What Happens To All Those Scriptures?

We recently received this testimony of how a Gideon-placed Scripture touched the life of a young boy whom God would use to touch the lives of so many others.

For more than 20 years, Pastor Danny Sinquefield has served as pastor of Faith Baptist in Bartlett, Tennessee. It is one of the state’s largest churches. He is a past president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Under his pastoral leadership, Faith Baptist church has planted new churches and sent missionaries around the world.

For this pastor, it all started with a single Gideon-placed New Testament. Here is his encouraging testimony.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Our family was not connected to a local church. We lived in a neighborhood that had a Baptist Church nearby, but we never attended there and as far as I know, they never invited us. My dad was a functional alcoholic. Although he held a job and worked hard every day, his addiction added tremendous stress and trauma in our family. The only time we heard God’s name in the house, it was likely preceding a curse word. As the youngest of five siblings, I remember well the tension and the terror on those occasions.

While attending elementary school in the 5th grade, our teacher introduced a guest one day in the classroom. He identified himself as a Gideon and his purpose was to give each student a gift of a New Testament. It was my very first copy of God’s Word. Our teacher must have been a believer. She made a class assignment to read certain sections of the New Testament and to memorize the 23rd Psalm. To this day, I remember reading and memorizing those beautiful words for the first time.

In God’s plan, that one New Testament would plant the Gospel seeds in a 12-year-old boy’s heart that would soon grow into a harvest. The summer following my 5th grade year, I was invited to attend a youth camp sponsored by a Baptist Church. It was there that I would respond to God’s call of salvation. I soon found myself involved in a local church’s youth group and was baptized as a member. Soon, the Lord would call me into ministry during my high school days.

Upon preaching my first sermon in “big church” as a 15 year-old, my Dad also responded to the Gospel and surrendered his life to Christ. The dynamic of our family completely changed.

It all started with a faithful Gideon sharing God’s Word with a class of young students in a public school setting. I don’t know his name, but I will be forever grateful for his outreach and for those who continue serving in this wonderful ministry of sharing God’s Word. That dear man could never have known how his gift would impact my life, our family, and beyond.

Forever grateful,

Danny Sinquefield