Summer Youth & Children’s Camp

When I was eleven years old we had a new pastor called to the church.  This pastor was different from our previous pastor.  Where our previous pastor was my parents age and had two children with one being my age, the new pastor was in his twenty’s and had one child that was a toddler.  Where our previous pastor would question the veracity of the scripture, our new pastor would state firmly that he believed every word of the scripture.  One thing this new pastor did was take us all to camps. We found out about the different camps that our Baptist State Convention of North Carolina had as well as a camp in North Carolina known as Ridgecrest.  Don’t misunderstand me here.  Our previous pastors told us about these camps, but we never were organized and given the opportunity to take advantage of them.

While these camps were something that we took advantage of, there was one particular camp that I will never forget.  It was a camp that our church conducted for our youth & children.  Our new pastor found a retreat area in the NC mountains complete with cabins and a main cabin for our classes.  He organized this camp in such a way that our adult volunteers were also our teachers.  I was only twelve years old when I went to this camp and it was the first time that I had been west of Winston-Salem, NC that I can remember.  We had a blast.  It seems that we were not far from a place called Sliding Rock.  We wore out a couple pair of jean shorts sliding down that rock into that cold pool at the bottom.  If you have never been I would encourage a trip over there.  I took my daughter a couple of years back and the water is still as cold as I remembered as a youth/child.  I remember the evenings sitting around a fire talking about the things that God was doing in our life.  I remember relationships being forged between adult volunteers that I would have otherwise not began.

I have not been able to blog too much lately because I am getting ready to take our Youth and Children to a camp.  This is different than what  I remember growing up in that we are combining with 5 other churches.  The pastors and youth ministers are conducting the classes and we are all responsible for a couple of sessions and evening worship events.  While we will not have Mercy Me leading in worship for our evening events, we certainly are praying for God to have mercy on us as we strive to hold the attention of these campers in our presentations.

The camp where this will take place is Springs of Life Camp and Retreat Center in Patrick Springs, Virginia. The camp is a multi-denominational camp with its own board of directors.  The pastor that is leading this camp serves on the board and has led a summer camp for 22 years.  You will be able to hear more about this at SBC Today as we interview him in a new format we are putting together.  This brings me to a question.  What does your church do for your youth and children in a form of summer camp?  My current ministry has taken advantage of Centrifuge for some years now.  At our previous ministry we would utilize the Go Tell camps.  What do others do with their youth and children during the summer months?  How do you work around family vacation, different living addresses as many youth and children are sent back and forth between households due to divorces, and the various other secular camps, ie. sports, music, etc. etc.?

Embrace–New Women’s Ministry

The Executive Committee of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) received a report at their May meeting concerning a new women ministry.  The following is the report as presented on the convention website.

Phyllis Foy, Chair of the Women’s Ministry Task Force reported that they had made significant progress in shaping the overall direction of the ministry.  The desire of the group has been to re-shape women’s ministry into a work where local churches would be empowered to build strong families capable of creating a legacy of faithfulness throughout their entire lifetime and beyond through faithful service in their roles as wives, mothers, and servants of the church of Jesus Christ. The name of the new ministry is Embrace: North Carolina Baptist Women’s Missions and Ministries. The task force has finalized their mission statement: Embrace

Foy explained that the focus of the ministry seeks to restore to the church of Christ a passionate commitment to the home and the well being of families as the biblical center of training and involvement in missions.  “Families should not be separated when missions is at the heart of a home,” Foy said.  “Our hope is that entire families might be able to participate together in mission projects which would bring honor to Christ and his church.” The task force will continue to work in preparation of a final report to be presented to messengers of the 178^th annual session of the BSCNC. God’s call to minister to women, their families and future generations for the building up of the church.  They identified three key goals for the ministry and completed an initial action plan for the first two years of the ministry. The ministry goals:  1) Engage women with the gospel of Jesus Christ; 2) Educate women to daily study and apply God’s Word in their lives; 3) Equip women to do kingdom work through service locally and globally.

It seems that there is some discrepency as to the recognition from the national WMU in releasing promotional material for our International and North American missions offering.  In the latest meeting there was a letter presented to the EC that was addressed to Mrs. Foy from WMU Executive Director-Treasurer Wanda Lee to Phyllis Foy, who leads the North Carolina woman’s ministry task force. It clearly indicated that WMU would provide mission education materials through channels other than the state WMU. However, Mrs. Ruby Fulbright acknowledged that only educational materials will be given, but promotional materials for the International and the North American missions offering will only be distributed through the NC WMU organization. It is a shame, as it appears, that missions promotional material will be held hostage.

Also, I would encourage you to make plans now for the Women’s Prayer Evangelism Conference.  (Click on the picture on the left to enlarge) There will be multiple Breakout session throughout Friday and Saturday.  The following Breakout session will inform and inspire women as the groudwork is laid for this alternative women’s ministry.  There may be some that are WMU Trublue but that is ok.  From what I understand about this ministry they are not competing against WMU but merely offerring an alternative to WMU.  This alternative is for those ladies that desire to make an impact through missions and ministries but feel the WMU has left them.  If that is how you feel, you will not want to miss the following Breakout session.  It appears there will be two times and I assume that the same material will be discussed at each session.  You can download a complete schedule of the Breakout Sessions.

