The Revolution at FBC

2010-05-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

HOW YOU SHARED YOUR BLESSING

Revolution #25

2009-06-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

I am a firm and faithful believer that God uses me daily by placing me in a specific place, time, and circumstance to assist others in a variety of ways. I have learned and surrendered to the understanding and assurance of God's Promise and Will, that though when I act upon someone else's need greater than mine might put me in desire straits for a period of time; God will be there to lift me back up and bless me back two fold.

Because of the purpose and instructions provided from the FBC Bless Back offering, I found it more difficult to be lead to that specific place, time, and circumstance of assisting someone. And though mine and church's money is ALL God's, I felt this money from the church needed to be a more "special" blessing. In addition, I was one of the fortunate individuals to receive two envelopes.

At work one afternoon, I received an email regarding our annual 2009 School Supply program. This SRE program was created in order to provide school supplies for needy children in the Akron area. School supply-backpack kits donations are made to a variety of charitable non-profit organizations such as Salvation Army, Central Baptist Mission Center, and Harvest Home @ Haven of Rest. Because of my affiliation with FBC and our Outreach Ministry, the Harvest Home a division of Haven of Rest really burden my heart. Upon further research I discovered, Haven of Rest Ministries opened Harvest Home in 1979 in response to the growing need for an emergency shelter for women and children in crisis situations. While staying at Harvest Home, all receive the security in the knowledge that they are loved and important to God. Because many of its residents are single mothers with young children, many kids struggle to receive the needed supplies required to receiving a good education. So, I took my money and tripled the amount and donated it towards this worthy program. In addition, we were recently told that the owner of SRE will match our donation. (All ready a blessing!). So, God's money has been blessed over six times and now a larger number of children will receive a good education, regardless of their financial situation.

Moral of the my story: Pray to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not depend on your own understanding. Seek HIS will in all you do and He will show you which path to take". Proverbs 3:5-6.

Thank you Pastor Tim and FBC for this blessed opportunity to make a difference in someone's life.

Shannon More

Revolution# 24

2009-06-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

We prayed for God to show us how to use this money that had been given to us and we both felt that it should be used to be a blessing for someone in ourcommunity. As some of you know our neighbor has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She had surgery but they were not able to remove thetumor, so she will be under going radiation and chemo in hopes to shrink it.Her husband has a very long commute to work and usually doesn't come home until the weekend. We noticed that he's been traveling back and forth a lot more now so we decided that we would help them out with gas. We added some money and purchased a gift card for gas and gave them a card letting them know that our church was praying for them and that we care about them.

Mark, Julie & family

Revolution #23

2009-06-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I was out of town and missed the opportunity for the bless back.
My mother Sheryl Knox asked me to post hers, as she does not have a computer. She chose to bless a short term neighbor who is a single mother with 1 daughter and a set of twin boys...all teens! This women moved in as a tenant to rent the home that just sold next to my parents with her boyfriend. Shortly after, her boyfriend left her and the landlords, friend of his ordered her to get out. She had not even been there 30 days and had no where to go. The landlords threatened her, because they knew she feared them. Her children even expressed fear for their lives. She decided she would move to Norton and her parents would help her find a place to live. My mom tried to take over dinner for the kids while she worked and tried to move her things into storage. Everytime she refused. Finally the day before she left, my mom was able to write her a note about the reason she had picked her for the bless back and expressed the love that God had for her. (the money my mom had doubled was in the note) When she read it she teared up and cried. She said she wanted to find a church to go back to when she got settled into her new home.
Shannon Arbogast

Revolution #22

2009-06-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

Given such a large amount of money, I really wanted to make a big impact in someone's life. I prayed about it for weeks but still I was clueless. Then the youth group started talking about the upcoming weeks; how camp was closing in and money was tight in a lot of families. Then an idea arose that the blessing money could be used to send teenagers to camp. Although I was not able to attend camp this year, I wanted someone to receive that "camp high" and maybe even make a lifelong decision for Christ. Camp was where I rededicated myself and got back in touch with God and I knew the money could be more than just a blessing-it could be an everlasting life in Heaven for a teenager. With the help of others including Laura, Sandy and Duane Whittaker, Chase Ross, Sam Vickroy, and Megan, Ethan and Lenny Howes, enough money was raised for three or four kids to go to camp. I was excited to see how camp affected the lives of the teens when they came back, and after seeing the camp video at church the following Sunday and hearing a teen say she got saved, I knew God had answered my prayer and affected someone beyond my expectations. Of course, I never underestimated God; I knew he could do it :)
Jim Efferson

Revolution #21

2009-06-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

I gave my $5.00 to the lady who hangs out at Circle K to buy a Sub at Subway.
Summer Workman

