"God made that half-court shot."
A California pastor said that was what happened when he hit a 47-foot jump shot at a recent Sacramento Kings basketball game, a feat that won him a 2016 Ford Focus.
Pastor Joseph Sissac of the Center for Praise is now raffling his prize to help raise money for his ministry's outreach programmes for the needy, CBN News reports.
"I don't believe that this was my skills that made this happen," Sissac told The Sacramento Bee. "I think God had his hand on it."
"Once the ball left my hands it felt good, it looked good. And literally all that went through my head was 'don't fall short, don't be an airball,'" he told CBN News.
The pastor and his wife were told to go to a local dealership to pick up their prize but they had second thoughts once they arrived there.
"Honestly we didn't have peace as we looked at everything," Sissac said. He says they told the dealership "we want to go home and pray about this."
The next morning, he and his wife woke up thinking the same thing—what God told them to do.
"God said it was a seed and to raffle the car off so we could raise funds for these programmes," Sissac said.
The couple said they will use the money raised from the raffle of the car to support two of their ministry's programmes — "Hoops to Hope" and the Center of Praise math camps.
Hoops to Hope focuses on education, homelessness, and human trafficking while the Center For Praise is a math tutoring programme started by Sissac's own congregation.
"This is really an opportunity to be a blessing to others and I believe others are seeing that," said Sissac.
Sissac says he considers it a great blessing to heed God's call to raffle off the car, adding that this has also inspired others in the community to be a blessing to others.
"I've had several people tell me I'm buying my ticket and if I win I want to raffle it off, too," Sissac said. "People are saying, 'hey I've got some opportunities that I could be a blessing as well."
Sissac is now affectionately dubbed "The Half Court Pastor" by his congregation. However, he said he does not want the spotlight, only the opportunity to help others.
"This is a city on the hill moment. We are shining together as a church and our community can see it," said Sissac. "Let's make sure they are seeing the character of Christ and the light and love of God in us so that they will be drawn to Christ as well."
