Hawk Creek Baptist Church - "real change" Rev. Trevor K Barton, Pastor

Winter storms, the Super Bowl, loss of power and heat, yet somehow folks survive, laugh, and press on. Not sure if you wonder about things like I do, but I do wonder about things, people and even events. At Christmas I witnessed a” multi experience event”. It included people watching (me just watching people do what they were doing), people observing (me thinking about people and their actions as I looked on), people doing stuff (watching those with specific task to perform), and people experiencing (seeing people receive something, people being served freely by others).
This “multi experience event” creates wonder because in life we question why people do what they do. Many people doing something because they want something in return, and when you observe or witness the opposite of that it just creates wonder. I wondered on Christmas Day. We all know this is a family day and you are suppose to do nothing except be with your family, right? I would venture to say most of us have been trained that way, so when you see folks give up that day to the benefit of others, including people they don’t even know, that creates wonder. My wonder involved see hundreds of people volunteer to buy gifts including shoes, jackets, and toys. It involved seeing those presents all wrapped and prepared especially with a particular family or children in mind. I can’t help but wonder because most people would only spend that kind of time wrapping gifts perfectly for their family, not some family you don’t know, right?
I observed invited guest being greeted by people outside in the parking lot as they arrived, walked with and talked to as they made their way to the registration table where more friendliness and genuine hello’s and how are you were exchanged. Sure, there was wonder on some of the folks experiencing this too, wondering, like I was. Watching people eat is always interesting, because of our individual habits and such. Yet watching people serve those that eat is even more interesting. Many folks who serve others are not really happy about doing it. We’ve all had those experiences where it was a moment like, please don’t ask me for something else, just be gone, I’ve got better stuff to be doing, right? Well, my witness was such that these folks really wanted to help. They really wanted to serve, it was so obvious because of their actions to really go out of their way to help by refilling a drink, getting a desert, carrying an extra plate to the table, or the real test was in cleaning up a spill or an accident that can be so embarrassing out in public.
The set up for my “multi experience event” took months. I can understand easy enough if people throw something together at the last minute to help folks out, be nice or kind because of a guilty feeling, but to plan something months in advance, to make strategic arrangements to get folks there, to organize hundreds who are donating to prepare, cook and serve creates quite a bit of wonder as to what they are thinking devoting such long hours totally behind the public scene without recognition, because we all assume people are selfish, right?
Witnessing and watching people will create questions in life and the key to understanding all of the aspects one will see through the experiences of life is to be open enough to not add our personal assumptions, and experiences, but rather to allow something real to happen, just witnessing that moment and allowing the wonder to answer that question itself.
On Christmas Day I saw people who attended, were members, and even those that were not members or attendees of the Hawk Creek Baptist Church serve over a 1000 people a great meal of ham, turkey and all the fixings, providing gifts for the families that gathered and making a real difference by being genuine in their actions to show the real meaning of the Christmas Season. It was a “multi experience event” that did cause me to question and wonder, as I saw everyday folks doing for others. If it had been a pastor directed or a church staff led event I could have understood that easy enough, but it wasn’t, it was the people that were the leaders and not the leaders leading the people, and that’s different.
Seeing people give and do in the name of Jesus Christ because they have truly experienced a change in their life is moving. Attempting to understand their actions because of the forgiveness and love they received from Jesus is a touching moment indeed and it does create wonder. The wonder is why more people don’t say yes to Jesus as the answer, because He really does create change. Change in people is what Jesus is all about and Christmas 2008 was a “multi experience event” and real change is something that happens inside but is clearly witnessed through actions on the outside.

Until then