In a Kentucky church of about 3,000 regular attenders the pastor announced at a Sunday night service that a lady in Arizona died and left to the church $2,100,000. The church’s board had decided what to do with it, including putting $500,000 in escrow and using the annual proceeds to fund youth mission projects. I’m pro youth missions, but something about this bothered me. Why couldn’t we use that $500,000, or at least a substantial part of it, this year? What was God up to?
It wasn’t long before I had a conversation with the pastor in the pews after a Sunday night service. I presented two scenarios for his consideration, with the question of how God might respond to each.
- God intends you to put it into escrow, and you do that, funding youth missions with the proceeds each year. God is happy, and the money provides a steady provision for youth missions going forward.
- God intends you to put it into escrow, and you spend all of it this year and greatly expand the youth missions program. God is excited, and decides to provide more next year.
- God intends you to spend it all this year, and you bank it instead. God’s not as happy, and considers other options for the next bulk funding.
- God intends you to spend it all this year, and you do. God is happy that he can trust you to put his resources to work as quickly as possible. He immediately makes plans to provide for the coming years.
I then posed the question “Do you really want Christ to come back and find all that money in escrow? If you spend it all this year, God can always knock off another little old lady to fund youth missions next year.”
A couple months later it was announced that the pastors and elders decided to use the full amount in the first year. By the next year the church had grown to about 5,000 regular attenders, and the giving by the congregation covered the new higher spending level for youth missions.
At the time, I was teaching a Sunday school class of little old ladies, and they all responded to my account of this with “Well, He’s going to have to get some other little old lady, because I don’t have it!” I agreed, and they agreed to ask God to provide a source for the increased funding of the youth missions projects.
In discussing this principle with other pastors and church leaders the phrase that sticks is “God can always knock off another little old lady.” It’s become an easy-to-remember way to express the truth that God can always provide the funding for His work.
To anyone who objects to the phrase “little old ladies,” I think that God has a special place for them, and an essay on why I think that it is special because Deuteronomy was written directly to little old ladies is coming soon.