The BRF Legacy Appeal
Thank you for your interest in supporting BRF through our legacy appeal. Your gift would make a huge difference to the ministry of BRF, enabling and supporting a wide and varied ministry including Barnabas in Churches, Barnabas in Schools, Messy Church and Foundations21.
To find out more about the different ministries of BRF that could be impacted by your gift, please read on.
Skip down to:
- Introduction
- Barnabas for Children
- Barnabas in Churches and Faith in Homes
- Barnabas in Schools
- Messy Church
- Foundations21
- Resources for the spiritual journey
- A message from the chair of BRF Trustees
- Frequently Asked Questions
- A lasting gift to BRF
- My pledge of support
Introduction
For many charities, income from legacies is crucial and represents a significant aspect of their funding each year. Legacies enable charities to plan ahead, and often provide the funding to develop new projects. Legacies make a significant difference to the ability of charities to achieve their purpose. In just this way, a legacy to support BRF's ministry would make a huge difference.
BRF is a Christian charity that started in January 1922 in an Anglican church in Brixton, where the vicar wanted to help his congregation, in his words, 'to get a move on spiritually'. He began to offer a monthly leaflet of daily Bible readings, coupled with a midweek discussion group and the encouragement to pray for the parish. This so transformed the spiritual life of St Matthew's Church that before long other churches were asking for copies of the leaflets for their own congregations. Today, 90 years later, Bible Reading, Prayer & Spirituality and Discipleship are still the three core strands of BRF's ministry, which as a whole is defined in our statement of purpose: 'resourcing your spiritual journey'.
At the heart of BRF's ministry is the desire to help people of all ages - children, adults and families - to explore Christianity and to grow in faith. We're passionate about helping people to engage with the Bible and prayer, and about resourcing Christian discipleship. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey - just starting out, or having been a Christian all your life - we believe that BRF has something to offer to help you go further and deeper.
Throughout its history BRF's ministry has been enabled thanks to the generosity of those who have shared its vision and supported its work both through their giving during their lifetime and also through legacy gifts. I'd like to share with you something of our ministry today, so do keep reading. I hope you may consider a legacy gift to help us continue to take this work forward in the decades to come.
Download the BRF 'A Gift for Life' Appeal (PDF)
Barnabas for Children
Many of the current readers of our Bible reading notes and supporters of our work were themselves introduced to the Bible and the Christian faith as children. Today we're carrying on that same ministry of bringing the Bible alive for children under eleven and enabling them, and the adults that work with them, to explore Christianity creatively - at church, at home and at school.
Barnabas in Churches and Faith in Homes
It takes the whole congregation to nurture a child. We're dedicated to helping churches to resource and develop their children's ministry with the under-11s more effectively. This includes supporting the children's leaders themselves; helping churches to engage with their wider community; working with churches to build strong, mutually enriching relationships with their local schools; and equipping churches to nurture children - not just producing resources to use with children themselves, but also helping their leaders and indeed the whole congregation to understand and appreciate more about children's faith development, valuing them as part of the church and enabling them to play a full role within the life of the church.
We're working with families too: Faith in Homes is the newest part of our Barnabas Children's Ministry, looking at how we can resource, enable and equip families to explore the Christian faith at home. Many parents don't have the knowledge or confidence to do this themselves with their children, and yet a recent survey we conducted clearly showed that parents, grandparents and carers are those who have the most influence over a child's spiritual and Christian development. We've launched a website packed with information, ideas and resources for parents, family workers and church ministers to use; we're producing a range of easy-to-use publications for families; and we're working closely with a number of churches to explore the challenges families face in sharing faith in the home, and to develop and pilot ideas for addressing some of these issues.
A legacy gift could help to underpin this developing new work with families.
Barnabas in Schools
In our increasingly secular society fewer and fewer children are growing up with any real knowledge or understanding of the Bible or the Christian faith. We're passionate about enabling children and their teachers in primary schools to explore Christianity creatively, and to learn both about and from the Bible, within RE and Collective Worship.
