Following the story of Sarah Williamson is challenging, but I have settled on the perfect individual to write about this Labor Day. Hayes Barton Baptist Church has in our midst not only another member of the Raleigh Hall of Fame; we have someone who has a work history that spans more than seventy years. If that isn’t laboring, I don’t know what is. Happy Labor Day!
Today’s story is about G. Wesley Williams. Like Sarah Williamson, Wesley is a member of the Raleigh Hall of Fame. And like Sarah, Wesley has been an important part of Raleigh’s history. As the 2008 Raleigh Hall of Fame program says about Wesley:
“There may be no other citizen in Raleigh who has spent as many years devoted to community service as G. Wesley Williams, the former head of the Raleigh Merchants Association. Starting with the Young Men’s Business Club he founded at the age of 17 [in 1937], Williams has spent 70 years working to support Raleigh businesses and local civic groups....For 46 of those years, he [directed and] produced the Raleigh Christmas Parade, the largest parade between Richmond and Atlanta.”
Wesley remembers Raleigh when Moore Square was called Baptist Grove. He moved to Raleigh when he was twelve years old from a farm that was on land near what is now Walnut Creek Amphitheatre. “I was the knee baby of six,” recalls Wesley. “Three boys and three girls.”
While still a teenager, Wesley started working for Alfred Williams (no relation) & Company. He started part time and worked into a full-time position. One day Alfred Williams asked Wesley to represent him at a dinner meeting of local merchants at the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel, and the rest, “as they say, ‘is history.’”
The 2008 Raleigh Hall of Fame program lists numerous contributions that Wesley was responsible for through seventy years, but the one contribution of Wesley’s that I find most fascinating isn’t in the program. The one I find most fascinating is that Wesley has taught adult Sunday School at Hayes Barton Baptist Church for 58 years!
What that means is that Wesley started teaching Sunday School shortly after he and his wife Polly joined Hayes Barton Baptist Church in 1950, moving their membership from Tabernacle Baptist Church in downtown Raleigh. Wesley has served the Lord and the church in numerous ways through the years as a committee member, committee chairman, deacon, and chairman of the deacons. He was one of the first members to advocate women serving as deacons and has expressed in our 85th anniversary committee meetings that we not forget that important step in our history.
Of Hayes Barton Baptist Church’s history, Wesley reflects poetically: “The legacy of Hayes Barton Baptist Church has been that it is a beacon at historic Five Points, radiating faith, hope, and love for 85 years. Its value to the Kingdom of God and to the city of Raleigh, especially historic Five Points, is beyond measure. Think about the number of people who have walked up the center aisle to publically profess their faith. Think of the number of weddings when love is professed. Think of the number of worship services. Aggregating them all is just awesome.”
Those of you who know Wesley are not likely surprised that he “went poetic” on me as he known to do. Whether writing a love poem to his beloved Polly or a birthday ode to his friend Bob Lloyd, this “poet laureate” can turn a phrase into a lyric. When talking about the hope of Hayes Barton Baptist Church, Wesley says “our hope is embedded in the Holy Spirit. We must rely on the Holy Spirit completely. Hayes Barton Baptist Church is Christ’s church, and the Holy Spirit will give us growth and usefulness.”
A priority of our usefulness, according to Wesley, is missions. “The mission of the church should be missions, at home and in foreign lands. Missions should be the chief function of the church and should receive constant priority.”
In keeping with the 85th anniversary theme of “Heritage, Hope, and Home, of the “home” that Hayes Barton Baptist Church is, Wesley says, “There is no place like ‘home sweet home.’ Hayes Barton Baptist Church does a lot to make our home sweet. There are many people in this world who experience pain and sorrow and who do not have faith and that is sad. There is a time in life when hope and faith are all we have. Hayes Barton Baptist Church helps us remember that.”
Which takes me back to Wesley’s 58 years of teaching in our “home sweet home.” “Teaching all these years has been a very rewarding experience,” reflects Wesley. “One learns more by teaching. Anyone who thinks they cannot teach should rethink. Let the Holy Spirit guide them. Teach more by example than by words.”
What an example G. Wesley Williams is for all of us. An example of hard work and labor. An example of contributing to our community. An example of all things the Holy Spirit offers us. “Teach more by example than by words.” G. Wesley Williams continues to do just that.
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