A Tennessee high schooler recently got an answer to his prayers in the most unexpected way.
Carl Smith had been attending The Altar Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Johnson City, Tennessee, by himself for a while, and was desperate for an opportunity to share the Gospel with his parents. That opportunity came when his dad received a letter from the church in the mail.
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“[My dad] had some medical bills that we were just struggling to pay off,” the teenager recalled in a recent interview. “And he came to my room and was like, ‘Hey, The Altar, your church, just paid off all my medical debt.’”
The financial relief was huge blessing to the Smith family and it even opened the door for the high schooler to share more Good News.
“[Carl’s dad] was just really confounded by that,” The Altar Pastor Mattie Montgomery said. “He thought, ’Why did they do this?’ And his son got the opportunity to share the Gospel with his father because of the giving of the church.”
The father was just one of thousands of community members to have their medical debt paid off after the church was able to purchase the medical debt of 3,921 households in seven Tennessee counties. The debt totaled more than $8 million, but with the help of the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, they were able to negotiate the cost and purchase all of it for $50,000.
“Essentially, we became the collection agency for $8 million of medical debt,” Pastor Montgomery said. “And then instead of pursuing it any further, we just sent a letter to everyone whose debt we had taken, and we just said, ’Hey, Jesus loves you, we love you. And it’s our privilege to cancel this debt entirely.’”
The church was able to raise the $50,000 in a single offering with everyone contributing — even young Carl, who had no idea of his own father’s medical debt at the time.
“I only had a couple dollars in my pocket, but I knew that everything counted so I gave the most I could,” he said.
“This is just a beautiful example of what Jesus did for all of us by just paying the debt for people that many will never meet,” Missons Pastor David Morrison explained. “And what a relief of a burden to get that letter in the mail saying ‘Your debt is forgiven… and we love you.”
As of now, The Altar has no plans to do something like this again, but Pastor Montogomery hopes that the whole community will be inspired by the privilege and joy of giving, and that the Church at large will be known among the nations for generously helping those in need.
“We want extravagant generosity to be one of the things that the church is known for. And I don’t just mean our church, The Altar Fellowship; I mean the Church nationally and internationally,” Pastor Montogomery said. “I want people to know that, in a moment of crisis, the place they need to get to is to be with a group of people who follow Jesus… That’s my hope: that the Church can be the hands, feet, and wallet of Jesus to the world around us.”
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Marissa Mayer is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her work has been featured in Christian Post, The Daily Signal, and Intellectual Takeout. Mayer has a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Arizona State University.
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