David Crocker’s sermon: Serving gives hope

Tom KingFarragut, Our Town Leaders

The Rev. David Crocker’s message had two themes – service and hope. And the first is what drives the second. Holocaust survivor and Nobel prize winner Elie Wiesel makes the same point: “Just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

Those of us who do volunteer work, who serve others needing help here and elsewhere, may not consider that we are giving hope to others. Crocker opened some eyes recently as he spoke to the Rotary Club of Farragut.

“When people serve others in need then a community can be changed,” the founder and leader of Operation Inasmuch said to us. “Serving others gives people hope and when people have hope they can help themselves. We need more people serving to spread hope.”

The organization he founded in 1996, based in Knoxville, is a national and global ministry. Operation Inasmuch has equipped more than 2,200 churches and other groups in 25 states and four countries to mobilize their members to serve people in need in their communities. His passion for serving is infectious and his skill at equipping others to serve is unrivaled.

His just released his third book – “Compassionaries: Unleash the Power of Serving” – and it is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. He is the ultimate “compassionary.”

He founded Operation Inasmuch after serving several years as senior pastor of Central Baptist Church of Fountain City. He’s also been a trustee of Carson-Newman University and is a former Rotarian in North Knox Rotary.

In this world we live in today, his words take on additional meaning. “Our need to serve is not going to go away anytime soon. The need only multiplies. We have lots of challenges today. Serving gives you the ability to make a powerful difference,” he said.

“A powerful difference. And I know your worldwide motto as Rotarians is ‘Service Above Self’ and those are three powerful words.”

Last June, 950 volunteers from 56 churches and 44 other organizations worked four shifts to pack 277,500 relief packages of food to help the people in Ukraine within a 24-hour period. That’s just one example of his organization’s power and reach. And the Ukraine war continues.

Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia and is a past president of the Rotary Club of Farragut. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *