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I live down in Corpus Christi, Texas, and I'm part of the production ministry at Bay Area Fellowship. We have been extremely blessed by spontanious giving to our building campaign as we are in the process of opening up a 13 million dollar church during this holiday season. These are some of the accounts of the event that have been happening since the beginning of the year. It all starts with a book called "The Blessed Life" by Robert Morris, a Pastor up in Southlake, Texas. I know it may be alot to read but please just take the time and just be in awe of the power of giving.....

Skip Mozisek - Media Pastor
Well, Skip was blessed last night in a way we will never forget! About 3 weeks ago he decided to give his truck away after being obedient to God's voice. He was so excited to do it because the prompting on his heart was so strong to give. Only two days passed and he was blessed by some great friends of ours with a car. It was a terrific car but Skip could literally not fit inside with his hip problem. We felt so blessed anyway to have received such a gift and that same day we learned of another family in need of a car. We were able to then give that car to them with the blessings of our great friends. Skip and I have been sharing my car for the past few weeks and have adjusted fine. I usually take him to work and he often finds rides home. We have not in any way been inconvenienced. I knew God had already been blessing us in so many ways. We've been blessed with getting to know new neighbors, creativity has been flowing, and the stories that have been shared with us. Now firsthand God has shown us that we can't out give our Amazing Lord! Last night some of our friends came by and surprised Skip with a vehicle that neither he nor I would ever dream of owning (Escalade Pickup Truck). We don't even feel worthy of such a gift but the giver said he was only being obedient to God's voice too. We know God will bless them in so many ways because their heart is true. How Great Is Our God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you remember about 3 months ago we went through the Blessing Period? During that time I gave my truck to my brother and I was given a truck by a friend. You can read about it here. Well, yesterday the coolest thing happened. It started with me doing something I don't ever do and that's lock my keys in the car. For a couple of hours I tried everything to get in short of really messing up a beautiful vehicle. I called On-Star to see if they could do it, like you hear on the commercials, and get this; if you are not signed up (I'm not yet) you have to be inside the truck to send them the signal. Dead end. Roadside Assistance was 2 hours and big money. So I finally swallowed my pride and called a Locksmith. He came and in .02 seconds unlocked my door. He only took cash and of course I didn't have enough on me so he rode with me to the Pulse machine. During the ride I was sharing with him about the Blessing of my truck he was in and he started freaking out.. Yesterday his car broke down and he was pushing it down the street when a guy finally stopped and towed him home and then gave him a ride to get the part (Gas) he needed. he went to tip the guy and the guy refused saying he just wanted to help people since he was given his van by someone at his Church (BAF)! This was the guy on that famous first Wednesday that received the van from Bryan! Can you believe it? It all came full circle, so I was expecting him to not charge me because of the connections and powerful stories; wrong, 40 bucks for a half second of work. What happened to paying it forward? I'm just kidding I didn't mind paying it. I was just thrilled that one of BAF's faithful was out being like Jesus in our community. Awesome!

Paula, a traveling Church Sketch artist.....

Then Pastor Bil (only one ‘L’. These heads of ministry appear to all be ‘Surfer Dudes’!) steps up to the mike. It’s sermon time and the lights come up sufficiently to complete my sketch while I’m listening (Oh, and for you sketchers out there who were asking about feeling too conspicuous about sketching during church, it came to my mind that in most evangelical churches, you see folks whipping out note books to take sermon notes. So I would think that a small sketchbook would blend in). The thrust of his sermon is ‘just obey God’. If you think/believe He (God) wants you to do a specific something, do it. The worst you can be accused of is trying too hard to please Him, he said. He then takes the rest of the time to tell the story of some recent ‘doing what God said to do” events in his life. He said a few Sundays ago at the end of a service, he felt God was telling him to go clean his car out–now. ”Huh?”, he thought, but he went out to the parking lot to do it. He then felt he was supposed to give his car away to someone who was there, presently, at the service. I’ll speed this story up by saying that he did, indeed, give his car to a particular fellow soon after cleaning it up. Now this fellow had a job that took him away from his family a lot–too much–, and the only reason he wasn’t giving up his job was because the only vehicle the family had was the company car. Well, he then concluded that he could now quit the job that took him away from his family as he now had the pastor’s car (there’s more on how he found another job but I’ll skip that). But what about Pastor Bil and his family? Now THEY didn’t have a vehicle. But it seems God was weaving his web, telling ANOTHER guy (an old friend of Bil’s who he hadn’t seen in a good while) to give Bil his souped-up van. More neat circumstances on how that came about. So the van is now Bil’s (his kids call it ”the miracle van”). Oh, and there’re more “God told me to do this” stories from the previous weeks. Big ones. BAF is breaking ground on a new church facility…a $5,000,000 $13,000,000 building (did I put enough zeros? FIVE THIRTEEN MILLion). BIG church. So, God tells someone who has a lot of money to give them $2 milion. And he does. Pastor Bil also recounts some other people who felt led to give large amounts–$50,000…$100,000. Then he mentions this homeless guy who gave $23 dollars. It made Bil cry as this was all the money the guy had. Also, Pastor Bil said he believes God wants them to pay cash for the new building.
The second thing was that during the offering, Pastor Bil asked anyone to stand who was in need of a job. A handfull of people stood. I thought about standing (hey, I’m a freelancer, ALWAYS in need of ‘a job’! But…nah.). When people are asked to stand like that, usually they are prayed for, or something along those lines. In this case, Bil said, “Would people who own businesses–or are in the business of hiring– go over and give a job to these people?” He said, rather than us praying for them, give them a job. That’s what community is about. And he exhorted the congrants to give them money/cash, that they’re in need. Emphasize: trust God with your wealth; give to others in need from what you have to give. That makes sense.

Smaller things like this have been happening left and right since the beginning of the year. There's a bigger story to all of this but It's hard to recall all of the accounts.