It was a sultry summer day, and our family had just returned home from a week-and-a-half of much appreciated rest and relaxation in the mountains of northwest Georgia. We pulled into the driveway, and as the kids piled out of the car, I called out, “Everyone take in at least one thing as you go!” I hit the button on the remote for the garage door and climbed out of the car. Before the garage door had fully opened, we heard the phone ring.
“Take a message, and tell them we’ll call back,” Teri, my wife, said to our oldest daughter, trying to spare me the last few hours of vacation. But my daughter was back within seconds saying, “It’s Dave Anderson, and he needs to talk to Dad. He said it’s very important, and he sounds real upset.”
Again Teri covered for me: “I’ll take it. You finish unpacking.” But she returned shortly with one of those looks that suggested something was wrong. “Dave sounds really bad, like he’s been crying. Just go. The girls and I will finish here.”
As I drove the five miles to Dave’s house, I wondered what could be wrong. Dave was a well-respected board member, our church treasurer, and not the type to call me frivolously. Ours is a small church—about 135 members—and I knew about almost every problem there was to know.
I ran down a mental list of the usual “I-need-to-see-you-right-away-Pastor” sorts of problems that I had encountered in more than a dozen years of ministry, but none seemed likely. Dave’s marriage was rock solid, his kids were married with families of their own, his health and that of his wife seemed good. I was still puzzled when I rang his doorbell.
Dave and his wife, Cheryl, met me at the door. Their eyes were red. They spoke very softly, as if normal tones of voice required too much effort. They looked away from my gaze and ushered me into the living room to sit down. I felt like I was visiting a family that had just been informed of a tragic death. I prayed even though I had no idea what to expect.
Living room confession
Dave broke the uneasy silence: “For the past several years, I’ve been taking money from church funds to get my business through some rough times.”
Dave owned a boat store, and we had often prayed for his business. His whole body shook with sobs as he continued.
As I drove home my mind whirled I kept thinking, $115,000! Gone, just like that!
“For some time now,” Dave said, “I have been facing bankruptcy. My business is in debt. I even tried selling it, but there’s no market.
“I intended to repay the funds as business picked up, but things have only gotten worse. Oh, Pastor, I have sinned terribly, and I don’t know how God or anyone else can forgive me!”
Both Dave and Cheryl were in tears. I felt uncomfortable pressing for more details, but I had to ask, “How much money are we talking here?”
He said flatly, “At the worst point about $145,000, but some of that I’ve already returned. The church is still short $115,000.” My stomach sank.
Trying to absorb this, I looked to Cheryl and asked, “How long have you known?”
As grief stricken and shamed as anyone I have ever seen, she quietly said, “He just told me yesterday afternoon. Dave has been trying to reach you for the past three days. He finally told me why yesterday.”
She said her first words to him had been “Dave, we will pay it back. We’ll sell the house. We’ll do whatever we have to do, but we will pay the money back somehow.” Even so, I saw she was devastated.
She assured both Dave and me that she would stand by him through whatever might lay ahead. Together they assured me they wanted to set things right.
“We would like to sign the house over to the church,” Dave said. “Even if I go to prison, as I expect to, I will pay back every cent.”
I assured them we didn’t want their house and said, “We will try to work things out somehow.” But I had no idea how.
“In the meantime,” I told Dave, “you need to write a letter of resignation from the board and as treasurer. Also, I’ll need to take all the church financial documents home with me.”
Anticipating this, Dave had them boxed and sitting in the living room. We prayed, loaded the boxes into the car, and I left.
Triple jeopardy
As I drove home my mind whirled. I kept thinking, $115,000! Gone, just like that!
I wondered if I was liable. I worried that I might lose my job. I tried to outline what I needed to do: call the board members, tell the church; contact the legal authorities, our bank, and the church whose facility we were about to buy.
The funds Dave had embezzled had been set aside for our new building. For years our church had been saving to purchase property and put up a building. We had accumulated about $164,000 toward construction costs of about $500,000.
Then God seemed to open up a better opportunity for us. In lieu of a building program, we opted for a complex arrangement: we would sell our current building and the property on which we were going to build, and then we’d purchase a recently constructed church facility that was almost identical to the plans we had drawn up. Thus we would have the facility we wanted without the hassle of months of construction.
Our building had been on the market for several years, but we had only recently found a buyer.
The closings on all three deals were imminent—in fact, our last service in our current building was scheduled for the coming Sunday!
Now the whole arrangement was in jeopardy.
