What's your legacy?

Do you want to see the work of your church or favourite charities prosper after your lifetime? A legacy in your will can help. Find out how legacies left to Elim make a huge difference

“In the early days of Elim, the Evangelistic Band lived ‘on faith lines’. They shared any money or gifts and trusted God for their every need,” as described on Elim’s website.

“Times were tough as Britain was engaged in fighting a war on the continent of Europe. Their evangelistic zeal was matched by a courage and sacrifice, which saw them ready to pay to reach men and women for Christ.

“Then suddenly, and unexpectedly, the news was received that George Jeffreys had been made the chief beneficiary of a sizeable estate left to him by a lady who had died in North Wales in 1917.”

This legacy left to Elim in its formative days was transformational. Having legally registered the group as an official denomination – the Elim Pentecostal Alliance – Jeffreys used the money to pay off the debt on a church building in Ireland and the movement began to grow rapidly. This story shows how powerful leaving a legacy in your will can be.

But what is a legacy? Put simply, it is a gift – a fixed sum of money or an item of personal property – which is left to a chosen beneficiary, such as an individual or a charity and is free of inheritance tax.

And why leave one? Besides blessing a person or cause, legacies also allow you to express your gratitude to God for all he gave you during your lifetime or offer a way to continue to support people, ministries or missions you care deeply about.

A legacy left to your church could fund building work, community, youth or worship ministries, for example, while money left to a charity or missionary agency can fund vital future projects.

And many Elim churches have benefited hugely from legacies left to them by former members as the following two stories demonstrate.

Pastor Robert Jones,
Brecon Elim Church

In 2011, Brecon Elim Church opened its brand new, purpose-built church centre, which cost approximately £1m and was built on ground we already owned.

A major factor in the accomplishment of this was that two legacies were left to the church. In 1991 we had moved out of our old building into a number of rented premises for our Sunday service.

Then, in 2009, the first legacy of £180,000 was left to the church by a lady.

This enabled us to get the go-ahead from the Elim management board and the bank to start on this building project that we had been exploring for some 20 years. The second legacy came in 2017 when a gentleman left us £70,000 in his will. This helped us to further reduce our loan.

These two legacies, together with the faithful giving of the congregation, special gift days, renting out car park spaces, catering for conferences, hard work, making tough decisions, good financial management and making full use of Gift Aid, enabled us in December 2021 to announce that our bank loan had been fully paid off seven years ahead of time.

Today, our church is passionate about making a positive impact on the local community and pursuing Jesus with their whole lives. We run a food-share scheme in partnership with local businesses and the services have an expectation that God is moving among his people and the wider community. The church is made up of people from a variety of backgrounds and places but they share the same experience that their lives have been transformed by the power of God’s love.

Pastor Steve Crosse,
Elim Christian Centre, Southampton

For 30 years, the back of our church had a major subsidence problem, but in spring 2021, we completed a long-planned renovation project and opened our brand-new facility. This was largely made possible because of a legacy left to the church. I’d arrived here as pastor in August 2017, knowing the church was looking to me not only to lead them but also to oversee this project.

Fred and Elsie Simpkins had passed away around 20 years previously and left a legacy to the church. Together with our own funds raised, that meant we had around £350,000 in the pot for the renovations and a substantial amount of this was thanks to this couple. Their legacy went a long way towards funding the project and we completed it only having to take out the tiniest loan.

With this budget, we totally demolished, redesigned and rebuilt the building at the back. Today we have a facility with two meeting rooms, a reception area, social area, kitchen, toilets, prayer room and office. It’s a substantial space which can be used for church activities and in outreach to the community too.

This project has had a major impact. It sent belief levels through the roof as people’s perceptions of what God can do were changed. They’d been waiting a long time for it to happen, and it was great to be able to complete a project that my predecessor Brian Wallis had begun and been believing in for many years. It has also allowed us to connect more closely with our community. We have put on events such as curry, comedy and Christianity nights, light parties and fun days, enabling us to share the good news of Jesus. We have also been able to rent out the building for polling stations, training days and kids' parties, which has provided much-needed income.

Through this, people are realising we are here for them. Building relationships with the local community has been the best thing about this. Without Fred and Elsie’s legacy, we wouldn’t have been able to complete our building and impact our area in the way we have.

Leaving a legacy to help your church or Missions is easy. To find out more, visit elim.org.uk/legacy

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

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