One of my favorite outreaches we do every year at First Baptist Church is our partnership with Anchor House, Healthy Jackson County, and numerous area churches, schools, and businesses to provide over 200 food baskets for families at Thanksgiving. Over the course of several weeks, food is collected at various locations across Jackson County. All of the items are eventually transported to First Baptist Church, where they are counted and organized in preparation for packaging.
On the Sunday night before distribution, volunteers gather at the church to assemble all of the baskets. The process is fairly simple. A volunteer takes a basket and walks around a classroom, collecting the prescribed number of each item, placing them into their basket, and then takes that basket to the Fellowship Hall. They then return to the classroom and repeat the process again and again until all of the baskets are complete. It takes a small army of happy helpers to complete the process and our volunteers have included men, women, and children ranging in age from 8 to 80 with a wide variety of experience and ability.
A few years ago, I arrived a little bit late to the party. I was amazed at both the number of volunteers and the efficiency of their efforts. Rather than jumping in to help, I pulled out my cell phone and began snapping pictures to share later. I watched as one young lady, the youngest of all the volunteers present, seemingly ran circles around everyone else. She must have been packing two baskets to everyone else’s one.
As she began to make another pass with yet another basket, I picked up my phone to snap a picture of her. By the time I looked at my screen, she had placed her basket on the floor and was staring at me with her hands on her hips and her head tilted ever so slightly to one side. Straight faced and serious as a heart-attack, she asked me, “Dr. J, are you actually going to pick up a basket and help or are you just going to play on your phone all night?!” Her mother was mortified, but I couldn’t have been more proud of her. Here was a young lady who saw an important task that needed to be done for the good of others; a young lady who was putting her all into making sure the job got done; a young lady who was willing to call out an able bodied individual who, in her view, was standing idly by, even if it was an authority figure.
I think about that interaction often. The words and boldness of that young lady that night continue to encourage and challenge me. As it says in Isaiah 11:6: “…and a child will lead them.” Her words were wise beyond her years and are a message that we all need to remember.
The efforts of local churches and other not-for-profit philanthropic agencies rely heavily upon assistance provided by volunteers. Without the contribution of time, talent, and treasure from members, partners, and the community at large, the ministry and work of churches like FBC and organizations like the Anchor House could and would not happen.
Talk is cheap; involvement is expensive. It’s easy to offer opinions as we look out at what is or is not happening in our community from behind the safety of a screen. It costs nothing to type all of our critical coulda, shoulda, woulda’s from the comfort of our own couches. It’s much more difficult to put our money where our mouths are by offering our physical abilities and financial resources through acts of sacrifice and service.
I offer you the same challenge posed to me by a young prophetess at FBC a few years back; put down the phone (or whatever it is that is distracting you or keeping you at a distance) and pick up a proverbial basket and find someplace to serve in our community. We certainly can find somewhere for you to serve here at FBC and the Alley, but we can also connect you with one of our amazing partners out in the community. You have something to offer and your involvement and investment is much needed. Are you actually going to help or are you content playing the game?
