You Gotta Have Faith

Sometimes simply trusting people pays off.

And sometimes learning from other people's faith in human kindness is just the thing we need to motivate good deeds. Well, the results are in on a social experiment that started a few months ago and has reaped hugely impressive results — inspiring others to follow suit.

One Sunday in March, the Rev. John Lentz, pastor of Forest Hill Church in Cleveland, simply handed every congregant $50 and suggested they use it to make more money for the church’s social service programs.

Known as the “Big Give,” the cash came with no strings attached — they were not obligated to give it back or make more ? Lentz simply encouraged the instantly-richer members of his Presbyterian congregation to think of creative ways to multiply it.

Think they did, to the tune of $25,000. The money replenishes the $15,000 taken from the church’s social service budget and adds another $10,000 to help aid programs in Africa, Nicaragua and Ghana, as well as to assist local homeless people.

“In the midst of these times of economic scarcity, we found abundance,” Lentz told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “This was a phenomenal success. It created a tremendous amount of energy.”

Church members raised more money in a variety of ways: buying supplies to create and sell handmade jewelry and granola or hiring themselves out to do yard work. Other pooled their dollars to buy and raffle off a big-screen television.

According to the Plain Dealer, the handout was based on the biblical parable of the talents, in which a master, before embarking on a journey, left each of his three servants with sums of money. When the master returned, he discovered the first two servants worked their shares, making more money for him. But the third servant failed to take a risk and simply buried his.

Now, it seems other faith-based communities are catching on. Members of the Bay Community Church in Malbis, Ala., were given envelopes one recent Sunday containing $20, $40 or $100. (The amount was based on luck of the draw.)

The only rules for the so-called “faith stimulus” payment: It can’t be spent on the member, the member’s family — or given back to the church.

Trey Taylor, associate pastor of the church, told MSNBC that members were not supposed to give the money to the first person they could find, but instead to take time to use the money effectively.

“We have to get creative to do our part,” Taylor told MSNBC.

In these tough economic times, the temptation to simply keep the money must have been great. But trusting one another to do the right thing ensured that recipients passed on the kindness — an act that feels good in and of itself. Kudos to small-scale heroes for looking beyond themselves to turn one gift into another.

Additional reporting by Courtney Rubin.