When I got home, I told Teri, who was as stunned as I.
I then contacted board members. Every response was the same: “He did what? Dave? You’ve got to be kidding!”
Teri and I then went to visit Chuck, who headed our building program. I explained the bad news, and as he later told me, “I got the most nauseated feeling I have ever had.” I knew what he meant.
When we returned home late that evening, our vacation in the Georgia mountains seemed a lifetime removed.
“What else about you is a lie?”
The rest of the week passed in a blur of phone calls and meetings. Each new confrontation between Dave, Cheryl, and a key leader opened the wound afresh. Dave responded each time with tears and brokenness.
Several of these leaders were a generation younger than Dave and had looked up to him as a role model and spiritual mentor. Our financial secretary was one such person. As she sat in Dave’s living room, she said, “The theft of the money is the least of my concerns. It was God’s money, and he will settle that score.”
In tears, she struggled to continue. “What bothers me most is the betrayal of trust. I have seen you leading in public prayers, speaking in business meetings, and giving testimonies in worship services. I feel like your life for the past few years has been a terrible lie. I wonder,” she concluded, “what else about you is a lie.”
Key decisions
We contacted the local district attorney’s office. We were assured that we could pursue this as a private matter, without involving the police. By Friday night, when we held our regular board meeting, a plan was taking shape.
“Our certificate of deposit valued at more than $100,000 doesn’t exist,” I told the board, “and our money market fund is short $11,000.”
I said Dave had agreed to repay the funds in their entirety, and I made some suggestions, based on my discussions with him and Cheryl. First, the Andersons would refinance their home and pay the church a large, lump-sum payment up front.
Although they had offered to sign their house over to the church, I told the board, “I don’t want us to do anything that will give even the slightest appearance that we have taken their house and put Cheryl out on the street.”
Second, Dave and Cheryl would begin making monthly payments of $700 on the balance. They had proposed this figure.
“How much interest should we charge them?” someone asked, which led to a debate. One board member said, “When I found out this money was gone, I never expected to see it again. The fact that Dave is willing to repay the funds is punishment enough. I say we charge no interest.”
Another protested, “This will cost the church thousands of dollars in interest that we wouldn’t have had to pay if we’d had the cash that Dave’s taken!”
In the end, we required no interest. Simply recovering the missing funds would be sufficient burden for Dave and Cheryl to bear.
The couple agreed that pay raises and other unexpected income would be passed on to the church to accelerate repayment. We didn’t put that on paper—our attorney advised against such “hard to enforce” clauses—though we would regret it later.
We also discussed how to break the news to the church two days hence. The board had done a superb job of keeping the matter confidential, but we knew we needed to say something publicly, even though it was going to be volatile. The church family had trusted us as leaders to handle the business matters of the church. News of Dave’s embezzlement was sure to shake their confidence in all of us.
To help diffuse the situation, I suggested we ask Dave and Cheryl not to attend Sunday services for three weeks. “This will give us one Sunday to break the news,” I said, “and two full weeks for people to work through the emotions of what has happened.”
Finally, and in what was perhaps the biggest step of faith taken that night, we decided to proceed with the sale and purchase of all properties as previously planned, and on schedule—which meant that the coming Sunday would still be our last in our building.
“Will the owners of the new building give us more time?” someone asked.
“Will the bank back out since we’ve had embezzlement?” another asked.
We had many questions but no answers. Details would have to be worked out in the next few days, or the whole deal would collapse.
I still have moments when I’m not sure why we decided to pursue the purchase. Some would say we were in shock and denial, which may be true. But we also all sensed that in spite of the many unknowns, we were being led by God to proceed on faith.
The last Sunday
The new week dawned bright and sunny, unlike the dismal news we were about to break. The church was full for a summer day and included a number of first-time and returning visitors.
After the sermon I announced, “We have some family business to attend to immediately following the service. Therefore, our visitors should feel free to be dismissed, and regular members and attenders should be seated.” I closed in prayer.
As the visitors departed, the congregation took their seats, many with quizzical expressions. Feeling nervous I began, “When my family and I returned from vacation this week, I received a phone call from Dave Anderson. Dave confessed to me that he had stolen money from the church. It appears at this point that approximately $115,000 is missing from our building fund.”
My shock and disbelief was now mirrored on the faces of the congregation.
I told them the whole story. I finished by saying, “The leadership is recommending we proceed with the building program arrangements previously voted upon by the membership.”