Our Barnabas RE Days, using storytelling, mime and drama, are in great demand. They explore big themes (Who am I? Whose world? Who is my neighbour? It's not fair!) along with the major Christian festivals. We also offer specialist In-Service Training (INSET) sessions for teachers, along with a wide range of publications and a website with information, articles and downloadable resources.
In 2011 our programme 'What's so special about the Bible?' encouraged many schools to take a fresh look at the Bible; the new programme for 2012 'Who comes first?' is likely to generate even more interest, exploring, through the eyes of faith and belief, values linked to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London.
Our aim is to offer a new theme each year for primary schools - 'Christianity: A Worldwide Faith' is planned for 2013. A legacy gift could help fund the development of this and future themes for Barnabas in Schools.
Messy Church
Messy Church is a way of being church for families and others based around welcome, crafts and art, celebration and eating together. It meets at a time and in a place to suit people who don't belong to Sunday church. It's built around and continues to develop around the needs of people on the fringe.
Messy Church is growing at an extraordinary rate! Every month families who have never set foot in a church before are enjoying Messy Church. And every month more Messy Churches are started all over the UK and worldwide (twelve other countries to date). And it works! Messy Church is proving effective in sharing God's good news with families across denominations and church traditions. Thousands of people now attend Messy Churches - and the number is growing all the time.
BRF sits at the heart of Messy Church, enabling, resourcing and supporting this rapidly growing international movement, with books and other resources, training and a network of regional coordinators. As Messy Church continues to grow, develop and bear fruit, some of the big questions we are addressing within this context include:
- How can we most effectively offer encouragement and training for those leading Messy Churches?
- How do we make disciples?
- How do we enable and encourage Bible reading?
- How can we resource and equip Messy Churches in specific settings (for example rural, inner city, ecumenically-based) to start and to be sustainable?
- How can we use the opportunities within Messy Church to grow the teenagers involved in them as Christian leaders?
- How can we encourage the development of Messy Church in other countries with their own unique national 'identity' while still remaining strongly part of what appears to be becoming an international movement?
A legacy gift could help provide the much-needed funding to enable us to explore and respond to these opportunities.
Foundations21
How do we take people beyond an introduction to the Christian faith? How do we feed people who are hungry to know more and to explore their faith more deeply? How do we embrace life-long learning as part of the regular rhythm of our own Christian lives? How do we include people who would like to be part of mid-week groups, but can't - due to travel, work, or family commitments?
Foundations21 could be part of the solution. It's BRF's free online resource for Christian life-long learning and discipleship. It's a unique resource for people to use alongside the Bible to enable them to move forward in their discipleship journey. It enables users to explore twelve key discipleship themes, with a choice of four pathways to follow through the material, each designed to suit a different learning style.
Bringing together a wealth of different resources, Foundations21 creates an immersive experience. With daily devotional material, text to read, videos to watch, links to other websites, reflection exercises and much, much more, Foundations21 makes the most of these opportunities to provide a rich blended learning approach for anyone who wants to go further and deeper in their understanding of their faith and their experience of God.
Foundations21 is a gift to the church, freely available from BRF to anyone who wants to use it. Its flexibility means that it can be used by individuals, groups, churches and Christian organisations alike. It's a resource for personal exploration as well as a tool for ministry.
While we want to continue to develop the Foundations21 resource itself, supporting its growing worldwide community of subscribers, we'd also like to be able to develop and pilot further ways of using Foundations21 in specific contexts. A legacy gift could help fund this work, enabling us to make Foundations21 even more accessible to a wider audience both within the UK and abroad.
Resources for the spiritual journey
Messy Church, Barnabas for Children and Foundations21 are all core ministries of BRF that have become established and developed within the past twelve years. A further core ministry that has been at the heart of BRF throughout its 90-year history is the production and distribution of resources.
