Stephen
Terry, Director
Love-driven
Ministry
Commentary
for the August 29, 2026, Sabbath School Lesson
"Unlike so many, we do not peddle the
word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with
sincerity, as those sent from God." 2 Corinthians 2:17
This ministry, Still Waters
Ministry, was begun in 1997 as a small, internet bulletin board ministry. As I
learned HTML programming and experimented with different animations and links
to add content, others with more experience ridiculed those efforts as amateurish
and simplistic. However, as the decades passed and my programming skills
improved, the ministry has grown to have a digital presence in 150 countries
with over 160,000 visitors annually to view the content, listen to the
podcasts, access links to various resources, make prayer requests, and
subscribe to weekly e-mails all for free.
I was in the pastoral ministry
in the Midwest when my wife, Shirley, developed Multiple Sclerosis. With a small child
less than a year old and a disabled wife, I was needed in the home to fill in
as needed and I resigned my pastoral position to care for them. I had been
assigned to a three-church district that meant lots of travel that would have prevented
me from being home for them.
After leaving the pastorate, we
resettled in Eastern Washington State where a more favorable climate could potentially
slow the progression of the Multiple Sclerosis. Initially, we were supported in
the Davenport area by my wife's family, and I found work in Grand Coulee
setting up mobile homes. We relocated to the nearby small community of Electric
City, so I could be nearer work. When the bottom fell out of the housing
market, I was laid off and worked as a dishwasher in a local restaurant until I
was hired as advertising sales manager for a local radio station. This allowed
us to purchase a used, but recently new, mobile home. We had been renting a
house with rotted out flooring and a defective electrical panel before that.
Now we were still renting a space, but the home was ours. We felt blessed that
step by step things were gradually improving. But because of the advertising
contracts I had been signing with local businesses on behalf of the radio station,
the couple who owned the station decided it would be the perfect time to sell
the business and make a profit. They did, and the new owners had their own family
crew, so I was out of work.
We fell behind on space rent at
the Coulee Dam Mobile Home Park even though I earned a little traveling for
speaking engagements at churches around the conference and delivering wholesale
candy for high school sports events and food for restaurants in the area. Major
wholesalers would not stop to deliver for these small mom and pop restaurants,
so they had to close for a day each week to make trips into Spokane to restock.
I was able to step in and do that for them so they could remain open and make a
profit on those days while still getting the supplies they needed. Still, it
was not enough to cover the rent, and I fell behind by $800 which was a lot in
1983. A member of one of the churches I spoke at paid off the rent anonymously even
though I had never mentioned the need.[i]
When they decided to build a
third power plant at Grand Coulee Dam, the federal government decided the
mobile home park would need to close as the additional water flow threatened
its stability. Since we were momentarily current in our space rent, they would
pay to move us, and we were relocated to Spokane where there were better work
opportunities. After relocating I ended up working for the state which provided
a stable income and adequate medical insurance for my wife's care. It also
allowed us to enroll our son in parochial school because we were now where such
schooling was available and had the means to pay for it. While church members
constantly debate the pros and cons of such schools, it provided a foundation
for our son to matriculate to a prestigious university and earn a master's in
architecture, eventually becoming a principle in an esteemed architectural
firm.
While my wife, with some difficulty
due to her illness, was able to attend our son's 12th grade graduation
at Upper Columbia Academy, her health had deteriorated to the point she could
not attend his later graduation from Tulane. A friend from work who was a nurse
volunteered to stay with her so I could attend. It was a time of joy mingled
with sadness: joy to see my son reaching a major milestone, the first in our
family to receive a postgraduate degree, and sadness that his mother was
reaching the end stages of her disease. Her death broke us both in ways that
linger still. Even though we both realized its inevitability, death is still an
enemy to us all.
I share all of this as background
to understand the reasons behind Still Waters Ministry. I felt a calling to
ministry from a young age, before I knew of the Seventh-day Adventist
denomination I now belong to. This had a lot to do with my attending Walla
Walla College and majoring in both Theology and Biblical Languages. The
pastoral ministry seemed to be my destiny. When I resigned from that career, I
struggled over whether that calling was where I was meant to be. The local
church continually tried to confirm those pastoral leanings. I was made local
elder, school board chair, church board chair, and was often sent to fill in
with speaking assignments when churches were between pastors. But while the local
church and sometimes the conference made use of whatever talents they felt I
had, these various assignments also reminded me that I was no longer the pastor
I had once felt called to be.
