By: Curtis Schofield, Spiritual Insight
In 1978 a missionary minded group invited Bishop Tom Bangura from Sierra Leone, West Africa, to Knoxville. We believe the Lord wanted us to expand our territory. A few weeks after Bishop Bangua returned home, he sent an invitation to Trinity United Methodist Church to send a team of young adults for a three week medical and witnessing mission project. As the pastor I read the letter to one of our young adult Sunday school classes. Within days several formed a prayer team to seek the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The leader of the group was Dr. Ken Jones, a young dentist. The team members were willing to pay their own travel expenses, but they needed funds for mobile equipment to help provide medical services. Therefore, the mission team asked the church finance committee to prayerfully consider adding a mission fund of $2,700 to the proposed church budget for the New Year.
When the mission request came to the church finance committee, which was made up of middleaged and older church members, for the first 15 minutes there was no support for the mission project. It was then that the trusted volunteer church treasure, "Silent Dale", lifted his voice.
Dale said, "I understand why there is no support for this mission request. For as long as I can remember we have had difficulty finding the funds each year to pay for the basic cost of operating this church. But before you vote, I want to know that the largest donors in the church are not in this room."
As they looked around at each other no one could believe what they had heard from “Silent Dale.”
Dale went on to say, “I know that when the end of the year comes that you are the leaders who find the funds to complete the year in the black. But even when you give those special gifts your family still does not give as much as the families of the young adults in the new Sunday school class.”
One of the trusted leaders spook, “Dale, I know these young adults. One of them is my daughter. Most of them have large monthly home payments. Some do not even have furniture in their living room. How can they be the largest donors in Trinity Church?”
Dale responded, "As you know, my wife Reba was asked by Pastor Curt two years ago to teach a new class of young adults. She has been teaching them what the Bible says about being good stewards of the Lord when it comes to sharing our incomes through the church."
That night the “old men” voted to put the young adult mission request in the church budget. For the next 10 years the Trinity Church sent members of the young adult Sunday school class for three weeks every January to offer Christ by word and deed.
Affirmation: “Jesus is the living water of life. In Him there is a river that never shall run dry.”
Curtis Schofield is a retired minister residing on Sand Mountain. Contact him at (423) 413-5653.