Embrace Women’s Missions & Ministry
Room: Spilman 2AB
Time: Friday, 9:00-10:00pm

Saturday, 8:45-9:45am

This session is an overview of Embrace, a new ministry for women of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. We will share our philosophy of ministry, details of immediate plans and the vision for the future. This ministry provides a support system for women whose desire it is to be involved in women’s missions and ministries for the building up of the local church and the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ, teaching women to create a legacy of faithfulness.

Scripture–The Word of God!

When I was a little boy going to our local church we had a primary Sunday School teacher that dipped snuff.  She would hug each one of us kids when we walked through the door and plant a wet, snuff paste, kiss on our cheeks.  While the snuff past would linger on you cheek, regardless of how much you tried to wipe it off, we really did not mind because we knew the teacher loved us.  One thing our Sunday School teacher did was challenge us to memorize Scripture.  She would place a verse up on the board that we were supposed to memorize for  the coming week and challenge us to quote the verse we memorized.  If you tried to move you lips she would catch you and make you stand in the corner for not taking seriously the memorization of God’s Word.  It seems the year after I aged out of that class that some parents were appalled that we had a Sunday School teacher that would punish children for being slothful.  The leadership believed it was best not to involve the church in such an argument and thus the scripture memorization ceased in the church.

Fast forward to September 11, 1988.  That was the date that I received Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.  Why should I move to that date?  I stopped attending church when I was 16 and only went back for special occasions.  Thus, at best, I was a once a year church attender.  I knew nothing about the Bible, other than Jesus loved me and the truth of John 3:16.  On the evening of September 11, 1988 I had Scripture flood my mind that I know I did not know.  It seems that after that time and in my reminiscing, I realized these scripture verses were some that I memorized in my primary Sunday School class.  Scripture memorization is vitally important as we know that it is the Word of God that convicts and reveals to us truth.

I remember some years ago a pastor friend of mine from Durham, North Carolina telling me about the new pastor at FBC Durham giving a challenge to begin memorizing books of the Bible.  I also remember my former Professor of Evangelism, Dr. Alvin Reid, telling us in a class that God had convicted him to begin a memorization process of doing the same.  I can remember thinking in Dr. Reid’s class, “yea, right!  It is everything I can do to remember what I need to in order to pass your exam”.  I also had to remember my sermons for sermon delivery because Dr. Wayne McDill, my Preaching Professor, would count off if he caught you preaching with notes.  (He docked me a number of times.  Not only for using notes, but for using illustrations my audience did not know.  It seemed I had to explain to some of my classmates about a Corn Crib.)  Thus, all I needed was something else to remember.

I have been traversing some dry lonely ground here lately.  I have been looking for a well to drink from because it seems that all of the streams I have been getting refreshment from have dried up, or the water just does not seem as refreshing as it did.  This morning as I perused my usual bloggers, I ran across something on Timmy Brister’s blog.  He was challenged by Dr. Andy Davis, Sr. Pastor of FBC Durham, at the recent Founders Conference to memorize books of Scripture.  As a result Brother Timmy has placed an outline on his blog that I will copy on mine.  You can also access Dr. Davis’ booklet that gives pointers and encouragement on how to memorize extended excerpts of Scripture.  While Brother Timmy and I have disagreed on some things in the past this is one area of discipleship that he and I can agree.  Therefore, I have accepted Brother Timmy’s challenge and I plan to challenge my church to participate with me.  I spoke with my Youth Minister this morning and we will hold each other accountable each Monday Am.  The realization of this challenge hit me as I worked out the schedule by the weeks.  If you begin this week you will have memorized the entire book of Ephesians at Christmas time.  What better gift could I give my King for His birthday than to repeat to Him, from memory His love letter to me.

I am doing this, not so I can say I am memorizing an entire book of the Bible.  I am doing this because as I began this morning I realized how much you have to remain in God’s word in order to memorize and meditate on the Scripture.  Isn’t that what Psalm 1:1-2 tells us to do?

Week 1 :: Ephesians 1:1-6–July 6-12
Week 2 :: Ephesians 1:7-14–July 13-19
Week 3 :: Ephesians 1:15-23–July 20-26
Week 4 :: Ephesians 2:1-9–July 27-Aug. 2
Week 5 :: Ephesians 2:10-16–Aug. 3-9
Week 6 :: Ephesians 2:17-22–Aug. 10-16
Week 7 :: Ephesians 3:1-6–Aug. 17-23
Week 8 :: Ephesians 3:7-13–Aug. 24-30
Week 9 :: Ephesians 3:14-21–Aug. 31-Sept. 6
>> Week 10 – Review 1-9–Sept. 7-13
Week 11 :: Ephesians 4:1-8–Sept. 14-20
Week 12 :: Ephesians 4:9-16–Sept. 21-27
Week 13 :: Ephesians 4:17-24–Sept. 28-Oct. 4
Week 14 :: Ephesians 4:25-32–Oct. 5-11
Week 15 :: Ephesians 5:1-6–Oct. 12-18
Week 16 :: Ephesians 5:7-14–Oct. 19-25
Week 17 :: Ephesians 5:15-21–Oct. 26-Nov. 1
Week 18 :: Ephesians 5:22-33–Nov. 2-8
Week 19 :: Ephesians 6:1-9–Nov. 9-15
Week 20 :: Ephesians 6:10-17–Nov. 16-22
Week 21 :: Ephesians 6:18-24–Nov. 23-29
>> Week 22 – Review weeks 11-21–Nov. 30-Dec. 6
>> Week 23 – Recite weeks 1-22–Dec. 7-13
>> Week 24 – Meditate, Pray, and Rejoice!–Dec. 14-20

