Churches are in the “people business,” with the mandate to change lives. At times, that change can be both unexpected and dramatic. For those of us that work with churches, it can be easy to lapse into the “just business” mentality of our day-to-day work. We can lose sight of what is truly important, and of how deeply individual lives can be touched by what we do. Fellowship Technologies got that reminder recently with an email about a young man named Anthony.
The staff at Fellowship Technologies received an email from Nola Sweet with Christ the Rock Community Church in Menasha, WI. She shared an amazing story about Anthony and how the church was able to prevent his suicide with the help of church staff and Fellowship One church management software. As she recalls, “Anthony came to a Saturday night service to pray before going through with a suicide plan. He gave Pastor Bill a note and asked him to read it later, and then he left.” Unfortunately for Bill Lenz, Senior Pastor at Christ the Rock, he had nothing to help him track down the young man. All he had to go on was an approximate age and the man’s first name found at the bottom of the letter. They were faced with the horror that they might not be able to find Anthony before it was too late. According to Lenz in his August 9th service at Christ the Rock, he and other staff members searched the church hoping Anthony had not left the premises. No one knew him, nor did they have any contact information. Their last hope of finding him was through their Fellowship One database. Logging into Fellowship One they typed in “Anthony,” then looked for the age range that matched the young man Pastor Bill had met that evening. They found a match and called the number. Miraculously, it was the right Anthony, and they were able to meet with him that evening and talk him out of his plan.
Sitting across from Anthony, Pastor Lenz found out why he had contemplated suicide. Anthony had always felt alone as a child. He had been sent to a military school at an early age and then joined the Army. During his time in Iraq he saw plenty of action, and did his best to place himself in danger. He wanted to die. Once he returned to the U.S., Anthony coordinated the steps to take his own life. He knew from his military experience that people tended to pray before they died, so he wanted to do the same. Anthony joined the service at Christ the Rock one evening in January of 2009, and quietly passed a folded note to Pastor Lenz before leaving the church. This was the first step in his plan to end his life. Little did Anthony know that God’s plan was already in effect. A few weeks earlier, he had visited Christ the Rock, and filled out a visitor’s card. That card was then passed to staff members who carefully added his information to Fellowship One in hopes that he would visit again. No one could have guessed that this little act of care and attention to detail would one day save his life. It was that card, those staff members entering his information into Fellowship One, and the quick thinking of Pastor Lenz that eventually brought Anthony out of his suicidal plans, and to his decision to accept Christ.
Fellowship Technologies is honored to have played even the smallest part in a story such as this. It is a reminder of how managing the details can lead to a life changed forever. Pastor Lenz said it best, “When we meet Christ, our lives change. That’s what we’re here for as a church, to introduce more and more people to the Savior and see their lives changed for eternity.”