Wednesday: Day 3

I must confess, I am having a hard time getting to these blogs. I thought that it wouldn’t be too bad to sit down and write one every day but it isn’t easy to find time to just sit down and write. When I do find the time to sit down to catch my breath my eyes start to grow heavy. This just shows that we are staying busy, the good type of busy though. Today’s theme was scrubbed. In morning Bible study we are pointed to the story of Jesus washing the Disciples’ feet, in John 13. From this story we received three main points. First, if we are Christians then we are, like it or not, servants. Second point is being a servant requires humility. And lastly, being a servant requires action. This last point of requiring action continued into our night time Bible study and worship. We looked at Colossians 2:13-15:

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

Dustin, the camp pastor, put emphasis on the word dead in the first sentence. It was not like we needed CPR to bring us alive, we needed a miracle to bring us to life. Dustin continued to walk us down the road of salvation, emphasis on continued. Dustin has been a blessing this week to me and all of us here. He is able to communicate things that the students have heard a million times in a easy way that they get. Students will be like, “Oh that is cool” or “I didn’t know that” And I’m like well I have said it in our small group and Steve has preached it hundreds of times. I just love that the students think that there is something special about camp, when in fact, they can grow at home as much as they are growing here if they were just in the Word 5 or so times a day, and had morning and night worship services, and got rid of all of the distraction that this world has to offer.

One thing that I hit me hard, and all of our students, were the statistics. The latest data says that there are approximately 1.5 billion Christians in the world, although lets not let this number fool us because we know that in this category are people who falsely proclaim to be Christians, this includes Jehovah’s witnesses, etc. Now you might be thinking that that is a huge number, and is it but when you consider that the total population in the world is estimated at 6.9 billion people we see that there is a devastating problem. There are about 5.4 billion people who don’t know the love of Christ. Again this number is too big to even think about so lets break it down. If you stood the 5.4 billion people side-by-side it would make a line that is 2.9 million miles long. That line would wrap around the earth 125 times. Now do you imagine that number? That is the number of people who don’t know Jesus as there Lord and Savior. These are the people that are going to hell. Yes, I said it hell. I know we try to get away from the fire and brimstone preaching but you can’t deny the truth of the gospel.

So what does this mean for us, the students, the parents, the Christians? It means that we need to stop being Pew Fillers and start serving. As the Frank Sinatra song says it, “Start spreading the news!” Everyone is called to be a missionary. Some are called to leave and go to India, where we Skyped an orphanage that J-Creek is help sponsor, these family opens their home to about 200 – 250 children a day, and they tutor the children before school and then after school they work with the students, teach them about Jesus, and love on them. Thursday night we, as a camp, will be taking up an offering for this orphanage. This family gives the children one meal a day in the afternoon and that is the only meal these children will get all day. Some people are called to serve in Senegal or China. But others still are called to serve right where they are planted, in their schools, at their jobs, in their neighborhoods and communities. So lets stop being a church of the served and start being a church of the serving.

Ok, well like I tell my students at school, I can tend to chase a rabbit until the rabbit becomes too tired and dies. Students are growing and learning. They are upset that there is only one more day left at camp. I would encourage parents to ask your child, when they get back, about their spiritual life. And don’t settle for just, “It’s good.” Make them tell you what they learned, they can do it because we make them do it for us several times throughout the day. I ask that you pray for these students, in that they will continue to be on fire for Christ but not that it will be because of a Church camp high but that it will be because Christ has changed them this week.

I know that I’m a day off in the blog but I will sum up Thursday and Friday on Friday night when we get back. There won’t be time for updates tomorrow and I think I might try to take a 10 minute nap before I have to go to supper, but I’m not getting my hopes up!!!

Tuesday: Day Two

Now we are getting in the routine of things here at camp, which means we sort of know where to go but we just don’t know at what time. Don’t worry we will get this schedule down by Friday J Today’s theme was Soaked. Now just to review the week’s theme is washed which is an act of God, by grace, to cleanse our hearts from the stain of sin. Monday’s theme was stained which showed how we are in need of a Savior because of the stain of sin in our lives. Todays theme, soaked, which shows how God makes people righteous through the “soaking” of his grace, which we are saved by. The main teaching today was amazing! Dustin Schadt taught from Revelation 5. Yesterday he painted a picture of how God is holy from Revelation and then taught today about how Jesus is God through Revelation 5. In this passage, there is a scroll that is sealed and there is no one found in heaven or on earth or under the earth that could open it or even look inside it. In verse 4 John, the author, begins to weep because there is no one worthy to open the scrolls. BUT, one of the elders says, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” Dustin continued to walk us through this chapter and continued to point to the fact that Jesus is God and he is the purpose of life.

Students are enjoying Dustin’s preaching and they are even opening up and communicating what they think, how they feel, what God is doing in their lives. Students love their POIs. Some students today got to do messy games, which is a huge mud pit where they play different games. Needless to say everyone’s showers are now clogged with mud and dirt. Other students are tubing, zip lining, bazooka ball, icing on the cake, etc.

Something was said in Adult Leader Bible Study that struck me to the core today. He said that if the only thing that the students got out of the week was that they had fun doing lake sports, zip lines, and bazooka ball, then we have failed at our mission. We want the students to have a fun time, don’t get me wrong, but we want them to grow in their relationship with the Lord. I would ask that you continue to pray for the hearts of our students. We have a wide range of students. Some students are on fire for the Lord and are ready to charge hell with a water pistol. Some students have a head knowledge of who God is but they have yet surrender their hearts to him, whether that be that they are too cool for it or they think they are waiting until they become a better person, or a number of reasons. And then there are some students who at times seem like progress is being made and then other times they are fleeing from the Lord, literally. One of our students cannot sit for 15 minutes and do their TAWG (Time Alone With God) they have to get up and leave the room to go to the bathroom or to get some water. I just ask that we will pray that the love of God compels them just as 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 reveals to us.

