West Cocoa Chat

Romans 12:1 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Dan Holland from the Metro Church of Christ in Orlando spoke on this verse last night at our church. He had a great message. In my opinion, the cause of Christ would be greatly enhanced if his people thought of worship as all we do in life. Perhaps the many unfortunate times that Christians have acted in an un-Christ like way towards each other in the name of “defending the truth” could have been avoided. Dan mentioned the danger if Christians “compartmentalizing their lives” if they don’t see their life as worship. In other words, acting one way when we’re out their on the “front lines of life” and acting differently when we’re inside a church building.

Speaking of life as being worship, our youth group is preparing to embark to the banks of the Ohio River in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to participate in the Mid-Ohio Valley Workcamp. That’s right, we just got back from a week of Bible Camp and now, 7 days later, we’re headed out on a major road trip again. In fact, the wife and I will be celebrating our 25th on the Tuesday of Workcamp.

Just so you don’t think I’m “romantically challenged,” I do plan on taking Barb out to dinner that night and then staying somewhere off campus (Ohio Valley University) for the night. Hopefully I’ll have all of the paint out of my hair before the evening’s activities.

Back to our trip, when we arrive on Sunday afternoon along with over 600 other teens, we’ll be broken up into “Work Crews.” Each crew gets a home to scrape, prime, and paint in 4 days. All of this at no expense to the home owner who we hope to be “Jesus” to during our week.

I’ll end with my favorite Workcamp story. One of the board members, Teddy, told us how he was speaking with an elderly lady whose home he was proposing to paint. As with most of us when we’re told something is free, she wanted to know the “catch.” Her neighbor happens to be in the living room with them and heard Teddy’s proposal. She immediately said, “Sue, (fictional homeowner’s name) these people are from the Churches of Christ. This is what they do every summer.”

Teddy’s point was, isn’t it nice to be known as a people that serves and not folks who “don’t believe in music” or think they’re the only ones going to Heaven.

Got to go buy a paint brush and scraper. Love you guys.

As I type this latest / post camp / post we here in Central Florida are under a Tornado Watch due to the impending arrival of our first hurricane (already Lord?) of the season. I’ve wanted to call the Camp up to see if any campers cancelled from this week and how the camp itself was faring under the worsening conditions. The Camp being north of us will receive stronger storms than we will here in beautiful West Cocoa.

I can say that despite the efforts of the men that I described as “Assassins” in a previous post, God was at work during our week. I’m still convinced that if Pat Pugh had been at our week, the response would have been overwhelming. Pat just has that way with teens. We wish him well in the upcoming camp at Rochester College.

I can think of three things that were evidence of God working at our week:
1. There were 9 precious souls baptized into Christ during our week.
2. We had almost 160 campers, the most ever for our week.
3. The teens from our church (Central) truly acted in a Christ-like manner despite being disappointed by some Brothers who acted in an un-Godly way.

Side Bar for Elvis (commented on my “Assassins Post) if he is reading:
You mentioned something to the effect of if you were not a member of the Church of Christ and you had read my “Assassins Post,” you would avoid our fellowship or something to that effect.

First – I wouldn’t blame anyone with that kind of reaction. The way these men acted was un-Christ-like and boiled down to plain black-mail. However, I would add that as Tom (our Baptist Brother) kind of pointed out, this kind of un-scriptural (in light of Jesus’ words in Matthew) behavior unfortunately pervades many Christian fellowships, not just ours.

Second and to complete #3 –
Most Christian adults who would find themselves in the position our teens found themselves in, being disappointed in Pat being un-invited to our week of Camp, would have either cancelled from attending our week or would have blasted the Camp’s Director when they arrived at Camp. I’m happy that neither one happened.

First – We didn’t have a single teen cancel from coming to Camp.
Second – At the end of the week the Camp Director told me that to a teen, each of our teens had spoken to him saying that they were disappointed that Pat wasn’t at our week but they realized that he too had been black-mailed. They hugged him and told him that they loved him and the Camp. He told me that his faith in being a director of the Bible Camp had been re-newed.

And with that I’ll say that the future of our Restoration Movement will be in good hands if we adults we’ll just get out of their way and allow them to be Jesus to the world.

Thank you God for allowing me to catch a glimpse of our future.