I then turned things over to Chuck for a brief statement. “I just want to say that this money that’s missing is not ours,” Chuck began. “We gave it to God. It is his money. Dave has stolen from God, not from us.”
It was a simple statement that had a profound impact on our church family.
Several individuals later told him, “What you said helped put everything in perspective. It lifted the burden I was feeling and somehow helped to assure me that God was in control, not us.”
As we dismissed, conversations buzzed throughout the sanctuary. The most common comment I heard was “I just can’t believe it! Not Dave. And what about Cheryl? She must be devastated!”
A former board member who had worked long and hard toward the new building wondered, “Lord, are you stopping us again?”
Though some people wondered about our decision to continue with the new building, nearly everyone was supportive.
We had a good turnout for the final worship service—that evening! It was a bittersweet time. Happy memories of conversions, baptisms, and growth in the Lord over the past 60 years were mixed with the uncertainties of a move to a new building, in another town.
Packing by faith
The next morning was moving day and found many of us back at church packing and cleaning. The mood was somber at first, but the heaviness began to dissipate as it dawned on us that we were realizing a dream for which we had prayed and given for many years.
That afternoon, we received some heartening news. The pastor of the church whose building we were hoping to buy phoned and said, “Our denominational leaders have agreed to extend you a promissory note in the amount of $80,000 for 90 days.” This brought us closer to closing the deal and gave us some time to arrange more permanent financing.
Then a young couple in our own church stepped forward with an offer to extend the church a loan of up to $35,000 for a period of one year. Between these two loans the embezzled amount was covered!
And so, on Tuesday afternoon, just one week after the disclosure, while most of us were still busy moving into the new facility, representatives of our church closed all three real estate transactions as originally planned, in a single afternoon.
At the closing, one attorney who knew of our predicament asked Chuck, “Why isn’t your former treasurer locked up?” Chuck told him about the forgiveness of Christ and our willingness to work with Dave. It left an impact. A year-and-a-half later, he again asked about the situation. “I still can’t believe that guy’s not in jail!”
After the closing, only one major hurdle was left to be cleared—that of reconciliation between Dave and the church family.
Public confession
After the three-week separation, everyone seemed ready to put the issue behind us. Dave prepared a public statement, which I reviewed beforehand, to express what he had done and what he was feeling.
The Andersons returned to church the second Sunday morning after the move into our new facility. There was an awkward silence as the service began. Most of us had never seen a formal, public confession of sin before. People didn’t know what to expect as Dave and Cheryl made their way to the front.
Cheryl sat in the front row as Dave stepped to the platform. He laid a prepared statement on the pulpit and began to read it slowly, pausing from time to time to regain his composure. “I want you to know,” he said, “that what has been done is solely my doing. Cheryl had no part in this. I have hurt her and hurt this church family. I am so sorry for that.”
He stated his intention to repay all the stolen funds. He concluded, “I hope you will be able to forgive me.” Then he sat down.
A number of people were crying. It was a humbling moment for Dave, and for all of us.
One couple commented to me later, “We felt sorry for Dave. As he talked, we felt like we could understand something of the desperation that must have driven him to do what he did.”
Any sense of anger seemed greatly erased by the time Dave had finished.
I followed Dave by saying, “A sin has been committed and owned up to. Dave has sought forgiveness in repentance and will be making restitution in full. There is nothing more he can reasonably be expected to do beyond this. Therefore, we would like to turn the page on this chapter and go on about the business of serving God together.” I then dismissed us with a prayer.
I had wondered all week how the congregation would react. Sometimes I feared the worst. But any concerns quickly disappeared as people converged to talk with Dave and Cheryl.
The wife of a new board member told Dave, “I appreciate your courage in facing the church. I want you to know that I forgive you.”
Another couple, not knowing what to say, said nothing, but the wife lightly touched Cheryl’s arm hoping that perhaps a touch would convey what mere words never could.
A visiting family stood amazed at the scene. They later told me they decided at that point to make ours their new church home. “We have never felt such love and forgiveness in a church. It was amazing!”
Another couple, probably the Andersons’ best friends, took them out for lunch. As they ate, the husband said to Dave, “Do you realize that if you had taken these funds from anyone other than this church, you would probably be sitting behind bars right now, rather than eating in this restaurant and breathing the air of a free man?”
Not everyone, however, found it easy to forgive. One younger woman, who with her husband had been mentored by Dave and Cheryl, angrily told me, “What a hypocrite! Here he is telling us how to handle our finances, and he can’t even handle his own!”