Revolution #20

2009-06-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

Pastor Tim,
We used our money for a gift card for a single mom working 2 jobs with a car that doesn't work half the time and leaking roof on their home.
The Waddell's

Revolution #19

2009-06-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

We have been praying as to what to do with the money we received from the Revolution series and the Give Back Offering. There were several ideas coming and going and nothing really felt right until we heard about this. We received a prayer request from Michele Ralston; her best friend's brother had put a slide from an old swing on the swimming pool for the kids to enjoy. After installing the slide he tried it out, going head first he hit the bottom of the pool, snapping his neck and breaking two vertebrae. He never recovered from this freak accident and passed away shortly thereafter. Gail asked Michelle if there was a benevolent fund established, or if the family was in need of anything. Michele had inquired about needs for the family and informed them that members of her church (FBC) wanted to help. They were overwhelmed to the fact that someone they didn't even know was willing to help in their time of need. Michele had also previously been witnessing to her about FBC and how much they loved the Church and how involved we are in the community and bringing people to know Jesus Christ. We knew right then that this is where the money needed to go, and this family had no savings and is struggling to pay the funeral bill. We took this to our Life Group, with the $45 dollars we received and added money from us and Life Group we will be sending them $100 to help with funeral expense or what ever they wish.

Thank You FBC for this opportunity to express Gods Love to total strangers.

TIM, GAIL, KYLEIGH, KELSEY, KERRIE

Revolution #18

2009-06-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Vicki and I struggled with what God wanted us to do with our money. God put a specific family on both of our hearts separately without either of us knowing what the other was thinking. We decided to sponsor this family's teenager to go to youth camp, because money is very tight for them and they could not otherwise afford the cost. And here is the awesome part. This teenager accepted Christ at camp this week!

Pastor Tim and Vicki

Revolution #17

2009-06-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

As many have already experienced, the generous action of giving God's moneyaway can be difficult or, for some, very easy. Our family found it to bemore on the difficult side, rather then what we had expected it would. How to use the money wasn't the problem, where to use it seemed to be the issue. There are so many different ways in which we would have liked to make an impact with such a precious opportunity. So anyways, hears our story of what we did after a lot of prayer.There is an older woman that works at the gas station where I fuel up everynight that has always been very nice and generous. This woman would on occasion bake some kind of bread or cookies or something of that nature and would bring them in to give out to the regulars that would come through. So after talking to her a little each night, and eating some awesome bread, I learned that she was a breast cancer survivor (x2) and she then proceeded totell me about how she used to bake all the time and bring things into sharewhen she worked there before. Before? Huh? Here to find out she had to quitwork because of the cancer a few years back, which was fine because herhusband was able to support them. Now that she is cancer free she had toreturn to work because her husband was put on disability. So the long and short of it is, we as a family decided to bless someone who is blessing others. We gave her the money with a little note thanking her for what she does. We figured she could use the money for ingredients or whatever she needed.

Lee, Shannon, and kids.

Revolution #16

2009-06-18T04:12:00.000-07:00

Becky and I prayed for a couple weeks as to what we would do with our money. We wanted it to be used to be a blessing. When Tim More told us that they were going to use their money to help the family of the man who died from a freak accident in a swimming pool, I asked him why. After he told me about the circumstances it really burdened our hearts as to what we were to do with our money. We pray that by our doing so, the Lord will bless that family. we added some of our own money because the Lord has blessed us so much.

Jim & Becky Pittman

Revolution #15

2009-06-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Matt & I have been helping with the 6-8th grade Sunday school class. Shelly Berringer’s suggestion to her students pulling their $ and sending it to Rapha House, an organization who saves children from human trafficking, sounded like a fantastic use of the funds. We decided to join in. After making that decision, my best friend’s brother was killed in a freak accident. One of our church members, Gail More, asked me if the family was in need. Turns out they were in that they had no savings and were just struggling to pay the funeral bill. How to choose? Rapha House happened to be the correct tax code and I was going to be able to get the $ matched by Key bank. I couldn’t pass that up. What I decided to do was continue with that original plan and donate the money given to our family ($30) to Rapha House. With the class and Key’s match this made the total contribution $150. Then because of Gail’s suggestion, I took up a collection at work for my best friend’s brother’s family to help with the funeral expenses. We had been at a loss for what to do for our co-worker because there was no formal service to send flowers to or in lieu of charity mentioned in the obituary. If it was not for the acts of FBC and the Revolution series, my friend’s family would not have $168 dollars and a touched heart of the act of strangers.
Thank you so much for the blessing.
Matt, Michele, Jake, Zach and Matthew Jr.

Revolution #14

2009-06-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

I was not in attendance the first week of this series but had listened to it online and was very moved to participate. I took the amount I would have given that week and pulled together with some of my co-workers and collected money for a woman we work with. She is a single mom of two who had her son two months early because of complications. They are doing great.