" The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.” James Earl Jones from the movie “Field of Dreams.”

This scene and quote came to me yesterday. I was feeling pretty down about the events (see previous post) surrounding our Bible Camp. The Lord saw fit to follow my “pity party” with a stint back in the press box yesterday announcing my son’s 18 and Under AAU baseball game. There is something “pure” about baseball. Oh, I have been a witness to the same kind of Little League Boardroom politics such as the kind that took place at our Bible Camp these past few days. But when that first pitch is thrown out or in my case, the starting lineups are announced, all that is good and pure about baseball takes over.

I met with our teens following the game to give them the details of Pat’s “un-invitation” to our camp. Our teens were great. Disappointed, yes, but they reacted as I prayed they would. They agreed with me that we needed to be “Jesus” to the Camp.

My good friend Greg asked me how we would do such a thing. I told the teens that we would accomplish this task through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives by:

1. Going to Camp.
2. Praying and believing that God would still use our week in a mighty way.
3. Praying and loving on my good friend and Camp Director, Larry.
4. Praying for Pat and the men who brought these sad events about.
5. Asking God to help them (the teens) not repeat the same mistakes in their lives by dealing with conflict as Jesus would have us to do.

Thanks for the support from yesterday my dear blog family. I head of for Bible Camp later today. I have to leave now to announce another game for my son.

Love you guys.

First, let me apologized for the extended absence. This is the time of year that “we” ramp up for Bible Camp. By my count this is my 22nd summer directing a week of Bible Camp at the Central Florida Bible Camp and sadly (apologies for the melodrama) it may be my last.

Until this year, I’ve never as a “Coordinator” had to clear any special speakers or groups through the Camp Director or Board. A few weeks ago an email was sent out by the Camp Director requesting the names of “special speakers” or groups. Being the honest boy that I am, I answered honestly. We were inviting an inner-city minister from Cincinnati, Pat Pugh, to speak at our week. We had first come across Pat two years ago at the Mid-Ohio Valley Work Camp. Pat spoke powerfully and boldly to our teens. In the span of 3 days 33 precious teens were baptized into Christ and the teens, didn’t want worship to stop each night. I likened it to a “mini-Pentecost.”

As a little background, Pat spoke at SonQuest (a large youth gathering of about 5000 during Labor Day Weekend in Orlando) 2 years ago. He was scheduled to speak at Teen Week in the coming summer. Apparently he said some things that riled some of these “Assassins” up. They threatened the Camp with a mass boycott so the Camp Director was forced into telling Teen Week he couldn’t allow Pat to speak at Teen Week. Anybody ready to throw up yet?
By the way, not one person from the Camp or the Teen Week Staff bothered to call Pat to tell him he was uninvited. Don’t we just have a wonderful way of treating brothers and sisters in Christ?

So, yours truly decides to invite him to our week. Pat accepts. We announce it at our church and we have the largest number of kids (150) headed to our week. Our week of camp starts this coming (in 3 days) Sunday. Pat was scheduled to fly into Orlando tomorrow.

Long story short:
1. The Camp Director calls me yesterday as I’m driving up to church to inform me that 3 different coordinators are threatening to pull out of camp.
2. The Camp Director asks if Pat will sign a statement saying he will not mention “communion” or the “Holy Spirit.”
3. I call Pat with my tail between my legs, embarrassed that I’m a member of a movement that can be held hostage to these assassins.
4. Pat’s reaction is so much more like Jesus than mine, the camp’s, or these assassins.
5. Pat talks to the Camp Director.
6. The Camp Director tells me he is “impressed with Pat” but still has a hard decision to make.
7. Decision came down today, Pat can’t come to Camp.
8. I ask for the assassins names. I also asked why the assassins were not directed to me, Pat, or my fellow coordinator first before their complaints were heard.

I’m meeting with our 49 teens and their parents tomorrow. I will inform them of the decision the camp has made and all the details behind it. I will also plead for our teens to still come to our week of Camp and to be “Jesus” to a Camp that hasn’t acted in the same manner.

At the end of our week I have a decision to make. If I had to make that decision today it would be the end of my association with the Camp. I had always dreamed that my son would be a counselor for me one year. I thought that year would be next year. I guess I was wrong. Then again, I was wrong about a lot of things this week.

What a way to come back blogging. Sorry gang.