeal. Please do consider if you can make a donation this Easter. It would be gratefully received and will help spread the gospel through both word and action at home and abroad.

Rev Corrina Heron