Although God had blessed her with a precious gift of a son I feel he was calling for more blessings in her life.

K.Slone

Revolution #13

2009-06-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

After a lengthy discussion and so many worthy causes out there, we decided to pool our money together and give to Akron Children's Hospital Toy Fund. We thought how miserable and sad it is when a child it laid up in a bed away from family and friends and a special toy could mean a lot to them.

Thank you Pastor Tim and Staff for a wonderful thought that week.

Steven, Patty, Emily, Taylor, and Lizzy

Revolution #12

2009-06-13T04:10:00.000-07:00

We found it difficult deciding where or how we were to use God's money. We prayed and talked about many different ways. Children's hospital wouldn't allow us to donate to each individual child due to health reasons, and the battered women's shelter had similar rules about donations. We really wanted to to make use of the monies in a more personal way- not just simply a money donation, but rather one that our boys could help us in giving, which we felt was the course God was leading us on.

Tracy got word of a family that had lost everything. The Roudybush's home in Ravenna was devastated by an electrical fire. It destroyed all that they had, including the newly acquired baby shower gifts celebrating Vicky's approaching birth of her second child in July. Tracy knew of her place of employment and set up a meeting. We gave a baby bouncy chair, donated our child's swing, and purchased gift cards for meals from Bob Evans, Cici's Pizza, and Subway to help lift the burden of feeding the family. The Sheetz gas card will help with the drive to and from work. Tracy and I matched the church's money with our own, tripling the overall amount, which allowed us to do much more with the Lord's Blessing. Taylor and Colin's homemade cards, hugs and smiles were what we valued as most priceless to the family.

God Bless you Pastor Tim for this opportunity to express God's Love! OH- and we invited them to church!

Jeff, Tracy, Colin, and Taylor

Revolution #11

2009-06-13T04:07:00.000-07:00

Aaron and I sat down and spoke with our 5 year old Michael who said he wanted to help people with our money that we were given. We had $40.00 to give. We wanted to match the $40.00 and then Michael said he wanted to give some money too. We asked him if he wanted to give $20.00 out of his bank account to give a total gift of $100.00. He was excited about that and glad that he was getting to help out. The next part was trying to figure out what to do with the money. We prayed about it for many days and threw around a lot of ideas back and forth to each other. We talked about sending bibles to other countries or just handing the money to a random person. We really felt God telling us to do something local with our money and to help someone in our community.

Recently, we started Michael in a preschool called Noah's Ark a few days a week. One day Aaron got the idea to give the money to the director of the preschool for a family that was struggling to help pay for preschool. The money was given to a mom of 4 kids who were all attending the preschool. The director told Aaron a few days later that the recipient was truly touched.

Thank you for this opportunity to be selfless and to also give the opportunity to teach our son how to be selfless as well.

Aaron, Jamie and Michael Hetrick

Revolution #10

2009-06-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

I have a big heart for the Boys and Girls Club as though I spent a lot of time and effort helping the one where I grew up. So I called and got the address of the one in Akron. The Boys and Girls Club in Akron is very poorly funded and is understaffed, I decided to go in and see what it was I could spend with 70 dollars. I talked to the Manager; Charles Brown (swear his name really is Charlie Brown). I explained to him who I was and what I was doing there. He gave me a pass and explained to the staff that I'd be roaming around taking a look at things.

After spending some time in the Gym with the kids I realized that almost all out their basketballs were incredibly old, flat, andunusable. I found out over 2000 kids rotate between rooms and use that gymevery day. I got with Charlie and told him what I wanted to do. So I ran to the closest Wal-Mart I could find and talked to the manager. They had a special on some cheap basketballs for 4 dollars each. Honestly that's a great price, but I talked to the General Manager and explained what I was doing. So they gave me a 50% discount, I decided to push my luck and convinced him to throw in one dodgeball for every five basketballs I got. I threw in a little of my own money (10$) and I got 40 basketballs, 8 dodgeballs, and part of the deal was that I had to hang a wal-mart banner in the gym.

I took my little compact car back to The Boys and Girls Club full to the sunroof of balls. This is what I did with the money and a little of my extra. The Boys and Girls Club thanks us (and walmart). The kids really seemed to appreciate it, and I played a few games of dodgeball with the teens. Overall I would say this was productive. I wasn't allowed to witness like I wanted, but I was allowed to tell the kids who I was and why I was there, a lot of them had questions as to why a church would just randomly decide to give money away.

On a side note I was with my mom, who is an atheist by the way, and told her about our service that morning and she donated some money to the church because of it. This was definitely something that affected people outside our church too.

