For the last fifty years, Mission Housing has been focused on addressing the need for affordable housing for Christian, church and charity workers who cannot afford to rent or buy a home that is located within the community in which they are called to serve.
Supporting Kingdom growth through housing
High property prices frequently prevent key Christian workers from living in the communities they belong to. Mission Housing helps overcome this hurdle by providing shared ownerships where the Christian worker buys at least a 25% share of the property and the balance of up to 75% is owned by Mission Housing, funded by charitable gifts and loans. Occasionally, Mission Housing's support takes the form of affordable tenancies to individuals, couples, families, churches and organisations. Mission Housing's work is made possible by the generosity of individuals, churches, organisations and trusts who make gifts, provide loans, rent their properties at below-market rates, and sometimes even donate properties and leave legacies.
As a long-standing Stewardship partner, Mission Housing has frequently benefited from the willingness of some Philanthropy Services donors to help meet this critical need for housing by requesting for some or all their giving account balance to be allocated as a Mission Housing loan.
The partnership with Stewardship has also allowed Mission Housing to expand its work from its traditional focus in Central London to other communities across the UK where housing is an issue for mission workers.
Rich and Kathryn's story
Rich and Kathryn were called to serve the people of mid Suffolk but were struggling to find adequate housing for their family; they felt called to continue living in the village of Debenham, reaching the community they knew and loved, but their house was no longer suitable for their family and ministry. Meanwhile, house prices were rocketing in this already expensive area.
Debenham is a hub village which serves many other nearby villages and hamlets. It is a social and geographical centre that includes primary and secondary schools, a leisure centre, shops, cafes, GP surgery, vets, other businesses, and a growing population. Three miles away lies the smaller village of Mickfield, where Rich is the pastor of Mickfield Evangelical Church. Rural churches are under-resourced and often struggle to reach an increasingly changing rural population. Yet 17% of the UK lives in rural areas and the Gospel needs are profound.
The significant challenge for Rich and Kathryn and others like them is how to effectively share the Gospel in this rural context and to train the next generation of local Christian leaders and Gospel workers for God’s rural harvest field.
Thanks to Mission Housing, Rich and Kathryn have been able to remain in the heart of their local community and are looking forward to the next season of sowing seeds for the Gospel.
“We were under immense pressure to remain in Debenham but struggling to find a house suitable for our family and our ministry. Mission Housing enabled us, through the generous loans given, to bridge a big financial gap. Now we can remain in the community that we know and love, in a long-term house, as we seek to reach lost people for Jesus. We are so very thankful for all the help that Mission Housing, Stewardship and generous donors have given." Rich, Christian worker.
Find out more about Mission Housing
Rich and Kathryn's story is one of many. If you are passionate about enabling mission and supporting those in ministry and would like to get involved, then please contact us.
Social impact investing
Social impact investment is an innovative approach to philanthropy that entails allocating your account balance to support a charity with a loan or other funding arrangement. This innovative approach to philanthropy helps donors' generosity go further; the loan has the potential to generate a return to the donor's giving account that can then be 'recycled' into further social investments or to fund charitable grants.
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Photo courtesy of Mission Housing: Rich and Kathryn outside their home in Debenham, Suffolk.
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Bruce McGill
Bruce is passionate about using his skills and experience to make a difference to the lives of others and to the communities that he is a part of. His work as a school governor and church trustee has provided him with the opportunity to make a tangible difference to local lives and communities.
He is an experienced not-for-profit leader with a track record of working at board level to plan, develop and implement activities and programs in support of a wider vision and mission. For the last fifteen years he has worked for charitable organisations, helping these organisations to build their brands, deliver their charitable objects, develop financial resilience and provide relevant offerings to their members and beneficiaries.
For the last thirty years he has been involved in Christian mission in London. Working closely with local churches and national organisations to see God’s Kingdom come and lives and communities transformed through the power of God’s love. He currently serves as an Associate Pastor with his local church in north London.