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS. HERE IS YOUR GIFT FROM ME.

Drifting in a Whiskey Barrel!!

The picture to the left is a picture taken of a commercial whiskey still known as Blue Blazes Whiskey still.  You can read about that still here.  The still that is famous for the death of two Federal Agents is now revered as part of the cultural past.  Let me be fair, as I grew up in North Carolina and am an avid NASCAR fan.  NASCAR has its roots in moonshiners.  One of NASCAR’s founding figures, Junior Johnson, served federal time for being caught “firing up” a still that his family owned.  Allow me to say that I do not believe those that were moonshiners were ‘bad’ people.  I do believe they were misguided in their idea of hard work.  I know that the land in Wilkes County was not conducive for agricultural trade, but many other people that lived in Wilkes County made a living without being moonshiners.  While it is a cultural ingredient of the county, it must be admitted that liquor, moonshine or not, certainly has ruined many lives.

My daily perusal of our local paper revealed an article concerning liquor that caught my attention.  If you are like me, I only glance at the headlines and then read the articles that catch my attention.  In the article Burbon Boom I found out that the liquor industry is certainly selling it by the barrels.  Let me remind our readers that this article only deals with “straight whiskey” and does not report on vodka and rum, or Scotch whiskey.  The article enlightens its readers as to the ‘boom’ of the whiskey industry and gives verifiable statistics.  Allow me to give you some simple “cuntry rifmatic” concerning this industry and the US Population.

In the article it reports the sale of ’straight whiskey’ as 14.7 million 9 liter cases.  This does not account for the sales of vodka and rum, which the article reported were more than straight whiskey.  Neither does it account for Scotch whiskey, which the article reported was less than straight whiskey.  Let’s be fair as we examine the numbers.  We know the sales of straight whiskey was 132.3 million liter’s of straight whiskey was sold in the United States.  While the article reported that vodka and rum were ahead of ’straight whiskey’ sales we will allow that at least 132.3 million liters of vodka and rum were sold.  Also, since the article reported that Scotch whiskey was less in sales, we will be fair and report one-half, or 66.2 million liters were sold.  That means that 330.7 million liters of ’straight whiskey, rum, vodka, Scotch whiskey were consumed in the United States last year.

According to the latest figures I could find, in 2006 we had 300 million residents in the United States.  In these statistics we find that 24% of the population is under 18 years of age.  Thus, we have 225 million people residing in the United States over the age of 18.  As you know the legal age to consume this beverage is 21 years of age in most states.  What does the numbers tell us concerning the sales of whiskey in the United States?  One shot of whiskey, rum, or vodka is equivalent to one ounce.  There are 33 ounces of to a liter.  Let’s say that after two shots of straight whiskey, rum, vodka, or Scotch whiskey you would be very close to the legal limit of being considered drunk.  Now, let’s do the math.  330 million liters comes out to 1.5 liter per person over 18 in the United States.  According to a Barna survey in 2007, 36 million people admitted to being intoxicated at least once in the past month.  Here is where my “cuntry rifmatic” breaks down.  According to Barna, 36 million people, or 16% of the population in the United States, admits to consuming enough alcohol to get intoxicated within the past month.  According to the Beverage Information Group, the Whiskey industry has sold, at least, 330 million liters of either, “straight whiskey, vodka and rum, or Scotch whiskey in the past year.  This means that 36 million people purchased a case of whiskey in the past year.

What does this say about alcohol and America.  First, this survey does not cover beer or wine, something some consider less intoxicating than straight whiskey.  Second, the increase in sales is something that we will continue to see as the economy gets worse.  Why? I believe people who drink will not be able to afford to go out to drink and will sit at home to drink.

How will the church respond?  Will we continue to sit around and lament the virtues of abstaining, something we must do, or will we add to the lamenting practical ways to engage the culture and reach out to that person that buys a case a year?  I can tell you from personal experience that one who looks inside a bottle for fulfillment is one that just wants someone to love them as they are.  Jesus is that someone and He loves you just as you are.  You can respond to His love as He draws you to Himself.  Or you can reject His revelation of Himself to you and stay in that bottle.  Remember, when you come to Jesus, He loves you too much to leave you as you are.  I can tell you that the bottle is a lonely place.

America seems to be more and more lonely as she drifts down the Whiskey River all the time singing; Whiskey river don’t run dry you’re all I’ve got take care of me in the whiskey barrel.