Have you ever talked with your friends and asked them one of the following: “Is this all there is to life? Doesn’t God want more from us? If He does, how do we do what He wants?”
Questions like these are asked every day in churches and share groups all over the world. They are the questions that began the journey of one group which started with the study of God’s Word and grew to put His teachings into action in an unlikely way.
A trio of men had been meeting at a local coffee house for a few hours each week to spend time together in the presence of God, learning and fellowshipping. After a year and a half of these meetings, they began to realize that simply studying the Bible and spending time together wasn’t completely answering God’s calling. As they talked about this realization, it became clear that what the Scripture says for Christians to do was not being done. Churches weren’t doing the most basic, and most powerful, of things: helping their Brothers and Sisters in crisis. They weren’t feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and not taking the Word to the world to make new disciples. Jesus laid out what people should do after they accepted Him, repented and became baptized. Matthew 25:31-46 says to help the ones that need help. No judgment to them or their lifestyle, their poverty or even if they truly need is mentioned; if they simply ask, it will be given.
After several weeks of discussing how badly they were failing God and trying to come up with potential ways they could carry out their conviction, God brought two more men into their group. One man had been involved in other ministries and had experience, while the other’s experience was more in line with the original trio’s question-filled wonder at the potential of beginning their journey in ministry. The experienced member of the group advised them that they needed to be organized, utilize their God-given gifts, and they must start right away.
The men heeded this advice and began discussing what they would call the ministry God was bringing together. They agreed upon the acronym SWAT, standing for Servants With A Task, then set to work deciding their main focus. Most of the men had a background in construction, so they went with that as their plan.
Enacting this plan was slow-going in the beginning. The men set up a phone line, ordered a postal box, and registered as a non-profit organization in their home state of Ohio. They received a few calls for help, but they were few and far between. They put some shelves in for a family that had nowhere to store their laundry soap, replaced doors that leaked, and did some other small construction projects. Even through this, they felt as though they were still not doing what God wanted from them.
Continuing on, they adopted bylaws and appointed a chairman and board of trustees along with some other necessary officers. The first attack against the ministry came at this point. The day after the first official meeting of SWAT, one of the trustees informed the group that he had to resign and could have nothing to do with the ministry because of the necessary time investment and his family’s feelings about it. The group reorganized and doubled their efforts, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before God would show them what their true mission would be.
One evening, one of the men was led to call a friend. During their conversation, his friend mentioned that she had no food for herself or her daughter. He decided to use the last of his money to buy her some food. Two of the other men stopped by his house and the first explained what happened. They all pooled their money together to buy enough food to feed the family for three weeks, along with new Bibles, as they didn’t have any. This was a substantial decision, as only one of the men in the group had a job.
As all the members of the group met together, they loaded up the food and Bibles and drove to the family’s home. Right before they knocked, the men prayed that God would take control of the situation. The woman’s young daughter opened the door and the men brought the food inside. It took several trips for each man to get it all then unload it, and there were many tears from everyone in the room when the task was complete. While they were putting the food into the woman’s empty cupboards and refrigerator, the Holy Spirit weighed on each man. The only food they saw in the house consisted of a box of oatmeal and a single bag of frozen corn. As the men prayed with the family, crying over each word, it became clear to all of them that they found what God would use SWAT for.
The ministry then became God’s alone. That experience humbled the men to simply be a tool for Him.
Soon after that fateful and powerful evening, they met with another ministry that was serving the hungry. That ministry was quite large, feeding local people in need and helping other groups do the same. Through this discussion, the men realized that they would need to use every means they had to feed the hungry, and, more importantly, deliver the Word of God to all that didn’t have it. Feeding the hunger would help people today, but feeding their souls would feed them forever.
God gave them the means to buy food in bulk, but they had nowhere to store the abundance and no way to put it in the hands of people that needed it. Even so, the men knew God wanted this, so they bought as much as they could and loaded into their tool trailer. The only way they could store the food was to park the trailer in a garage and empty it as needed until they had a storage facility. Their temporary fix was shorter than they thought it would be, and God delivered a storage facility in just a few days. The building had an office that the men wouldn’t need, so they decided to sublet it to another ministry, and that helped to ensure that they would be able to pay the rent.
Their next hurdle was unloading all of the pallets of food in the trailer: the men needed to find a forklift to move the food. After looking at several lifts that wouldn’t even start, three of them stopped at a dealer even though they knew that everything there was out of their price range. After talking with the manager for an hour or so, two of them gave up and were almost to their vehicle when the third stuck his head outside and motioned for them to return. God worked on the manager that day, and they were sold a working lift for only $3,000, paid in monthly installments. After paying the first payment and loading the lift, they headed back to the storehouse to unload the food, praising God for the miracle He bestowed upon them. Little did they know, the miracle was more substantial than they realized. Some things happened at the company they purchased the lift from and they ended up getting the lift for free, confirming the blessings God had in store for the ministry.
The men got in God’s way again, unknowingly, with a plan to “sell” the food they received to other ministries as done by the one that helped them. Nothing happened. They tried to figure out how to get more food while funding the handyman ministry they thought God had called them to. As time went by, they realized that trying to “profit” from God’s work was a grave mistake. They held a meeting to discuss their situation and decided to give the food away and let God worry about the next shipment. All but one agreed to the plan, citing the lack of funding. How would they get more food without any money? The men took heed and waited, but eventually started giving the food away. They received a few calls for assistance, but God was working on them, pushing for the men to give up themselves before they could go forward.
God directed other men to them, in need of fellowship and counseling. They realized that God wanted to use them for that purpose as well, and embraced their multiple missions.
They finally gave themselves over to God, each becoming nothing but a tool to help with God’s work. The phone began to ring more and more, and now their need is far greater than they can manage, and that is why God manages the ministry. They are simply Servants With A Task. His will be done.