Dedication Festival 2026
Dear all,
This coming Sunday, 25th October, is our Dedication Festival (NB: Note that the clocks change then!), which is our annual reminder that the church, like everything else on this side of glory, has material needs. And so, we shall be doing that very un-English thing this week of talking about money... But before that:
Last night, the Trustees of the Non-ecclesiastical Charities met at the Vicarage, and I am most grateful for all the good work they’ve been doing, and for updating me with how everything works. Relevant to the discussion of finances below, the Non-ecclesiastical Charities allow our church to give away nearly £10,000 per year, without worrying about whether it will bankrupt the church. Very many thanks to Robin and Beth Knight, Simon Mort, Helen Todd, and Susan Brown for all their hard work. Please visit our webpage on this for more information: https://stmarymagdalenoxford.org.uk/charities
Just today, we have begun prefacing the Wednesday midday mass with a time of silent adoration before the Sacrament exposed on St Thomas's altar. This is a part of our more fully embodying St Mary Magdalen's being a school of prayer, where we may learn together how to pray. If prayer is communion with God (which it is), then the Eucharist is surely the Church's first and best prayer, in which we receive Christ's own Body and Blood: and so, to contemplate and adore him in the Sacrament is perhaps a very close second. Do come and join us from 11am every Wednesday. Confessions may still be heard from 11.40am onwards before the 12.15pm mass.
And I recently had coffee with our former curate, Mthr Esther Lay, and discovered that she's done this interview that I thought you might like to read, not least as prayer comes into the conversation too. I recognised in some of this the process of sermon-writing, though Mthr Esther does not say so here: https://www.andrewjamison.co.uk/post/guest-poet-esther-lay
Do remember that November 2nd is All Souls' Day. You may request prayers for the dead here: https://www.stmarymagdalenoxford.org.uk/requiem
OK, the next bit is not going to be super meaningful to those of you who are new, but transparency is a good policy, so you're not going to be left out of discussions about money and the other mechanics of parish life. That said, feel free of course to skip the next section for now.
Before we get into facts and figures, I want everyone to know that St Mary Magdalen's exists and thrives because of how generous you all are. Every numerate parish priest enters a new post with questions about the church's financial health, wondering whether it is a wealthy parish or a poor parish, or somewhere in between. This is never an easy question to answer, because much depends on what we attend to. As you will see below, we suffer from regular five-figure deficits; and that doesn't look great. But we have somehow managed to do so for many years, and are still here! And that is amazing. This is made possible by the grace of God acting through the incredible generosity of individuals amongst who, whenever needs arise, give generously to enable us to fulfil those needs. We are a wealthy parish in the way that matters: blessed with people who are able and willing to make sacrifices—of money, but also of time and talent—for the good of this church, that we may offer due praise and worship to Almighty God and serve the needs of the wider Church and the world in ways befitting our particular charisms. In these first few months in post, I am daily overwhelmed with gratitude for all of you who contribute so much to the life of this parish, following in the footsteps of the many who have gone before us these 950 years, and paving the way for those who will come after us.
Now, then for some numbers.
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Over the past few weeks, I have been spending some time with our 2021-2025 data, which is what I have easiest access to, but the figures are also reminiscent from my time here previously as curate a decade ago (2014-2018). Here are some initial observations:
St Mary Magdalen's runs an average annual deficit of roughly £20,000 per year. This excludes major projects and special donations appeals—we're looking at what we might think of as "running costs" or "normal" income and expenditure.
This is mitigated in part by an annual grant of ~£10,000 from the St Mary Magdalen Restoration and Development Trust, which we might think of as a part of our endowment. Its investments permit it to provide these annual grants, but its ability to continue doing this depends on the performance of said investments. [The Trust is an independent charity legally distinct from the church; it was founded several decades ago to support major works, but this is not really how it functions now. ]
Otherwise, we have been eating into our own cash reserves. If this deficit persists, we will spend down our cash reserves entirely in less than 10 years. This does not automatically make us insolvent, as there are assets (eg properties) we can sell: but it is clearly not a very healthy projection.
Now some observations about expenditure:
Our top 3 regular expenditures are:
the parish share (~£60,000),
the music (~£35,000), and
the parish administrator (~£10,000)
, totaling £105,000. Together these three alone make up 90% of our annual spending, leaving aside major projects.
