Share Value can be seen in many areas and in many
places. When you give you definitely receive as this story will show.
A long time ago I meet an amazing person. He was a
pastor. His church had so many functions for helping about everyone. They had a
soup kitchen. They were affiliated with a homeless shelter. They had a
drug rehab center. They offered free family counseling. Low cost to free day
care programs. They had a program where they got successful business people to
volunteer and give advice to business in the low income surrounding
neighborhoods. The church raised money to help people with their rent and for
utilities and food. I could go on and on.
I once asked him, how he was able to pay his own
churches cost if he was getting people to donate to all these other charities?
Seriously, I thought that people will only give so much charity and if the
pastor collected for s homeless shelter, then that money otherwise would have
gone to the church.
What he told me was very surprising. When he first
started as a pastor in that church it didn't have any of these community
programs. He tried to get his parishes to donate money and he got very little
money. People always had an excuse not to give away their money to the church.
He also only saw the church's cost and needs. One day, he saw some homeless
people and he saw the real poverty and his heart went out to them. He decided
to open a soup kitchen in the church and a homeless shelter. He went to his
parishes to ask to donate for this cause. At first people were reluctant to
give. So he brought the homeless into the church. The pastor started to change
hearts and people started to give. Slowly the pastor's heart changed and he
started to see the communities needs and he forgot all about his churches
needs. The surrounding community became his community and he became every one's
pastor. Everyone went to him for help and to help. The community was learning
how to give and care for others.
Now the amazing part, the pastor forgot all about
asking for money to cover the church's needs. He didn't have to ask. The
community when they learned how to care and to give charity, they just gave to
the church without being asked.
You see, when the pastor started to collect for
others, his own Church's needs were taken care of.
By Mauro Libi
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