This last week’s heat advisory made everything thirsty, including me. It reminded me of a story of a man wandering about in the blistering desert sun about to die of thirst. He stumbled upon a ramshackle lean-to that provided a little shade. He sat down in the shade and then noticed a rusty pump close by. “Could there be a well or a cistern in this God-forsaken place?” he asked himself. He tried the pump, squeak, squeak, squeak and nothing came out. It was then that he saw an old jug buried halfway in the hot sand with a note on top that said, “You have to use all the water in this jug to prime the pump.” Excitedly, the man uncorked the top and found that the jug was almost all the way full of water. Now the decision: should he drink the water? In an agonizing moment, he poured the water into the pump to prime it. Squeak, squeak, squeak – nothing happened. He pumped some more – squeak, squeak, squeak – and a little trickle of water started coming out of the nozzle. Now he pumped harder and faster – squeak, squeak, squeak – and suddenly a flow of cool water came gushing out. He drank and drank and drank some more, then filled the jug back up glad to leave some for the next wanderer.

You can apply that story in a lot of ways, but I usually trot it out when my church has a big decision to make about how to use a limited amount of resources. The first little church I served was near death’s door when I took over as the new pastor, young and dumb and freshly out of seminary. The average age of the church was well over 70, and the two kids in the congregation were the ones I was bringing with me as my own children. The giving was just barely enough to cover the bills, but there was an elementary school sitting across the road from us. I pitched the idea of fixing up the church basement with bright colors on the wall and starting an after-school program to reach young families in our community. We’d need some books, computers, food to feed them and the like. “Pastor, we don’t have money to do that,” I was told, but that wasn’t exactly true. There was a small rainy-day fund for an unforeseen emergency that would be just enough to give us a start, and I told them the prime the pump story. I saw the skepticism, and truth be known, fear, but then one of the old-time pillars of the church said, “What have we got to lose? Let’s do it.” And so it was – we started once a week, then added more days. Kids were coming and we were meeting their parents picking them up from our program, and we started making new friends. In a couple of years, that little church doubled in average attendance, in part due to the new connections we were making through that after-school program.

Every church I have ever served felt like it didn’t have enough of something to make a go of it and do something new: not enough people, not enough time, not enough money, not enough energy. The long-learned habit was to hold onto meager resources more tightly just in case. The problem with that mode of operation is that fear is a bottomless pit, and there is never going to be enough of what you think you need if the real problem is a lack of faith. Getting people to let go of their fear and also to let go of the little that they have been holding back is a key to revitalizing a struggling organization, whether it be a church, a small business or a Fortune 500 company. In my experience, sometimes a church will do it (especially if they have reached the point of desperation). Sometimes churches have said no and held on even tighter. What I have found is that if God calls you to do something and you are obedient to do it, he will make a way for it. After all, this is the same God who told his people to walk through a sea on dry land because he would miraculously dry it up. This is the God who pried the cold fingers of death off his Son and raised him from the dead. If the stories in scripture are to be believed, then it is no big deal for God to renew a struggling church when it stops holding onto dwindling resources out of fear and starts believing for God to come through in a big way at just the right moment.

All forward movement in the Christian journey involves an increasing level of faith. That includes how you give of your resources to God, primarily through your local church. Paul put it in farming terms when he wrote to the church in Corinth: “Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” (II Corinthians 9:6) You can’t hold onto the seeds tightly in your hands and expect a decent harvest. You have to put it out and plant it for it to produce.

I believe most churches in our nation have an overabundance of caution and could use a healthy dose of faith in God when it comes to investing in new opportunities that present themselves. In those moments when faced with a decision, what do you do? What should you do? Do you drink what you have in hand, playing the long game, or do you prime the pump in the hope and faith that it will produce a life-giving flow of abundant water? You can probably figure out where I usually am on that spectrum: pour it all out trusting God for the result, and see what happens.

Derek Russell is pastor of the Hillsboro Global Methodist Church. He loves Jesus, family, dogs and football.