This year on Mothers' Day, my church decided to do something a little different and even a little risky. My pastor felt that God wanted him to talk on the subject of generosity, giving, and the big eye roller: MONEY!! Now I know what your thinking, why the heck would a church talk about money on one of the biggest days of the year. I mean this was the weekend when a lot of people brought loved ones for the first time and for some people, it was the very first time they stepped foot in a church. Well, needless to say, pastor Dave spent the first 20 minutes of the teaching ticking people off. He talked about the importance of giving, and generosity and he talked about how most of us are already rich even though we fail to notice it. Towards the end of the teaching he announced that everyone was going to parcipate in an offering (and he meant EVERYONE). He called the ushers to the front and they passed the plate. Now here is where the twist comes in. Rather than have everyone put something in the plate, he had each person take an envelope from the plate. Church by the glades did what was called a "Reverse Offering". In each envelope, there were different amounts of cash. Some envelopes had 5's, some had 10's, there were 20's, 50's, 100's and there were even a few envelopes that contained 1000 dollars in cash. After 20 minutes of ticking people off, they gave out money to the congregation (40,000 dollars to be exact). Now why would they do this you ask. Well, the purpose of the Reverse offering was to jump start the act of generosity in people's lives so that they can experience the joy and blessing God brings to our lives when we give. Now there were a few rules each person was asked to follow regarding the envelopes. They were the following:
- You must not open the envelope until you leave church grounds (in your car, at home, etc. )
- You cannot tell anyone about the Reverse Offering or that Church is giving away money.
- You MUST use the money to bless someone else's life. (e.g. pay someone's rent who can't, or buy someone groceries, etc.)
- You cannot keep the money.
- You must tell us what you did with the money!
- You can only come to one service.
The church created a website called mygobigstory.com where people can post what they did with the money. The stories I have read have been absolutley amazing and I am so proud of what CBG has done. Alot of lives have been touched due to this and after 2 weeks since mothers' day, people are still posting stories. Check them out here. You can also hear the teaching here.
1 comments:
Awesomeness
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