Dear Friends,

 

About 20 years ago, I tried something a little out of the ordinary. I had heard of churches that wanted to put the "Parable of the Talents" to the test. If you remember that parable, one faithful servant was given 5 "Talents" which he invested and indeed doubled. A second servant was given two "talents" which he invested and doubled. A third servant was given one "talent" which he buried in the ground because he was so afraid of his master that he didn't want to risk losing the one talent entrusted to his care.

 

Our church was in the middle of a building campaign and we tried everything we could think of to raise funds to support the project. One of our projects was the most elaborate bazaar you have ever seen. I challenged every person who attended our church to support this project. I offered $10 (or 10 "Talents") from our church budget to anyone who would use that money to try to create something to increase their investment. People LOVED my idea. The only person who was not crazy about my idea was the person who did our audit at the end of the year. It was really hard to track down what happened to every $10 bill I handed out.

 

One man made a baby crib on rockers from his $10. Several people made clothes. One woman made a quilt. Many created hand made craft items. I painted an old bed frame that we would have probably thrown away. Imagine my surprise when a bidding war broke out for that old bed frame. There is no telling how much money was raised from "Talent" project. Our best estimate is that we cleared several thousand dollars.        

 

I think what made me most excited about that project was how simple it was. Take $10 and do the most you can with it. Our oldest and youngest members were all involved and invested.

 

In the buildup to Annual Conference we asked if every member of every church could contribute $10 and perform 10 hours of service to whatever ministry they chose. We know that so far we have collected $188,000.00 across the Holston Conference for local missions. That money is being channeled back into our districts. Feel free to continue giving to our "Bring it Home Holston" campaign.

 

Perhaps even more important, we are wanting to hear stories about people who have given 10 hours of service to their local communities. What if every member of your church dedicated themselves to local missions? Could your church make an impact on your local community if that many people were committing themselves to service.

 

Let's make sure we don't bury the "Talents" we have within the walls of our churches. I would LOVE to hear your stories of what people in your church have done to honor the challenge of giving $10 a person and 10 hours of service.

 

God bless,

 

Walter