By Kristen Burkhart
Dec. 2, 2016
It's Advent, right? The season of hope and waiting.
What happens when a crisis hits so big that not one person alone can solve it, so big that it affects a community or a mountain of people?
We send those who are trained first. We pray for their families and assist them if we can. We help the families with pick-ups and drop-offs and take food.
We wait and pray to do more. We don’t do nothing, but pray and prepare.
Get your house in order and your jobs done so that when you can help -- when help is called in to clean up the disaster – you will be ready to serve.
Collect items needed. Pray, wait, and prepare you and your family to serve.
The United Methodist Church has disaster-relief response teams, and I look forward to hearing from them and helping guide the congregation I serve and my family in a prayerful response to the fires around us.
If we can wait for the coming of Christ this Advent season and prepare our homes, churches, and communities, we can wait and prepare to serve as Christ's hand in a crisis to our brothers and sisters in need.
The Rev. Kristen Burkhart is pastor at Panther Springs United Methodist Church in Morristown, Tenn.
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