Church by the Glades designates entire weekly offerings to Haiti relief

Jan 21, 2010
By BARBARA DENMAN
Florida Baptist Convention

Related Coverage:

Hope for Haiti

CORAL SPRINGS (FBC)- "Radical, if not reckless” is how Pastor David Hughes described his church’s response to Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake of Jan. 12.

Other pastors reportedly were considering giving 10 or 20 percent of the offering receipts collected during the week of Jan. 17. But the pastor of Coral Spring’s Church by the Glades congregation said he could not find a peace with that percentage amount. So he continued to pray.

Hughes asked his South Florida congregation to designate 100 percent of the week’s offering receipts to the Haiti earthquake relief.

“We have members who are of Haitian heritage and with our close proximity in South Florida to Haiti, we wanted to demonstrate radical, if not reckless generosity,” Hughes said.

“Our people stepped up to the challenge,” Hughes reported. By Wednesday, Jan. 20, the congregation had given $158,000 including $35,000 in cash during the church’s seven weekend worship services--nearly double the church’s weekly offering receipts.

Because the contemporary church does not take offerings in their services, Hughes reported they pulled out baskets, plates and bowls, whatever they could find, to hold the money.

With nearly 5,000 attending weekly worship, Hughes noted “we do not have a big, fat reserve. We work on a two-and-a-half week margin,” with budget receipts and expenditures. The congregation gives nearly nine percent of their receipts to the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ strategy to fund worldwide mission causes.

“But something of this scope and humanitarian need challenged us to go beyond what we can afford,” he said.

The majority of the money will be designated to the Florida Baptist Convention’s earthquake relief fund, he said, because “we have this huge partnership with the Convention in Haiti and know the money will go to meet great needs.”

Hughes said he hopes his church’s unselfish attitude toward this disaster in Haiti will strike a chord with other congregations and become “contagious, if not viral.”

Gifts can be sent to the Florida Baptist Convention at 1230 Hendricks Ave., Jacksonville, Fl 32207, designated Haiti Earthquake Relief. Contributions by credit card can be made through the Convention’s website: www.flbaptist.org.

Updates on the Convention’s response efforts in Haiti will be posted on the website: www.flbaptist.org.

Related Coverage:

Hope for Haiti

Email this Article Print this page

Login ID:
Password:	Forgot password?