Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Here’s a $100 bill.
Take it, understanding that this is not your money – it is God’s money. You are being entrusted to invest the money in a way that will extend God’s kingdom. It’s between you and God, so you need to be asking Him where He wants you to invest it. Be ready to report back all that God has done in 90 days.
So Rebecca Swinson did.
She was one of 13 individuals or households who took up that challenge, which leaders gave to the congregation at Crawfordsville Community Church last June.
Swinson, who is recently widowed and in her early 60s, said she had just moved to Mountain Shadows trailer park when the challenge was issued.
“I was trying to figure out how to use this where I’m living as a mission field,” she said. She thought about buying some religious booklets to hand out to her neighbors, “but I’ve seen booklets come through my door and a lot of times they’re not looked at, they’re kind of ignored,” Swinson said.
She finally settled on the idea of establishing a video lending library for Mountain Shadows.
“I got some videos instead of literature,” she said. “They really strengthened some people’s faith. Most people I took (the videos) to were very accepting. They gave me a review of what they thought.”
Swinson said she ended up with about 20 DVDs and videos.
The experiment was, as church leadership team member Sharon Pryor put it, a “life-changing” three months for the congregation.
Pryor said she and Esther Bennett, another leadership team member, saw reports on TV news and an Oprah show about a similar experiment conducted at a Southern California church.
“We thought if the world is picking up on this concept from Christians, maybe we should look at it,” she said.
The experiment, she noted, is based on the parable that Jesus told, in the Bible, of a king who passed talents (a Jewish measure of money) out to his servants and told them to return it after he got back from traveling to another country. Those who made their money grow were rewarded. Those who did nothing lost theirs.
So Pryor and Bennett presented $100 to 13 families or individuals in the Crawfordsville church.
“We said we know how God works,” Pryor said. She said the “Kingdom Assignment” followed three months of “teaching on principles that God lays out on finances.”
She said all but a couple of the participants were able to make something happen with the money.
“A couple of them were unable to come up with anything before the deadline, so they returned the money,” Pryor said. But the returns were bountiful from others, she said. People came up with a wide variety of ideas, ranging from putting on a fishing derby for kids, as Scott and Sandi Hegge did (they also bought some videos on how to maintain a healthy marriage), to creating a church Web site (Tina Tressel and Carol Hagle), to offering reduced-price haircuts to seniors on Mondays (Debra and Rich Wilson). One participant, Michael Sele, invested in an effort to spread the “Kingdom Assignment” idea to other congregations.
Ron and Linda Andrews teamed up with George and Kristen Offutt to create a “Caring Corner” ministry in the church to provide outreach to needy people in the community. They are stocking a bedroom in the parsonage with food and household goods that they are collecting.
“They’re just watching for ways to help people in areas where they have a practical need,” Pryor said. “We didn’t have any outreach like that before.”
“(The Kingdom Assignment) provided specific ministries for people who didn’t have specific ministries in our church,” she said.
Joel Mather said he wasn’t really surprised when he got called up to “volunteer” for the assignment.
“They call my name for everything,” he said.
Mather, who runs the church sound system with his fiancé, Amanda Comer, teamed up with her and some friends outside the congregation to put on a computer workshop for seniors and others who did not feel confident with the machines.
“Today, computers are used for everything,” said Mather, 21, a student at Linn-Benton Community College who plans to study business administration at Portland State University. Comer is graduating from Oregon State University with a degree in mechanical engineering. “Especially older people, their biggest fear is to use a computer. They’re afraid to push the button. They’re afraid something bad’s going to happen to the computer.
“My aunt had a new computer,” he said. “She’d used a computer forever, but she didn’t know the shortcuts.”
Mather passed out a checklist to church members on things they’d like to learn about computers then recruited some help from a friend, Robert Rice, and his brother, Jeff Rice. They collected several computers and held the class in the church sanctuary. The seminar featured a lot of information for beginners, as well as some tips for more advanced users.
“There was a lot of one-on-one, hands-on,” he said. “It was really helpful.”
Ron Blackwell, a local rancher, and his wife Beth, decided to use their $100 to provide supplies for needy schoolchildren in the district. Beth Blackwell is a cook at the local Head Start school.
“I wasn’t too sure about it, to begin with,” said Blackwell, 50. He said he and his wife mulled over several possibilities before settling on Beth’s idea of providing the school supplies.
“She sees a lot of low-income families,” he said. “A lot of needs. These kids wouldn’t have those school supplies if something like this didn’t happen.”
Beth Blackwell collected donations from others to add to the money the couple was putting into the seed fund.
Her husband said they were able to collect enough to fill a “big” storage unit and to provide supplies to Holley, Crawfordsville and Foster grade schools as well as Head Start. He said school officials were amazed. His wife wrote a “big, long letter explaining what it was all about,” he said.
“They were really glad to see the Crawfordsville Church and community help out like that,” said Blackwell, who has attended the church for 35 years.
“It was a really good feeling when we took them out to the different schools. Any time somebody gives somebody else something they need and appreciate, it makes you feel good to help somebody out.
“I just suspect it opens your heart up.”
Pryor said the assignment has produced noticeable effects in the congregation.
“It changed our church,” she said. “I think it changed the way a lot of them look at God’s money, their money.
“In Christianity, you look for authenticity through fruit-bearing. We saw a lot of fruit.”