It was shortly after we moved to
Spokane and my income had stabilized that I discovered personal computers
through work. The first time I encountered one, I pushed a button that brought
up what was called the "C Prompt" that looks like "C:>". I could not get it
to do anything else and thought I had broken it. So, I stayed late to learn
what I had done and how to fix it. I joined an IBM PC Users Group and learned
basic programming and how to install and run software. Eventually, I progressed
to running my own internet bulletin board service where I learned and used HyperText
Markup Language (HTML), Assembler, and Advanced Basic programming languages to
create programs that would become the foundation for Still Waters Ministry.
This was a ministry that I could pursue while remaining at home to care for my
wife as her condition deteriorated. Ironically, it turned out to be the foundation
of the ministry I continue to operate as my old age has brought about my own
age-related loss of mobility and crumbling of my physical abilities.
At this point, I want to mention
the uniqueness of this ministry. As I have watched ministries come and go, I
have noticed that part of that process includes begging. A ministry no sooner
establishes itself than it begins begging for handouts. Some call it tithes.
Some call it offerings. Some call it love gifts. But it all amounts to the same
thing. It strongly suggests that the ministry cannot survive without a river of
gold flowing into the denomination begging for those offerings. In many cases
it is crass manipulation. God will not bless you unless you give money. You
cannot expect to go to heaven if money is not forthcoming from your earnings.
Such fear-based manipulation continues because it works, but gifts given out of
fear have little to do with love. Worse still, it presents us with an
impoverished God who cannot support his own work. It is also ironic that God buries
gold so deeply in the earth if he needs it so desperately.
During the growth of Still Waters
Ministry, people would offer financial support and
this caused me to find other models of ministry in the Bible. One passage that I
remembered being the inspiration for a children's song at a local Baptist
church I attended as a child. "He owns the cattle on a thousand hills" the song
told us, reminding us of God's limitless wealth. The passage reads "I have no
need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of
the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in
the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine." (Psalm 50:9-11) But
this raised the question, if God is so wealthy, why are his servants always
begging for money, and why are they manipulating people through fear to get it?
Much of this money goes for two
primary purposes. 1) It goes to pay a clerical class who have no other means of
support. 2) It goes to purchase, build, and maintain an enormous global real
property presence. While strong arguments may be made to keep the offerings
flowing for these purposes, it does not mean there are no other models of
ministry in the Bible. In the Old Testament, we have the model of Naaman the
leper offering Elisha gold and other valuable gifts to thank him for curing him
of leprosy. (2
Kings 5) The prophet Elisha refused those gifts, implying God's mercy and
compassion cannot be bought. But his servant Gehazi followed after Naaman and
begged him for gifts, and he became cursed with the leprosy that God had healed
in Naaman. Elisha glorified God and his compassionate character, while Gehazi
diminished God, making him look as though he was unable to care for his own.
In the New Testament, we find the
example of Paul's ministry. While Paul was an evangelist for Christ, he was
also a tentmaker, sharing this trade with Aquila and Priscilla. This allowed
him to carry the gospel throughout Anatolia and Greece without begging for
support or being a burden to the fledgling churches. When the elders from
Ephesus met Paul in Miletus, he said to them, "I have not coveted anyone's
silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have
supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions." (Acts 20:33-34)
Following Paul's example, from
its inception, Still Waters Ministry, does not accept gifts, donations, or tithes.
The only thing we covet is the prayers of those who see value in this ministry.
On the rare occasions, when supporters have sent us donations, we send the
money back, no matter whether the gift is sizable or small,
with a cover letter explaining that God is well able to support his work and
has been doing so for us since 1997. As the psalmist said, "I was young and now
I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children
begging bread." (Psalm 37:25) What is more love driven, a ministry that burdens
its flock with constant begging for money, or a ministry that is
self-supporting and needs nothing because God has provided everything, not
according to their desires, but according to need?