The parish share is the amount we pay the Diocese. There are various ways of thinking about what this is for, but the simplest is to think of this as what we pay to have a parish priest living in a vicarage. As such, if we want to have a full-time parish priest, this expenditure is nonnegotiable.
For many amongst us, the music is also nonnegotiable, in the sense that it is a part of who we are as a parish church to offer beautiful music as part of our worship—indeed, to offer beauty more broadly, which we hope also to do in our liturgy and preaching. This is offered to God, to be sure; but it is also a gift to the world, which needs beauty perhaps more than it knows. The music offered here—thanks to Will our Director of Music, Ian our organist, and our magnificent choir—is, I am sure you will agree, sublime. Our musicians more than deserve their wages. We spend £585 per service on music, which works out to roughly £7 per person in the pews: the High Mass is certainly not a concert, but if it were, it would be a tremendous bargain.
Of the three, the parish administrator is perhaps the most dispensable, but to reduce our expenditure here would require someone else to take on the administrative responsibilities currently on their shoulders. The Vicar could do this, and that would mean I would spend less time on other things; or lay volunteers might do this. In the absence of these, we probably do need a parish administrator.
And some observations about income:
Our planned giving and Sunday collections average at about £55,000, which is nearly enough to cover the parish share. As a general rule of thumb, planned giving and Sunday collections should cover at least the parish share, so we're not doing too badly here, but there is room for improvement.
Some years ago, a Music Fund was created so that people who cared especially about music might contribute extra to that fund. The idea is not to shift from giving to the general fund to the music fund, because of course the music wouldn't exist if the church didn't... This Music Fund receives just under £15,000 in income (with considerable fluctuation), and so there is an average shortfall of about £20,000 per year—almost exactly the entire annual deficit.
The church owns two properties, which generate rental income (one intended as the curate's house; so we lose that income when we have a curate). This contributes £15,000-£20,000 to our finances each year, including to both the General and Music Funds. This figure drops when (a) we are between tenants, (b) we have a curate, (c) when there are expensive repairs to the properties.
As noted above, the Restoration and Development Fund provides an annual grant of ~£10,000 each year, with its ability to do so dependent on its investment performance.
This totals about £100,000 per year, which is less than the £105,000 we spend on just our top 3 types of expenditure.
The upshot of all this is that we have, for several years now, been. spending beyond our means, which is already obvious from the annual deficit of £20,000 (or £10,000, if we include the annual grants from the Restoration and Development Trust). And in this situation, the two courses of action are pretty obvious
increase income, and/or
reduce spending.
As there is very little point tinkering around the edges—which our finance team has been trying to do (e.g., by reducing costs on consumables, on printer rental etc.)—as our three major expenditures account for 90% of all expenditure; and cutting these three seem either impossible or undesirable, it is really (a) we need to focus on.
For most churches like ours, there are essentially three means of raising money:
Increasing regular giving
Increasing fundraising events, and/or commercial-adjacent income streams
Applying for grants
We are certainly actively looking at 3, though grant income is rarely stable and reliable, especially for running costs. If you are especially experienced and/or skilled at grant applications, we'd love to hear from you.
We are also looking at 2, including encouraging bookings of the church as a venue; it is worth bearing in mind also that fundraising initiatives are time-consuming for all involved—and if anyone wants to volunteer to take on some of this responsibility, please do let me know!
But also, 1.—increasing regular giving—has to be part of our financial strategy. As mentioned above, as a rule of thumb, congregational regular giving should pay for at least the parish share, and we're not quite there yet. And so, if you do not yet contribute regularly or have not looking at your regular giving for a while (given inflation...), I'd like to encourage you—on this occasion of our Dedication Festival—to visit our Parish Giving Scheme page (which conveniently allows you to choose to increase your donation with inflation every year) using the QR code below, or to find out more about giving at our Donations page here: https://www.stmarymagdalenoxford.org.uk/donate. And if the musical life of St Mary Magdalen's means a lot to you, then consider also sponsoring the music in particular here—or speak to Will or myself about this: https://www.stmarymagdalenoxford.org.uk/music
If you have made it this far into a very long email about an uncomfortable subject: thank you. And thank you again for all that you already do to enable St Mary Magdalen's to do what we do, not only for one another's benefit, but also for the good of the wider Church and world.