Each year we publish four series of Bible reading notes and approximately 45 books, along with a vast amount of material that is downloadable free from our children's ministry and Messy Church websites. More recently we have also started to produce digital resources, including iPad and iPhone apps for New Daylight, Guidelines and Day by Day with God, and our first e-books.
BRF is highly respected for its resources in the areas of Bible Reading, Prayer & Spirituality, Discipleship and Leadership, and for its specialist Barnabas for Children and Messy Church imprints.
Although the income from sales of Bible reading notes, books and digital resources covers the direct costs of producing them, it doesn't provide the additional funding that we need to be able to explore and develop new possibilities and opportunities, particularly within the digital media.
A legacy gift could help to enable us to respond to some of these new opportunities.
A message from the chair of BRF Trustees
For 90 years BRF has been helping people of all ages to experience the living God and grow as disciples of Jesus Christ through the Bible, prayer and worship - in other words 'resourcing their spiritual journey'. BRF began its ministry in a small congregation in London and now reaches out to individuals, families and whole communities in every part of the country, and increasingly beyond the UK too.
Would you consider a legacy gift to support this vital ministry? Your gift would be a lasting way to support our work, and enable us to develop it further for successive generations of adults and children alike. Together we can make a real difference.
Thank you very much for your support.
Colin Fletcher OBE
Bishop of Dorchester and Chair of the BRF Council
Frequently Asked Questions
You will no doubt have many questions to ask about will-making and leaving a gift to a charity. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions:
Does it cost a lot to make a will?
No. A typical will costs around £150 - £250 from a general family solicitor's practice.
Do I have to do much preparation before going to see my solicitor?
Your solicitor will probably give or send you a two- or three-page questionnaire to fill in - the answers help your solicitor draw up your will in the most effective way. And, as with everything, preparation beforehand always helps.
What if I am not sure how the future will turn out? Should I delay until the picture is clear?
No. There's no need to wait as your will can always be changed in the light of new circumstances. And it is always advisable to have a current, valid will.
Can I share some money between several charities?
Yes, in fact many people do this by leaving a residuary bequest which shares out the residue of their estate - what is left of their estate after all specific or pecuniary gifts have been made - among two or three favourite charities.
A lasting gift to BRF
A gift to BRF in your will can give lasting support to our work. All of our ministry work has to be planned on a long-term basis and your legacy will help to make this possible. You might want your gift to be used for a particular core BRF ministry or project - Messy Church, Barnabas for Children, Barnabas in Schools, Foundations21 or the development of new resources. Alternatively you may want to leave it to us to allocate your gift to whichever of our core ministries has the greatest need at the time. It's entirely up to you. All you need to do is to make your wishes clear within your will.
If you already have a will
If you already have a will it makes very good sense to review it periodically to check that it still reflects your wishes. This could be an opportunity to add a charitable gift. Your solicitor can advise you on making such changes to your will.
If you don't yet have a will
If you don't yet have a will, it is very advisable to have one drawn up with the advice of a solicitor. Having a legally valid will is the only way to ensure that your wishes are fulfilled exactly. It can also save a lot of heartache for the people you leave behind. Intestacy - failing to leave a will - affects thousands of people every year, yet is so easily avoided.
The kinds of legacy gift (bequest) you can make
- A specific bequest. If you want to leave a particular item of property to someone or an organisation, then your will includes a specific bequest of that item. This covers jewellery, investments, furniture or land.
- A pecuniary bequest. If you prefer to leave gifts of money, these will be called pecuniary bequests - even if the money first has to be realised by your executors selling an item of property.
- A residuary bequest. If you want to benefit family and friends first, then leave to your favourite charities a share of what remains, a residuary bequest takes care of your wishes here. Your solicitor will always ask you what you want to do with the 'residue' of your estate, so this is well worth thinking about in advance of an appointment.
My pledge of support
If you are able to support us, you can complete a pledge of support in the A Gift for Life' Appeal booklet or you can complete the form below.
Thank you for your support and prayers.
