Like many churches in 2009, Cross Timbers Community Church (Argyle, Texas) has seen an offering slump because of the economic crisis. Though this has forced the church into some painful pruning, Pastor Toby Slough has been more concerned about how the many different people of Cross Timbers are seeing hard times of their own through job loss, pay cuts, and foreclosures. With that in mind, Slough did something a little different when the church took up an offering one Sunday morning in March of 2009. He didn't encourage people to put money in the plate; he encouraged people to take money out of the plate. The church actually took in the largest offering of its nine-year history. People were more than ready to give to those in need—ready to make sure the plate was filled to overflowing as it was passed among those who were suffering.

"In these economic times, we can't be so into church business that we forget what our business is, and that is to help people," Slough told a CNN affiliate in Dallas. In the two months that followed the Sunday morning offering surprise, Cross Timbers has given a half-million dollars to members and non-members who are facing various financial struggles. One Sunday morning they gave $50 bills to 1,300 families and asked them to hand them out to those in need. One of the recipients of Cross Timbers' generosity was Katie Lewis. When interviewed by CNN, a tearful Lewis said, "I've been alone so long. Just to be thought of and to be remembered, to be welcomed—it's amazing."

The Tuesday night prayer meeting at Brooklyn Tabernacle felt like skydiving into a tornado, exhausting and exhilarating all at once. I'd read about the meeting in Pastor Jim Cymbala's book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, but nothing prepared me for the event itself: 3,500 God-hungry people storming heaven for two hours.

Afterward, my friend and I went out to dinner with the Cymbalas. In the course of the meal, Jim turned to me and said, "Mark, do you know what the number one sin of the church in America is?" I wasn't sure, and the question was rhetorical anyhow. "It's not the plague of internet pornography that is consuming our men. It's not that the divorce rate in the church is roughly the same as society at large."

Jim named two or three other candidates for the worst sin, all of which he dismissed. "The number one sin of the church in America," he said, "is that its pastors and leaders are not on their knees crying out to God, 'Bring us the drug-addicted, bring us the prostitutes, bring us the destitute, bring us the gang leaders, bring us those with AIDS, bring us the people nobody else wants, whom only you can heal, and let us love them in your name until they are whole.'"

I had no response. I was undone. He had laid me bare, found me out, and exposed my fraudulence. I was the chief of sinners. I had never prayed, not once, for God to bring such people to my church. So I went home and repented. I stopped sinning. I began to cry out for "those nobody wants."

Condensed from our sister publication Leadership Journal, © 2009 Christianity Today International. For more articles like this, visit Leadershipjournal.net.