The Power of an Invitation

An invitation.

It seems simple and is often overlooked, but to 11-year-old Stacy and her dad, Donald, the small gesture of an invitation provided enough strength to transform a life.

We first met Stacy and Donald during the River’s Spring Sharathon. Through our phone conversation we heard their amazing story.

When Stacy learned her best friend, Shay, was getting baptized at her church she couldn’t wait to be there. Since her dad wasn’t attending church at the time, and hadn’t been for a while, she also felt this was a great opportunity to invite him to go with her.

Stacy began asking her dad daily, and he continued putting it off as long as possible. “Each day I would come up with a different excuse saying ‘let’s just see how our day goes,’” Donald told us. He hadn’t been in a good place for a long time, getting distracted and discouraged in his faith, it proved to be difficult to get him back in a church.

It was the day of the baptism and Stacy tried one last time. “There comes a time, when you just can’t say no to your little girl.” Donald agreed to go.

“The music, the whole experience of the baptism, was a beautiful thing. And it just so happened that 104.9 the River was mentioned during the service … I had seen the station advertised on billboards around Columbus previously, so afterwards I decided to turn the dial and ever since then it’s been a preset.”

To Donald, that single invitation from his daughter changed his life. He’s being encouraged and has a different, positive outlook on life, and it shows. Especially to his daughter!

We know that here in Central Ohio there are many others that need that simple, yet powerful invitation. You never know how inviting someone to listen The River could be that critical first step in introducing them to Jesus.