By God’s grace, our GCR Church gave $6,151,300 last Sunday in cash, checks, and pledges to fund our congregational emphasis on transformation and mission – that’s more than two-million-dollars above our goal! The money and pledge cards continue trickling in this week and I’m assuming by the time you’re reading this letter the total might be closer to $6.2-million!

Praise God for his faithfulness and gracious provision! The supreme generosity of our church family means all the Breakthrough initiatives are fully funded. Thank you so much for your deep faith in our Lord, your confidence in our vision, and your commitments to the mission at Golf Course Road.

Allow me to remind all of us that when we give our money to the Lord, when we invest our dollars and dimes in the Kingdom of God, it’s not gone. The tray goes down the pew and your check is in the tray and the tray disappears into a counting room and your check gets deposited with a bank. But it’s not gone.

It’s like a pinball machine. Whatever you give works like a pinball machine.

You know, you’re playing pinball and that little silver ball is moving right down the middle, headed for the bottom, and it looks like it’s lost. The ball is gone. The game goes dark. It’s over.

But then you hit the flipper. That blessed flipper! And the ball pops up and now it’s bouncing and pinging all over the place. It touches off an exciting set of strobe lights over there. It bangs into a bunch of noisemakers over here. It gets a bonus ball and some extra points up there. That ball is just going and going and bouncing and beeping and buzzing and there’s excitement and electricity and energy…!

Almost out of nowhere! How cool!

Because of Breakthrough, some of our folks at GCR put really large sums of money into the plate on Sunday. Because of Breakthrough, some of our people put ten dollars into the plate when they haven’t given money to church in years. Or never.

Your money’s not gone. You’re throwing it into God’s pinball machine and it’s about to come into contact with that flipper. Now you just watch what God’s going to do with it!

Everything you do for God makes a difference. It bounces and pings all over eternity.

Even one cup of cold water given in the name of Jesus makes a lot of noise in heaven.

Peace,

Allan