Pottsboro church wonders, ‘What will God do next?’

POTTSBORO—Excitement grips the congregation at Georgetown Baptist Church in Pottsboro—not only because a huge debt has been paid, but also due to expectation of God’s next blessing.

When Pastor Bobby Hancock came to lead the congregation three years ago, the church owed $900,000 on a recreation building built in 2004.

Dennis Hulsey (center), a deacon at Georgetown Baptist Church in Pottsboro, holds up the note on a building the church burned after retiring the debt. Looking on are (left to right) Marshall Cathey, finance committee chair; Diana Williams, president of Landmark Bank; Pastor Bobby Hancock; trustee Jeff Jeffers; deacon David Tidwell, chairman of the original Together We Build campaign; and trustees Claude Henderson and Lawrence Kennon. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Georgetown Baptist Church in Pottsboro)

“We’re just a small church in a small community. We knew we wanted to shed that debt as quickly as possibly, but we were limited in our resources,” Hancock said.

Still, through the sacrificial giving of many in the congregation, the debt had been pared to $450,000 by last October.

Then a family in the community presented a challenge to the church—a matching gift of up to $230,000 with a Dec. 31 deadline. The church only had two months to raise the funds required to secure the match.

“A lot of people were skeptical, and I’m sorry to say, I was one of them,” Hancock acknowledged.

Rather than being paralyzed by the size of the task, the congregation moved into action. Three young couples who didn’t have a lot of disposable income but had some items they weren’t using anymore held a garage sale that raised more than $2,000.

One member sold a motorcycle and another a four-wheeler to raise money for the effort. After prayer, one couple gave 10 percent of the goal.

About 90 percent of the church gave something—a statistic Hancock finds most satisfying.

And while a bit of doubt might have scratched at Hancock, he also knew God was capable. He carries in his Bible a Baptist Standard clipping about a church’s almost-inconceivable one-day harvest offering.

“It reminds me that if God did it somewhere else, he can do it here,” Hancock said.

By the deadline, the church family’s gifts and few outside contributions totaled $240,000. With the matching gift, the church found itself debt-free.

Throughout the fund-raising effort, budget giving never lagged, Hancock noted.

“The big thing it did for us is give us an excitement to say: ‘What’s next? What’s God want to do next?’” he said.

Members created a display at church to commemorate the ef-fort.

They don’t want what God did there to be forgotten by this generation—or the next.