Each week the offerings of Fellowship of the Parks are picked up at the Keller campus by a courier who transports them to the bank. This past Monday, someone posed as the courier complete with all the porper identification and took the funds. The very same thing happened at church in Frisco.
We have attempted to contact evryone who wrote a check. The chances of the checks being cashed are slim but knowing that someone with evil intent has that type of information, proper precautions need to be taken. The police and our bank have enocuraged anyone who wrote a check to monitor their account closely and report any suspicious activity.
Since the Grapevine campus offering is included in the weekly transaction, we were effected as well. While the total amount lost for the Grapevine campus was not great, any loss of finds at this stage of our church life is significant.
I believe that the most important aspect of this situation is determining how we will respond spiritually. We all tend to get focused on the physical and lose sight of the spiritual. As a result, we can experience fear, intimidation and resentment (the topic of this weeks sermon as we begin our new series - Surviving Life's Disasters: God timing is always perfect).
I want to encourage everyone to pray for the people who committed this crime. While it is easy to pray that they get caught and justice is served, I want us to pray that somehow through all of this they would come to know Christ as Savior and Lord. I pray they would experience his love and forgiveness. Just last week we looked at the life of Zacheaus who was in many ways a thief. When he encountered the love of Jesus, he returned four times the amount of money he had taken.
I also think that we need to respond postively in a spiritual manner. We need to use the judo technique. In judo, you take the force of the opponents blow to defeat him. We need to take the force of satans blow to defeat him.
I already have fallen in love with the people of FOTP Grapevine. One of our ladies who had written a check last Sunday informed me that she refused to be a victim. She wrote a check for twice the amount and mailed it to the church. I love it!
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - II Corinthians 4:16-18
I am so looking forward to what God is going to do through all of this as we fix our eyes on what is unseen and not what is seen!