It was an unpleasant announcement for Pastor Bertrand Crabbe to make to his congregation at True North Community Church in Port Jefferson Station. The group had outgrown its home on Terryville Road and would soon have to take up a nomadic existence for the foreseeable future - holding services out of rented ballrooms or school gyms.

"Unless God drops a million on us, we're going to have to rent a facility somewhere," he recalled joking from the pulpit yesterday.

He never thought that one of the congregation members would take it as a suggestion.

Weeks later, an anonymous member donated the entire jackpot prize of a Ba-Da Bling scratch-off lottery ticket, worth $3 million, the New York Lottery announced yesterday at Eldorado Southern Grille in Port Jefferson Station. The church will receive $150,000 a year, minus taxes, for 20 years. Because True North, a nondenominational Christian church with 650 members, is a nonprofit, the church can file for refund claims for a portion or all of the taxes withheld by the lottery.

"I was stunned," Crabbe said of receiving the donation. "I was in disbelief, but I was immediately very excited, because I could tell that this person was serious."

Crabbe said that only he and his wife, Jennifer, know the identity of the donor, whose only stipulation was anonymity. The donor bought the $10 ticket in Middle Island on July 19 and told Crabbe the same day. The congregation's 12-member leadership board spent the next week deciding what to do.

Eventually, they decided, "we're giving that whole first year away," said Melissa Joles, of the church planning team.

The bulk of the first-year money, $102,225 after taxes, would go to Love', a New Haven-based charity that looks to end child sex trafficking. The Lighthouse Mission in Patchogue, which feeds the poor, and Prodigal House in Port Jefferson Station, a halfway home for boys, will also get donations. After that, the church has promised to tithe at least 20 percent of the earnings and use the rest for a bigger meeting place.

Because the church only holds a maximum of 210 people, it has four services every Sunday and is looking to add another.

True North plans to rent space for a little while, Crabbe said, "but [the money] will help. It might even help us find a permanent place."

The reaction from the congregation, he said, was subdued for the first few seconds. "There was stunned silence and scattered applause," Crabbe said, "until they realized I wasn't kidding."

And as for speculation that the mystery donor was either him or fellow pastor Mike Brennan, Crabbe said no way.

"I'd give a lot of it to the church, but not all of it," Crabbe said. "This is a rare, remarkable, generous person."

And if not him, who?

"Sorry," he said with a wide grin. "Can't help you."

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