Hurst pastor gives away dollar bills
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___HURST--Pastor Jeff Burnett wanted to give his congregation an experience to remember. He accomplished that when he asked everyone to take a dollar bill out of the offering plate.
___"It shocked them when they could take money out of the offering plate. They had never been asked to do that before," Burnett said.
___For some, even more troubling was that they were given little instruction on what to do with it.
___"We had them take that dollar and find a way to multiply and then return it. The only instruction we gave was that they use prayer and creativity," Burnett said.
___The hands-on exercise grew out of an awareness that some people find themselves in financial straits, even in a largely affluent community, Burnett said.
___"We had come into some situations through ministry opportunities that had caused us to realize there are poor among us," Burnett said. "We had five organizations that work with the poor that we already had relationships with. We wanted to give our people an opportunity to have that experience more directly."
___Members of the church used their money in a variety of ways. Some pooled their money to secure a garage sale permit and gave the proceeds of the sale to the church. Others used the money to buy ingredients to make cookies, muffins or lemonade and sold them to friends and neighbors.
___One family pooled its money, bought candy bars on sale, sold them for $1 each, and then went back and bought more candy. Repeatedly employing the tactic help them raise $300.
___So far the church's $1,000 investment has been multiplied about 25-fold, Burnett said, "but there are still some things working out there."
___Church members could designate the returns on their investments to accumulate to the church's benevolence fund, Northeast Emergency Distribution, Cornerstone Assistance Network, Texas Baptist Men or Samaritan's Purse.
___His prayer is that the exercise will cause the plight of those less fortunate to remain on the hearts of the congregation.
___"They won't remember my sermon, I can promise you that," he said. "But this, it'll be something they remember. It will continue to cultivate within all of us that now that we've been blessed ... we need to be blessings."
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