Palatine church parishioners get money, use it to help others

Now more than ever, a family’s need to pay the bills may override its desire to help others during the holiday season.

So it came as an especially welcome surprise last month when leaders at Christ Lutheran Church in Palatine turned the tables after the regular offering and gave each family an envelope filled with cash.

Thanks to a parishioner’s $6,000 donation, 120 families each received $50 with one caveat: Use it to help someone else in need.

“I’ve been an ordained minister for 39 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Senior Pastor Craig Wagner said. “Everyone was pretty much startled.”

The donor, who Wagner said wished to remain anonymous, got the idea after reading an article in a Lutheran publication about making a difference in people’s lives. The message also fell in line with the church’s programming at the time.

Some at the service immediately offered to donate their share back to the church, but Wagner said that would defeat the purpose.

“The point is to do something beyond yourself and try to make it personal,” he said. “We told everyone to go home and pray about it for awhile and see what God encouraged them to do.”

Church leaders offered suggestions such as painting a room in an elderly person’s home, buying a warm coat and boots for someone who can’t afford them and providing something for a teacher’s room that wasn’t included in the budget.

Wagner especially hoped people would somehow use the money to grow the $50 into an even larger donation.

In one case, Wagner heard a parishioner planned to help a neighboring family in need. She was going to gather a group of carolers, provide them with hot chocolate and doughnuts and ask each to donate $10.

Palatine residents Tom and Lynda Betz, who joined Christ Lutheran Church about a year ago, said they decided to bring along their daughter-in-law and two grandchildren to donate their $50 to Journeys from PADS to Hope, a Palatine-based nonprofit organization that assists the homeless.

“We were all kind of stunned, but it ended up being a terrific feeling to follow the pastor’s message while sharing the experience,” Tom Betz said.

At the end of January, Wagner said he will ask everyone to report back on what they did.

“I imagine there will be some pretty special ideas,” he said.