CHURCH
BEGINS WITH THANK YOU

Topics: Attitudes; Cross; Encouragement; Jesus Christ; Missions; Provision; Thankfulness

References: Psalm 100:4; Luke 17:18; Ephesians 5:20; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:12

When we started the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) in 1973, we had no money—not a dime—and we were going to start a new denomination. One group gave us $90,000 for world missions. The only two missionaries we had—Dick Dye and a young woman named Ellen Barnett—were down in Acapulco.

Missionary Dick Dye had been in Acapulco for two months trying to start a church. Whenever he got discouraged, he looked up at a cross he could see on a nearby mountain. That encouraged him. Finally, he drove up the mountain to find out about that cross. And when he did, he found it attached to a big hotel. So Dye asked the secretary, “Can I speak to the man who runs this establishment?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No appointment, I just want to tell him something.”

“What do you want to tell him?”

“I want to thank him.”

The secretary got the owner. Dye said, “I’m a missionary from the United States here in Acapulco. I’ve been discouraged. But I see that cross and it encourages me. I want to thank you for having it up there.”

The man looked at Dye, put his head down on his desk, and began to weep. He wept and wept. Finally he raised his head and said: “That cross has been up there for years. All I’ve heard is criticism. You’re the first man who ever said thank you. Now, who are you and what do you need?”

“I’m just a missionary,” Dick answered.

“Where do you meet?”

“We don’t meet anywhere. I don’t have any place to meet.”

The owner said, “Come with me.” He took Dick to a beautiful chapel and said, “We have church here at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. From now on, it is yours at 10:00 a.m. You begin services next week.”

That was the beginning of the first Presbyterian Church in America missionary plant. Within a few years, we turned four congregations over to the Presbyterian Church of Mexico. How did it start? With one guy who said thank you.

—James Baird, in the sermon “To Be Thankful,” Independent Presbyterian Church, Savannah, Georgia