Nicholas and Melinda Kagy

Revolution #9

2009-06-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

I was looking for something that would affect more than one person. I felt we were suppose to order these prayer cubes with our money and give to people as we meet them and feel they need something special in their lives. They are wood and have six sides with a different prayer on each side.
Side 1: Our Father
Side 2: Serenity Prayer
Side 3: Prayer for Peace
Side 4: Prayer of Thanksgiving
Side 5: Prayer of Praise
Side 6: Prayer for Loved Ones

Thank you for this opportunity
Jerry and Aimee Hetrick

Revolution #8

2009-06-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have been praying over what I would do with the $50.00 from my envelope for the last 2 weeks. God answered my prayer by telling me that I should go to one of Shannon's and I's favorite local restaurants and give it to one of the ladies that we know that works there. She is always so nice and talks with Emma and always goes out of her way to speak to us when we are there. I felt God must want me to give it to her since she works so hard and is always a blessing to other people.

When we arrived at the restaurant we were greeted by a "not to friendly" waitress. She was rude to us when she sat us down and was not thrilled when Emma was trying to strike up conversation with her. Throughout our meal she continued show unhappiness with what she was doing. If we asked for something we received a not to pleasant facial expression. I think she was finally glad to be rid of us when she gave us our check, but then Emma and Shannon wanted to order dessert. She was not thrilled with our continued stay.

God spoke to me and told me to give the waitress the money. I was not sure why except that she needed a blessing more from God right now than the person that was already a blessing. So after Shannon paid the bill, I wrote her a note on the envelope that said "You do not seem as if you are having a very good day. I hope this helps brighten your day. May God Bless you." We left her the money and envelope on the table. I would have loved to been there when she received the blessing and seen the look on her face. I hope she knows how much God loves her.

Thank you for the blessing,
Jenifer More

Revolution #7

2009-06-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hello Church!
As the baskets were being passed around out at church God immediately brought to mind the girls at Agape House. I received $10 and matched that ammount. "Agape House is a 501 (c) 3 christian ministry that works with hurting young women ages 12-28 in Walworth County, Wisconsin and the surrounding communities. As the Lord helps them overcome the effects of abuse, overcome addictions, and heal from the hurts of their past they can be set free to walk in victory !" (taken from their Facebook page). Their website is http://www.agapehouseforgirls.org.
Your Sis in Christ,
Jessica Robertson

Revolution #6

2009-06-02T18:01:00.001-07:00

Dear Tim,
As the envelopes were being passed to the congregation I was being led to pass it along to my 5th grade students.The big question was how. Give them a penny, a nickel, a dime, all to one or two of the less fortunate...? I went home and talked to Bob about it and then prayed every night. A few days passed and then Bob came up with a very generous idea. It was decided that that we would go to the bank and get enough of the uncirculated presidential dollars so that each child could be given one. I gave them out today from a heart of love and they seemed to receive them in the same manner. They understand that they may spend them but are encouraged to keep them "special" and every time they look at that shiney new coin throughout their lives, think about how they might help someone else.
Thanks for the blessing,
Doris and Bob Yerkey

Revolution #4

2009-05-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

Samson,Linda and Ben- we combined our money and bought our neighbor a battery for their mower. He was having to have two people to start the mower.

Revolution #3

2009-05-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, I was visiting your church with my family (the Hetrick's) when I received my envelope from you. Aimee told me her nephew who she never met sent them a graduation announcement from High School. She said she went on line to see if she could find him and figure out what he might like for a graduation present and she found him on My Space. What a shock she had. His site was terrible! His site was full of satanic music, satanic signs and a terrible video of him and his friends. He said he is a devil worshiper and his site sure showed it. Jerry called his sister (a Christian) and his nephew happened to be there. Jerry even talked to him and he denied it but admitted it was his MySpace page. Aimee couldn't believe he didn't even change his My Space page or make it private after talking to Jerry. I gave her my money to send him a Bible.

Revolution #2

2009-05-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hello,
Linda and I combined ours. There are two friends in the Philippines that need money for their children to have schools for the term that begins on June 8. The amount that we received, we matched so that we could send that to each of them. Both thanked us and God for us being their friends and do this for their children. One of them told me that she was never worried about having the money for the clothes because she knew that God would provide. He has always provided for them. It was good to be used by God to do what quite obviously His will. Both children will have their clothes for school and I have a lesson in faith.
Ed and Linda Swiger

Revolution #1

2009-05-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

"One of my friends' parents just got in MAJOR trouble (going to jail) and so she is devastated, and left on her own. It was a surprise to her and her sister about what happened. She's 18, so not foster care. She's living with our other friend. She is not allowed back in her house and isn't allowed to get any of her stuff. So all she has is that one outfit on her back from the day it happened. Her car and her sister's car and everything was taken. Her sister is younger, so she is in a foster home now. But I put my money towards helping them get some clothes and get back on their feet. So far, our friends and the money from the church have raised about $400 for them".

-Lauren Flarida