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

The first full day of Camp

What a Wonderful Day!!! Have you ever had one of those days in which you look back at the beginning of the day and it seems lie it was two days ago? Today had been one of those days. I will try to walk you through the day by our schedule and try to give you some insight of what it looked like.

Breakfast is at 8 – which means getting everyone in our rooms up, showered, and ready by 7:45 – Huge Task

Morning Celebration – Great time to worship and wake up through worship and the morning talk show put on by the staff.

Students then broke out with their small groups and studied more in depth of their sin. After their small group bible study the students then go to the Large Group Bible Study where they sit under the teaching of Dustin Schadt, the camp pastor, who continues to teach the theme of washed. Today’s focal point is being stained. The reason we need to be washed is because we are stained by our sin.

Lunch time – A great time to fellowship and debrief with students.

Connect time – Students have a time to connect with their churches by going over a different spiritual discipline each day. Today Brent taught over worship.

POI – (Points of Interest) – This is probably one of the students favorite things that they get to do at camp. The following is a list of students and their POIs.

Zip Line – Ale, Reagan, Rachel, Mackenzie, Sarah, Sydney, Madeline.

Pool Games – Luke, Andrew, Austin, Keely, Rebekah, Coty.

Bazooka Ball – Dan, Adam, Eric.

Tubing – Elizabeth.

After POIs the students got to play lake sports, which is not really a lake but a man-made pond. Whatever you want to call it, students love the lake sports. They can blobbed, climb an iceberg, or plank on a floating mat in the middle of the lake J

Free Time before supper which is definitely needed.

Supper – Pretty good food but you have to watch out for the flying darts, flaming arrows, and the roaming moose.

Worship – Dustin Schadt led us through Revelation 4 where he drew us a picture of what heaven would look like. He very clearly showed us how holy God is and that we are so unworthy to even be apart of this picture but by his grace and mercy he sent his son Jesus to come and be the atonement of our sins that we might be adopted into the family of God and be called sons and daughters of the King. What a great word to hear!

Connect time – Meet with our church to debrief the day and then go to the shack for some snacks and sorbets.

Please keep praying for us and for Ben Hussung!

We arrived at Jonathan Creek!!!

Well after 2 1/2 hours of travel, or that's what we tell the students, we have made it safely to J-Creek!!! We were greeted at the gate by staff who prayed over our van and students, what a great way to start the week. We then departed our vehicles and did the typical camp things like, take our group picture, run through our church banner (which will appear on the morning celebration video in the morning), and played corn hole while Brent got us registered. We then got our gear stowed away in our "hotel rooms." Think about a regular size hotel room, now put 4 bunk beds, one cot, one air mattress, two chairs, and some random other pieces of furniture. You have that image in your mind yet? Now put 7 smelly Jr. High boys in it and three adults! At least it is air conditioned. We had some free time after we got here and the guys went swimming and the girls played volleyball. Smart move on the boys part! We then ate supper and made our way up to worship.

Our Camp Pastor this week is Dustin Schadt, from Louisville, KY. Tonight during worship he discussed the theme for the week which is washed. The key verse of the week is 1 Corinthians 6:11 which says:

"And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

The question was asked, "What does it mean to be Washed? And the answer that the students learned tonight was that it was, "An act of God, by grace, to cleanse our hearts from the stain of sin." The students at this camp are in a lot of different spots in their lives. Some students are on fire for Christ and the decision that they are dealing with is where to faithfully serve. Some students are far from God and probably feel dirty on the inside but try to hide it from the world. The one essential truth is that the Gospel can wash each and every student from the inside-out through Jesus Christ. My prayer this week is that God will do remarkable things through each of these students, by the power of Christ. I pray that the Holy Spirit will come after the hearts of those students that have not been washed by the blood of Christ and that they will be washed for God's glory.

Well that was pretty much our day. The students are spending their last few minutes before curfew eating sorbets, playing ping pong, volleyball, and basketball, and pestering me while I type this blog. They all say hi and send their love to all of their parents, siblings, family, and friends. Please keep us in your prayers!

Jonathan Creek 2011

This coming week a group of students are going to be in for an amazing experience. They are going to coming closer to God than they probably have ever come, in their life, before. You may be asking to yourself, "How can he make such a bold statement like that?" Well for a large majority of these students it will be their first church camp which means there will be a lot of first. Possibly their first week without their parents, their first week in a new place, their first time without their cell phones, but most importantly their first week where they are going to be totally focused on the one true God. There is nothing special about camp but it allows students to throw all their worldly distractions behind such as Facebook, Cell phones/texting, TV, internet access, etc. They will at least have 5 different Bible studies everyday. With all this time away from distractions and all their time focused on knowing God, students will come away from this camp on fire for Christ. Although this tends to be what occurs at church camp, we can't expect this to happen without the work of the Holy Spirit. I ask that you pray for the following students and leaders, in that God will work great and wonderful things through these students attending camp and for the unbelieving students I ask that God will give them a new heart that is solely surrendered to Christ.

Students: Adam Watkins, Dan Bolster, Luke Ross, Eric Grant, Andrew Yoakem, Austin Shields, Coty Hall, Sydney Pemberton, Sarah Pemberton, Madeline Allen, Mackenzie Marcrum, Rachel Tarrence, Reagan Martin, Rebekah Jarboe, Elizabeth Jarboe, Ale Minnicks, and Keely King.

Leaders: Brent Fields, Rebecca Fields, Sarah Gibbs, Ben Jarboe, and Justin Mitchell

Please keep us all in your Prayers over this next week!!!