WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Church gives free gas cards to visitors

Church gives free gas cards to visitors

IRMO, SC (WIS) - A Midlands church is offering free gas cards to first-time visitors.
    
The pastor of the church says she hopes the offer will help people realize there is a different kind of fuel you can fill up on in this recession.

Church on Sunday means time to sing and dance out at ATC Life Changing Ministries in Irmo. But Sunday, the church was trying something a little different. They were giving away gas cards to first-time visitors.

That came as a pleasant surprise to Donna Coleman.

"I did not know, I did not know about the free gas card," says Coleman.

Donna says the card came at a perfect time. "With today's economy, this gas card will really be beneficial to me," she says.

"We want people to know that just because the economic system is the way it is right now does not mean that all is lost," says Pastor Gert Thompson.

While free gas may seem like an unusual way to get people into the pews, Thompson says she hopes the visitors won't just take away the free gas card. She hopes they'll take away a message.

"We want to free their minds of being worried about how they are going to survive because God is really the one that is going to provide for them," she says.

Thompson wants people to know that just like gas fills up your car, God's word fills up your soul.

"Because God is really our provider," Thompson says.

Donna got her fill of both.

"I think that the way the economy is today is God's trying to get our attention. Because a lot of us do need God, but we depend on other things when we really should be depending on him," says Coleman.

The pastor says the church will still be giving out free gas cards next Sunday to first-time visitors as well, until they run out.

Reported by Jackie Faye

Posted by Logan Smith