Overall though, the service became for most of our people a defining moment spiritually. Several have since remarked to me, “I know there is no perfect church, but this is one with which I can readily identify as a sinner.”
That month, Dave’s and Cheryl’s house refinancing loan closed, and we received a check for more than $43,000. The next month, all of us together dedicated the new facility and our ministry in it to the glory of God.
It seemed like our troubles were over.
Complications
For a year, the repayments came in on time. But then we received the terrible news that Cheryl had cancer. Despite major surgery and further treatment, she passed away with her family, my wife, and me at her bedside.
Cheryl had been Dave’s strength since the embezzlement. She was handling their finances. Despite my queries, “Are the monthly payments too much to bear?” she always assured me, “We’re doing fine. We just want to get this paid back as quickly as possible.”
Her death also meant a severe cut in the family income. Not only had they counted on Cheryl’s paycheck, but Dave had recently taken a sales job in which he was now relying on commissions. Although he was catching on well, his total income had taken a hit.
But Dave kept up the payments. Although he had an occasional slow month, in which the church accepted a partial payment, he often made payments in advance.
Then came the most awkward complication.
Within months, Dave received insurance benefits from a modest life insurance policy and other savings generated through Cheryl’s employment. Though we had not put down on paper that unexpected income would go to the church, Dave and Cheryl had told me and the board that they intended to do so. Several months passed as we waited for Dave to turn over these new funds.
When we felt that sufficient time had been allowed for him to adjust, the board decided he should be approached. We hoped we wouldn’t appear mercenary, though I suppose that was inevitable.
I took our new church treasurer with me. We sat down at Dave’s kitchen table and spread out all the pertinent documentation. We had a civil, but tense, discussion.
Dave confirmed that he had received life insurance funds and talked about them in some detail. But he protested when we suggested he turn over the extra funds. “I’m paying the church back even ahead of schedule.”
We acknowledged that, but countered, “We simply want to remind you of what you said earlier, that you wanted to make any extra moneys available to expedite an early payoff.”
We didn’t intend to force the issue. As we parted, Dave said, “I will make a decision in the next few days, after I’ve reviewed my financial situation and talked with my children.”
I received several phone calls over the next few days.
Dave, it turned out, was willing to make another lump-sum payment, but his kids tried to talk him out of it. His Daughter scolded me. “You’re asking too much of our father, and so close to the passing of his wife! You have no right!” She said we had no compassion and wanted to put her father “out on the street.”
I understood her anger at the way things looked. But still smarting from her accusations, I countered, “We’ve tried to deal with your father with grace from the start. If he had taken this money from anyone else, he’d probably be in prison right now.”
I explained how both her parents had assured us they wanted to repay the church as quickly as possible. She responded coolly, “I know my mother much better than you do, and I know she’d want my father to keep this money. Unless you can show me a clause in the financial agreement, he should be allowed to keep these funds for his retirement—or any other purpose he sees fit.”
We spoke a couple times more but parted disagreeing as much as ever.
This remains my biggest disappointment in the whole matter—that I couldn’t work it out more peacefully with his daughter. Nonetheless, shortly afterward, Dave made another payment of $25,000, but it still fell short of what I believe he had promised us.
We acknowledged that, but countered, “We simply want to remind you of what you said earlier, that you wanted to make any extra moneys available to expedite an early payoff.”
We didn’t intend to force the issue. As we parted, Dave said, “I will make a decision in the next few days, after I’ve reviewed my financial situation and talked with my children.”
I received several phone calls over the next few days.
Dave, it turned out, was willing to make another lump-sum payment, but his kids tried to talk him out of it. His daughter scolded me. “You’re asking too much of our father, and so close to the passing of his wife! You have no right!” She said we had no compassion and wanted to put her father “out on the street.”
New wife, old debt
Another event that could have complicated matters, actually made things easier: Dave remarried. He disclosed everything to his bride-to-be, and she took up where Cheryl had left off, encouraging him to repay the debt quickly. Within two years of their marriage, they decided to relocate to warmer climes. They sold their house and gave the church a final payment of nearly $12,000—five years ahead of schedule!
Dave and his new wife spent the last three days before their move at our house. There were tears in our eyes as we parted that morning. I thought about all that had happened and realized anew what a remarkable thing had taken place, and what a powerful thing the church of Jesus Christ can be.
Ordinary believers in an ordinary church with ordinary leaders were able to see firsthand God do the extraordinary.
The author of this article is the pastor of a church in the Midwest.
Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
