Kids Camp Update

I had a great time at Camp To Know Him in Pisgah, AL speaking to the kids ministry at First Baptist Church Double Springs.  It was challenging to communicate four messages to an age group that I simply do not have much experience with but God’s Word was sufficient as always.  I enjoyed meeting Josh Gurley and his band, they did a great job leading us all in worship.  It was good to simply be at “camp.”  I proved to be a pretty decent “cornhole” player and felt 13 again playing late night “Jenga” with the band.  Most importantly it was an honor to communicate the Gospel of Jesus to a group of kids and volunteers. 

We also had the opportunity to take in an incredible sunset on Friday night.  I have posted a couple of pictures I snapped with my cell phone, they simply do not do this view justice.  It was an incredible view overlooking Scottsboro, AL hilltops and what I believe is the Tennessee River. 

Kids Camp and iGod

I will be speaking at a kids camp later this week being held at “Camp to Know Him” in Pisgah, AL.  The targeted ages are K-5th grade…WOW.  That’s right, I will be addressing the Hannah Montana Fan Club for 3 days.  This is a rarity for me and I am looking forward to the opportunity.  The church has been very organized in their planning and have been gracious enough to invite me along for the journey this weekend.

I spoke at a pre-teen camp once when I was 19 years old and I must admit the host church was very gracious to me.  I didn’t get any talks about how I should maybe not preach for 45 minutes to 4th and 5th graders, that I should use more visuals, or that I should tell more jokes.  In fact, I believe God blessed that week and although my tactics may have not been the most efficient for that age group, God’s Word was sufficient.

Nine years later I have accepted an opportunity to speak to not only 4th and 5th graders for three days but also Kindegarten through Third graders.  This will be the first time since that camp that I have attempted to teach God’s Word to a group younger than a youth group, excluding a VBS Gospel presentation.  So I am looking at this week as an opportunity and a challenge.  I am going to be attempting to deliever messages geared to their age group and at the same time are biblically faithful.

The theme that has been selected by the church is iGod- Connecting with God.  I am going to be gearing all my messages around that topic for the week and am specifically going to be focusing on clearly communicating the Gospel.  I have four opportunities to speak and hope to tackle the following topics: God’s Glory, Our Sin, God’s Grace, and God’s Word.  I know that sounds incredibly simple and I hope it is.  I want to attempt in these three days to simply lay a foundation of four things that I believe we need a critical understanding of to really “connect” with God.  It is my hope that in these few days God would graciously save lost students that will be at this event.  I also hope for those that have already trusted Christ at an early age that they would be strenghtened and grounded in a deeper understanding of the Gospel and God’s desires for their life. 

It should be a great week.  I welcome any thoughts from expert Kids Ministers out there!   As a single 28 year old my knowlege of K-5th grade culture is definitely lacking!

Dive- Week 1- “Everybody Worships”

I had the privilege this past Wednesday to speak at “Dive,” a gathering of students from several churches in the Warrior/Hayden area just north of Birmingham.  I should offer a special thank you to The Beacon, a church plant in Warrior, AL that allowed the use of their facilities for the event.  The churches involved are coming together once a month in May, June, July, and August to engage in worship and listen to the teaching of God’s Word.  I have been asked to speak at the May through July events and to address certain topics that the student pastors involved feel need to be confronted in the lives of their students.  This past week I was asked to deal with apathy. 

We addressed this by attempting to deal with the heart of the issue.  The truth is no one is completely apathetic.  We can be apathetic towards a lot of things but not to everything.  Everybody cares about something, loves something and is passionate about something.  The problem we face in our churches are that so many people are apathetic towards God and His Word.  This is a heart problem. 

The truth is no pastor, student pastor, preacher, or parent can make a student (or anyone else for that matter) care about the things of God.  I heard Franics Chan state recently that he can’t “make his daughter fall in love with Jesus.”  This is a startling reality.  The truth is that our sinful hearts are prone to aim our worship everywhere accept God.  I remember before Jesus rescued me from the wrath of God that I was passionate about plenty of things but certainly not God.  I needed a heart translpant.  I needed God to give me a new heart that loves Him supremely and to breathe spiritual life into me. 

The fact is we all worship something or someone.  We are simply wired to worship.  So at “Dive” we adressed the fact that if we are not pursuing God and treasuring Him in our lives and are apathetic towards Him then that means we have cast our worship in another direction.  Our worship may be pointed at ourselves, our passions, pleasures, popularity, success, money, romance, or any number of things other than God.  This is idolatry.  The root of apathy towards God is idolatry.  The truth is at one time or another we have all been idolatrers.  Before my conversion I was a worshipper, but not a worshipper of God.  I was a worshipper of me.  In coming to Christ we cast our idols aside and throw ourselves at the mercy and grace of God.  Biblical conversion is not taking God and adding Him to our list of gods, but being given a new heart that is only satisfied with God.

With all this in mind we dove into Dueteronomy 6 and focused on God’s warning to Israel to not “forget Him” when they go to the Promise Land.  He warned them that they would be going into a land of plenty and would be growing food instead of eating manna from Heaven.  The truth is for those of us immersed in an American culture that is ridculously wealthy that we can be prone to become proud and fail to acknowldege God and our dependence on Him in everything and for everything.  With the backdrop of the Greatest Commandment  God warns Israel to not forget Him and to go after other gods because He is a jealous God.  The truth is God does not seem concerned that Israel will no longer worship but that they will give their worship to another.  God states His jealousy for His glory  and this should cause us to tremble if we are glorifying anything or anyone other than God in our lives and at the same time this should cause great comfort to us as God’s children that He is passionate about His glory because that is good for us.  The best thing for us is a life that glorifies our Creator so God is passionate about His glory and our good, the two are not mutually exclusive.  The bottom line is God does not simply want to be #1 in our lives but demands that He be the only one.  This is a strong contrast to the Christianity that several sign up for where God simply becomes a box on a list of things you check off and church becomes something you attend as opposed to the core of who you are. 

In the text and then in Chapter 8 of Dueteronomy we see God remind Israel of His grace and goodness throughout their history.  They had been slaves in Egypt and God had delivered them, they had been wanderers in the desert and God had provided for them.  God had brought them through so much, how could they forget Him and worship another?  This is a great reminder to us that nothing and no one can compete with our God.  We were spiritually dead sinners without hope and God loved us and showered us with mercy and grace.  Jesus redeemed us, bought us, and rescued us from the wrath of God.  In light of the testimony of the grace of God in our lives how could we even think about turning our worship elsewhere?

With this text I had the privilege of sharing with these students and allowing God to speak to me as well.  How about you and me today?  We are worshippers, the question is…of what?  We must constantly be searching our lives for anything that would rob God of the glory due His name in our lives and continually be casting ourselves before the mercy, grace, and goodness of God in Jesus Christ.

(For more information on this topic check out Dueteronmy 6 and 8, Romans1 :18-32, 1 John 5:21, and 1 Corinthians 10 among others.  Tim Keller also has a great article on idolatry that is posted at monergism.com.