In just a week’s time, one local church paid off $7.2 million in crippling medical debt for 6,500 families. They also raised enough to fund three foster homes for one year.
In a video from this past Sunday, Senior Pastor Dan Glenn of Stetson Baptist Church in DeLand, Florida, announced to his church that they far surpassed their goal and raised almost $154,000.
“There will be 6,500 families who will receive a letter in the mail that says, ‘Because of the generosity of a church in your area—Stetson Baptist Church—you are debt-free,” Glenn said in the video. “Because of your generosity, we will not be a normal people. We will not be a normal church.”
When the Baptist church realized that their fiscal year of 2018-2019 had 53 Sundays, they set aside the extra week’s offerings to minister to the community.
Their original objective was to raise $48,000, but on the Sunday of June 30 alone, the church raised $144,000. As the week went on, people kept giving.
The church split the donations between two nonprofits: Florida Baptist Children’s Homes and RIP Medical Debt, which usually purchases medical debt at one penny on the dollar. The funds were enough to pay off all the medical debt in five Central Florida counties.
“You cancelled the debts of others,” Glenn tells his congregation. “You showed them the love of Christ. You didn’t just tell them that Jesus loves them; you showed them that Jesus loves them.”
