Wow, this Youth Worker Christmas Fund Giveaway was so incredibly fun! It truly is better to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), and definitely way more satisfying!

The irony of this giveaway is that the idea for it stemmed out of a church who anonymously gave me and my wife a large check last year at Christmas time right when I lost my job as the youth pastor at our church. That check paid for all of my son’s delivery hospital bills right when we really needed it.

This year, the winner of the giveaway is also a youth worker who recently lost his job a few weeks before Christmas and is feeling the financial burden of a family, mortgage, and dental bills.

This was huge!

This giveaway grew to be much bigger than I ever anticipated! With 3,028 voters accounting for 4,695 total votes from across 40 different countries sending 13,150 hits to the voting page, it was definitely a crazy ride.

A huge thank you to all of you for giving to the Youth Worker Christmas Fund and thereby to with winner, Joshua Johnson. You guys purchased my ebook, Focused Youth Ministry, and bought cool watches from IWontWatch.com, growing this fund to an even $2,000.00! Suh-weet!

Also, a huge thank you to Simply Youth Ministry for sponsoring this along with IWontWatch.com! There’s no way we could’ve blessed Joshua Johnson with $2,000 without their support and contributions. Both of these organizations gave money without a second thought because they truly love youth workers.

I’m already thinking of ways to grow the fund even larger throughout the course of the year so together we can bless several youth workers in financial need next Christmas. If you have ideas for how to do this, please let me know!

My surprise phone call with Joshua Johnson

Yesterday I called the winner, Joshua Johnson, on the phone to officially let him know that he’s the winner. Listen to our conversation below. There’s some really cool things in this conversation.

Posted on December 22, 2011