A Church of England rector handed out £10 notes at his church service, in the hope that parishioners would return the money several fold, to help with church repairs.

Rev Richard Steel, who is the rector at Kirkheaton Parish Church, near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, put his hand in his own pocket to help with a final push to raise £73,000 to help renovate the church.

His inspiration came from the Parable of the Talents in the Bible, where Jesus tells the story of a man who entrusts money to his servants, Richard wants to see some creative ideas for a return on his investment. In this parable - on the man's return he finds two of his servants had doubled the investment while the other, simply buried his money in the ground.

Rev Steel said: 'I have handed out around £450, it was mainly just the regular congregation, I don't think anybody came along just to get the ten pounds. 'I'm still not entirely sure what people will do with the money but I'm looking forward to hearing about all the great investments

'We need to raise the money for work we need to do on the church. Already £375,000 has been raised and a further £73,000 is needed and I thought this would be a good time to try it out.'

He added: 'Not everyone in the church has money to give so I thought I'd offer them some "seed capital" to invest, maybe in baking cakes for sale, buying car washing kit, material to make cards or a woolly hat to keep warm when offering a dog-walking service. 'I want all, from the oldest to the youngest to feel involved in this exciting project and hopefully do some good and have some fun while they are doing it. People have until Easter to put their idea into action and return with the profits.

'Jesus was encouraging people to fully use the gifts they had been given for God, not to waste them, but I promise that, even if they make a loss, I won't be doing that to anyone.'

The idea is part of the final fundraising drive for a project which will see the church developed to make it more flexible for the wider community as well as church use. This will include installing a new floor, new heating system, kitchen and toilets, office, as well as entailing a complete redecoration and replacing the pews with chairs.

The parable can be read at Matthew, Chapter 24:14-30.

http://www.theway.co.uk/news-9015-rector-hands-out-450-pounds-to-congregation


Contrast this level of humility and selflessless to that of our General Overseer's in Nigeria who globetrot the world in their own customised Private Jets and at home strut their stuff in Rolls Royce Phantoms and other high-spec state of the art cars all at the expense of the widows mite extracted with increasing impunity from their down trodden but long suffering church members.