Responding to the Crisis heading our way

As we head into the Autumn and Winter of 2022, the Cost of Living Crisis is of major concern for most of us.

We know it will be especially concerning to churches who already offer many ministries to serve their communities, often including the most vulnerable among us.

Today’s announcement of the 80% hike in the “energy cap” means the average household will pay over £3500 a year just for heating and lighting.

This huge jump in fuel bills in coming months. This is added to the rising cost of food, petrol and rapidly rising London rental costs.

Many in our communities, already struggling to make ends meet will have to make incredibly hard choices over how they spend their money. New figures from the Money Charity for the last quarter find:

• 89% of UK adults reporting an increase in their living costs, compared to 62% in November 2021

• 1 in 4 adults say they will be unable to pay their energy bills following the next energy price cap review in October 2022

• 94% of UK adults reporting an increase in the price of their food shop (82% an increase in energy bills and 77% an increase in fuel.)

The usually very cautious and positive Martin Lewis, from Money Saving Expert said he had “never seen anything like this” and that “people will be panicking, it will be desperate.”

Hitting the poorest the hardest

It’s hard to exaggerate how much this will affect us all, but we know that those on the lowest incomes, those who are precariously employed and those who are destitute will be the worst affected.

These are often the very people churches across our Diocese serve every day, through drop in cafes, night shelters, refugee support, foodbanks and debt advice.

So as Christians in this city, it is right to be concerned, and to be praying for ourselves and our neighbours.

All civil society organisations, including churches are facing huge increase in costs themselves, and therefore may not be able to continue to provide for their communities in the way they currently do. For example, foodbanks are already reporting lower donations, as those who usually contribute food are struggling themselves financially and cutting back on giving.

This blog post: “Keeping The Community Warm” from Hannah Rich at Theos outlines clearly the issue facing churches.

What Can we Do?

As a response, we’ve put together a page of useful links, ideas and resources on how we as churches across London might respond to the Cost of Living Crisis throughout the Autumn. There are charities to partner with, ideas from other churches and resources you can use alongside those who are struggling.

In particular, you may want to refer to our Money Help Toolkit, which we have put together for churches wanting to know where to start in helping people struggling with money.

We’ll continue to add to this as we hear of more resources, and try to tell stories of how churches are responding. If you’d like to get in touch and tell us what you are considering, or already doing, we’d love to hear from you.

What about us?

Finally, we know that many churches may be struggled themselves with huge rises in fuel costs, as well as clergy wondering how they will heat their own, often larger-than-average houses.

Churches will struggle to keep their lights and heating on this winter when costs dramatically increase.

The Diocesan resource page for churches on the energy crisis is here

While there is not yet any support in place for this, the Diocesan support teams and national church are aware and seeking to do what they can, especially to ensure churches can continue to show the love of God in Jesus to their communities in practical ways.