1,000 churches help people beat debt

Christians Against Poverty have reached a new milestone with the 1,000th church set to take part in their debt-busting money course.

CAP Money was launched three years ago to teach people the basics of budgeting.

The course is run through local churches which are trained up so that they can run it on their premises and pass the wisdom on to their local communities.

Crucially, this includes weening people off the plastic and onto cash, helping them to see just how much they are spending each week and keeping them out of the devastating debt spiral.

Now the 1,000th church is set to learn these life-saving skills at a packed-out training session in London this weekend.

“In CAP Money's short history, something like 20,000 people – and that's a low estimate - have been on this free course and overhauled their personal finances,” said CAP's Chief Executive Matt Barlow.

“That's 20,000 people who now know how to prioritise their spending; how to budget; save and how to avoid getting into debt. It sounds simple but if no one's ever taught you, it's something you need to learn.”

Churches of all denominations have run the course over the last three years as they seek to support people left vulnerable by the economic downturn.

The 1,000th church to get involved is St John's Church in Greenside, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Margaret Butler is one of the members of the congregation travelling to London for the training day.

She said she was increasingly aware of the local need for people to gain better advice about managing their money and the congregation wanted to learn how to help their community weather the economic downturn.

“We are in the process of restoring the church hall as a community hall and I saw something about CAP Money and thought, 'this is wonderful! We need to get this underway'," she said.

“Another lady in our church also heard about it through a meeting she went to in Newcastle and so when we spoke to each other we felt God was in this. We aim to have our first course in the new year.”