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This 200-Person Church Just Wiped Out $2.2 Million in Medical Debt

Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem is split down the middle on politics. On medical bills, the whole congregation agreed.

July 27, 2026 · 4 min read · Kingdom Kutz Media Newsroom

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Rev. John Jackman has raised money for church roofs, mission trips, and building funds across four decades of ministry. None of it came close to how easy this was.

"This is the easiest money I've ever raised," Jackman told KFF Health News. All he does, he says, is explain the campaign once and let people write the check themselves.

What he's telling them about is the Debt Jubilee Project, a campaign Trinity Moravian Church started four years ago that has now retired $2.2 million in medical debt for families across Winston-Salem, North Carolina, most of whom the roughly 200-member congregation will never meet. The idea started small, during the pandemic, when parishioners kept coming to Jackman with hospital bills they had no way to pay. He couldn't cover every bill himself, so he asked the whole church to help instead.

How Does a Church Buy Away Someone Else's Medical Bill?

The math sounds almost too simple to work, but it's how debt collection actually operates. Hospitals and collection agencies sell old unpaid medical bills in bulk for pennies on the dollar, because they've already written the debt off as unlikely to ever get paid. Trinity partners with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, which buys those bundles and cancels them outright, no strings attached, no bill in the mail. A single donated dollar can retire roughly one hundred dollars of someone else's debt.

Trinity's first attempt in 2022 set a modest goal of $5,000. The congregation hit it in six weeks and ended up retiring half a million dollars in debt for their first jubilee. Eight campaigns later, the most recent round raised more than $17,000 and canceled bills for 1,631 people at once, according to North Carolina Health News.

And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you.Leviticus 25:10 (KJV)

Jackman named the project after that verse on purpose. The Old Testament jubilee year canceled debts and returned land to families who had lost it, a reset built directly into the law. Trinity can't reset the whole system, but every check gets one more family closer to the kind of relief Scripture pictured three thousand years ago.

How Does a Politically Divided Church Agree on Anything?

Trinity's 200 members do not agree on much politically. Conservative Republicans sit next to liberal Democrats. Some backed President Trump in the last election, others have spent years opposing him. Member Catherine Coe, a hospital accounting worker and Trump voter, says medical debt simply doesn't split along party lines the way most issues do.

Terri Mabe, a 70-year-old former construction worker who leans politically liberal, describes the same fear from the other side of the aisle: one bad diagnosis and a family can owe thousands overnight. Paul Sluder, a former credit union worker who avoids picking a political side at all, says the reason nobody in the pews argues about this cause is simple. In his view, the system itself is broken, regardless of who's in office.

Why This Story Matters Beyond One Church

Medical debt touches nearly everyone in America whether they vote red, blue, or not at all. Roughly 100 million U.S. adults carry some form of healthcare debt, and more than half of American adults report having faced it at some point in their lives. A recent survey found more than 75 percent of both Republicans and Democrats oppose wage garnishment over unpaid medical bills, one of the rare issues where the country's divided politics actually line up.

Trinity's example has already spread. Other congregations across North Carolina have launched their own debt jubilees, and the movement has helped push state officials to take a harder look at medical debt policy, as first reported by NPR. None of it required a bigger budget or a louder pulpit. It just took a pastor willing to ask, and a congregation willing to write a check for people they will never meet.

It's a small church in a former mill town, wiping out debt for strangers, proving that the oldest solution in Scripture still works in a country that agrees on almost nothing else.

Key Takeaways

• Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has retired $2.2 million in medical debt for local families through its Debt Jubilee Project since 2022.
• The roughly 200-member congregation is politically split between conservatives and liberals, Trump supporters and critics, yet unites around this single cause.
• The church partners with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, which buys unpaid medical bills for pennies on the dollar and cancels them outright.
• The most recent campaign raised more than $17,000 and canceled debt for 1,631 people in a single jubilee.
• Pastor John Jackman named the project after Leviticus 25's jubilee year, when debts were canceled and land was restored to families every fifty years.
• Roughly 100 million U.S. adults carry medical debt, and more than 75 percent of both Republicans and Democrats oppose wage garnishment for unpaid medical bills.

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