BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

David Sr. shared with the family what God had said to him, and young David jumped on board. Along with the rest of the family, he scoured the ground for coins to send to KCM. He and his little brother collected and sold empty soda bottles. Some days his dad sent a dollar from the offerings he received when he preached. Some days he mailed the coins they’d found in the dirt. But every day, David Crank Sr. mailed a dollar to KCM. Many nights they drove around a strange town looking for a post office before midnight. After 40 days of giving $1 a day, the Lord told David Sr. to increase his giving to $2 a day. The family had been in Salem, Mo., when the pastor of the church said, “Brother Crank, you won’t believe what’s happened! Someone put a $100 bill in your offering!” He had never even seen a $100 bill. But that wasn’t all. There were five crisp $100 bills and another $311.46 in smaller bills and change. Soon, those types of offerings became common. God surprised them with checks in the mail. People brought bags of groceries and left hundreds of dollars as surprises. Someone bought them a car, and God helped them buy a house. Then, Nov. 4, 1976, the Lord spoke again. 'I want you to give KCM $10,000.' “David, that can’t be God,” his wife had insisted. “We’ve never even seen that much money.” “He knows we don’t have $10,000,” David Sr. had explained. “He wants us to give it by faith.” The family held hands and prayed: “Father, today by faith we give Kenneth Copeland $10,000 in Jesus’ Name.” Then David Sr. sat down and made a payment sheet with a place for each amount given and the resulting new balance, so they could keep track of their giving. A few minutes later, someone knocked on the door of their travel trailer. “Hello,” the man said. “I was praying and the Lord told me to give you this.” He handed them a check for $500 and walked away. That day, David Sr. mailed $502 to KCM. Blessings abounded to them in amazing ways, and by the end of that year he was giving $5 a day and had made a huge dent in the $10,000. In 1980, David Sr. started a church. From the day it opened its doors, the church gave $1 a day to KCM. From his personal account, David Sr. was giving $17 a day…then $18…then $20. By the mid-1980s, he was sending $25 a day—$750 a month. For 20 years, David Crank Sr. remained consistent and obedient to God’s instruction to mail an offering to KCM every day. In 1996, the Lord allowed him to switch to sending a weekly gift. By that time, David Sr. had been the pastor of Faith Christian Ministries Church in St. Louis and had a television ministry. He owned a beautiful new home and God had given him a third son. The blessings of God had overwhelmed him. And now it was over. In an unexpected turn of events, David Crank Sr. had died. He was only 57. Unsure how to process the loss, David Jr. had one question. Why? The Next Generation “I was stunned by my father’s death at such a young age,” David remembers. “Brother Copeland heard that he’d died and asked me to go to the Branson Victory Campaign. I went and he said, ‘Your dad died at 57—but don’t question it. In Deuteronomy 29:29 the Bible says that the secret things belong to the Lord our God. This is one of those secret things. Let go of your questions and do this—expect great things.’ “That helped set me free. I released all my questions and just trusted God. Still, I hadn’t expected to take over his ministry for years to come. How could I begin to live up to his legacy? “When I stepped into the pulpit, I tried to be like Dad. I wore a nice suit, dress shirt and tie. It felt awful—like David trying to wear armor that didn’t fit him. One Sunday I ditched the coat. Another Sunday I ditched the tie. Eventually I stood in the pulpit in jeans. Before long I was preaching on bouncing back from adversity while jumping on a trampoline. “I loved my dad. I respected him. But I couldn’t be him. Somehow I had to find my style and be true to myself. The amazing thing was that the church started growing. Pretty soon we had 200 members…then 300. “As I pondered our differences, it occurred to me that Dad had spent most of his adult life breaking out of a poverty mentality. But I never had a poverty mentality. I didn’t even know we were poor until years later. My earliest memories involved sitting in that little travel trailer and listening to messages on faith by Kenneth Copeland. Dad had hundreds of things to unlearn, but I didn’t. “As time passed and the church exploded in growth, I realized that I had a whole different paradigm than my dad. Because of the way I was raised, faith was as easy to me as breathing. I knew I was standing on his shoulders. I’d watched him sow financially into KCM for years. Because of that, I had the wisdom to stay connected to KCM.” Childlike Faith As a child, one of David’s first faith prayer projects had been a bicycle. He could see it in his mind’s eye. The bike was orange. It had high handlebars with streamers and a banana seat. 12 : BVOV

• Cover