Ohio's Crossroads Church will gift $2.5 million to local, national, and international NGOs over the next five months to mark its 25th anniversary, a report says.
"We're so thankful to the city, we're so grateful for all the nonprofits that are in the city so as a result of our 25th anniversary we are going to put a little dot in between 2 and 5, giving 2.5 million dollars in the next 25 weeks," Senior Pastor and founder Brian Tome said as per WLWT5's report.
Local organization City Gospel Mission and foreign NGOs Jeevan Aadhar and Restavek Freedom will be receiving $100,000 each as the initial beneficiaries.
David Pinson of City Gospel Mission said in a statement: "There will be some tears, I can tell you that right now. I think there'll be a lot of joy and hope, hope to our staff. Hope is getting it to those people, the hurting people that we work with, because it will get around and people will know that, and that might even attract people to us as well."
According to WKRC, Crossroads announced during its morning service on Sunday that it would distribute $2.5 million to 75 local, national, and worldwide NGOs. The money will be sent in addition to the church's customary support for these organizations. Church officials will identify the recipient organizations on a weekly basis, while also announcing a $100,000 commitment to missions in Haiti and India.
"God has blessed Crossroads over the past 25 years and we don't take that lightly," said Pastor Tome. "So, we want to use what we've been given to bring positive change in the communities we serve. That means sharing our resources with partners who are doing good work. Where God is moving, we want to be investing."
According to the Christian Post, the Ohio megachurch received millions of dollars through the federal government's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) last year, along with a number of other churches around the country.
Tome said that before his church got $3.6 million in PPP loans last year, he had no idea that churches could be helped in this way.
Despite the fact that its facilities were closed from March to September, Crossroads increased employment during the pandemic, going from 371 workers when it applied for a loan in April. The additional employees boosted the church's attempts to reach out to the community.
"When you take a look at the value churches offer the social sector, it is enormous," Tome told WCPO. "I think that the government at least this time around recognized that in this emotional crisis, financial crisis, spiritual - it's a crisis of every kind of category possible - churches provide a meaningful service to the communities."
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the church was founded with the mission of "connecting seekers to a community of growing Christ followers who are changing the world." Founded in 1995 in Cincinnati, it presently has ten branches in Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, and Lexington, as well as an online platform. In 2018, the weekly attendance was reported to be 35,253.
