One of the pieces of feedback we have consistently received since launching Foundationstones Resources two years ago is “your resources are too cheap!” In recent months we have been really challenged to increase the prices of the materials and for a few reasons have decided that there is such a thing as ‘too cheap’ materials. Here’s a few reasons why:
Children are a treasure
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also – Matthew 6 v 21
“Christians aren’t supposed to like money”, this was the challenge I (Jess) came up against in discussions at a recent entrepreneur’s event. How can you run a Christian business and make enough to live on, is it unbiblical or even sinful to actively seek income? It was as we dug deeper into the topic of money in the Bible that this verse from Matthew 6 began to speak to me.
Over the years I have read many articles calling for the prioritising of children’s ministry in church, heard children’s ministers bemoaning a lack of support and encouragement from their leadership teams. My own experience when I first began as a children’s minister was one of scraping together what resources I could, often spending my own minimal salary on craft materials with no sign of a budget for ministry. Now I am lucky to be employed by a church for whom children’s ministry is a priority, resources aren’t unlimited, but I can request a significant budget each year to cover our Sunday teaching sessions, family outreach events and holiday clubs. During the pandemic I spent significantly more money than in previous years making up packs of materials to send out to families, the spending was justified because families are treasured in our church! While we want our materials to be affordable, we also want them to be a tool that churches can invest in. We want churches to recognise that our children are a treasure and that budgeting for them should be a priority not an afterthought. We don’t want Foundationstones resources to break the bank, but we do want churches to be aware that they are investing in teaching materials. Hopefully the price increase will actually help children’s ministers to raise the profile of what they are doing in their own churches.
Not all budgets are the same
1 Timothy 6 v 17-19 says : “Command those who are rich with things of this world not to be proud. Tell them to hope in God, not in their uncertain riches. God richly gives us everything to enjoy. Tell the rich people to do good, to be rich in doing good deeds, to be generous and ready to share. By doing that, they will be saving a treasure for themselves as a strong foundation for the future. Then they will be able to have the life that is true life. “
We recognise that churches come in all different shapes and sizes, with different budgets. Keeping all our prices as low as possible meant that everybody could afford them. Raising them won’t be a problem for churches with a larger budget but will give us the flexibility to offer greater discounts to smaller churches or those struggling financially.
So alongside our price increase we’re inviting churches who have limited budgets or small numbers of children attending to get in touch and receive a discount code worth up to 25% off our materials. Through the generosity of those who can afford to pay more we will be able to share our resources with those who can’t!
More to come
One of our favourite Bible verses is Isaiah 50 v 4 : “The Lord God gave me the ability to teach so that I know what to say to make the weak strong. Every morning he wakes me. He teaches me to listen like a student.” We love the promise that God can speak to us and equip us to be teachers, most importantly we love the promise that God will help wake us up in the morning! Our big vision at Foundationstones Resources is to create syllabus materials that cover the whole of the Bible – but that is a long term project, and at the moment we are a very small team! We hope that our slight price increase will enable us to invest back into the creation of new materials to equip churches and families as we squeeze creating new materials into the gaps in our days.
So… how much?
You’ll notice a shift in the prices on our website in the last week of August, our syllabus series will increase in price but we’re also going to include our ‘Faith at Home’ sheets with each series when you order it, rather than selling these separately. Equipping families is part of our vision, so we think it is important to provide these materials automatically alongside syllabus.
We’re still going to be one of the most affordably priced resources on the market, with regular materials working out at around £5 a month. You will be able to purchase a whole year’s worth of curriculum for under £100 and those who ask for financial support will be able to access discounts of up to 25%.
We’ll be praying for you all as we head into a new school year and watch this space for lots of new exciting materials coming soon.
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