“Camp Joy! Camp Joy! You mean much to me!”  So says the Camp Joy theme song, and so I say now.  Camp Joy does mean much to me and will continue to mean much for years to come.  “Why are you writing like you’re leaving, James?” I hear you ask.  Well, because I am.  Through a number of aspects of God’s direction, I’ll be leaving the camp staff in the next week.  My plans for the future are to return to BJU to earn my Ph.D. and serve the Lord in a career of Christian higher education.  But now, the joy of moving forward in God’s plan is mingled with the sweet sorrows of parting.  I feel that it’s fitting for me to reminisce a little and to publicly thank the Lord and the other camp staff for what I’ve gained here.

I remember “meeting” Camp Joy – May 2005.  The summer I counseled was the first time I’d ever been to Camp Joy and the day I arrived, I was as far out of my comfort zone as I had perhaps ever been.  Some kind people showed me where my cabin was and got me settled in – and one of the best summers of my life began!  Through that summer I had the unbelievable privilege and joy of seeing God work in my campers’ lives. I know, I know, everyone who works at a camp says that kind of thing – but it’s true!  Praying with one boy as he asked God to forgive his sins and save him, counseling others as they expressed repentance from their sin, and best of all by far, praying with my own brother after an evening service as he dedicated his life to full-time Christian service!  I cannot express that joy in words now.

I enjoyed that summer so much that I came back a year later – not as a counselor, but as “program staff.”  It was a summer of stretching and growth.  I had to take some rebuke and correction as the full-time staff helped me understand my role and the leadership/example that they wanted me to display.  I made some lasting friendships with many of those counselors and grew much from counsel and accountability with them as peers.  And of course, as program staff, I was the brunt of more than one joke about playing all day and driving golf carts.  Oh well, as a wise man once said, “ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.”

And then another summer at Camp Joy – now on the full-time staff with responsibilities in the areas of program, website and computer maintenance.  Then 8 more months on the full-time staff through school camps and church retreats and work crews and teens and juniors and … everything!  I think the best way for me to think back over the last year is to thank the other members of the full-time staff, the brothers and sisters with whom I ministered here, the friends who made me feel like family, the people that God surrounded me with during my time here.

• Thank you, Pastor and Mrs. Hatchett, for your faithful prayers, your consistent example, your sweet kindness and your Christlike love.
• Thank you, Scott, for your vision for Camp, for pushing forward despite difficulties of all sorts, for serving in the strength of your youth and for pouring your heart into the ministry.
• Thank you, Todd, for your tenderness, for your hearing ears and caring heart, for your example of patient forbearance and for your creativity and good humor.
• Thank you, Lee and Cyndie and Rachel Otis (and OJ, too), for the faithfulness of your ministry, for your sincere servant-hearts, for your hospitality and for your free smiles and easy laughter.
• Thank you, Dave, for the friendship you showed through my first months on full-time staff, for the steady hand and endurance you put into your work, for being willing and available to lend a hand in my amateurish shop projects and for your testimony of selfless love to your family.
• Thank you, Jim, for your eagerness to turn to the Lord in prayer, your whole-hearted reliance on Him, for your readiness to bring Him into every conversation and for many hard-fought foosball battles.
• Thank you, Stephen, for the friendship we’ve had since the days of roommate-ness, for your humility in exercising your gifts, for your excitement for souls and for more than a few hairs-cut.
• Thank you, Nathanael, for the trips hither and yon, for putting your hands to work with the skills God gave you, for our fellowship as roommates and for all the dishes you did after I dirtied all the cookware.
• Thank you, Rebecca, Valerie and Katie, for your friendship, for your ministry at church, for laughing a quite a few undeserving jokes and for doing your best when you weren’t sure why.
• Thank you, Jonathon, for bringing an eagerness to your work and a self-sacrificing spirit to your ministry, for your helpful attitude and for your joyful countenance.
• Thank you, Mrs. Fuller, for your years of service, for your faithful walk with the Lord, for your mounds of ready knowledge about any subject I asked about and for the wonderful legacy you are leaving your children and their families.
• Thank you, Papa and Mrs. Sammet, for your sacrifice in donating your summers to Camp, for your high personal standards and desire for excellence, for taking the time to correct me when I needed it and for your words of encouragement and support.
• Thank you, Abraham, for your thoughtfulness, both in the sense of concern for others and the sense of really applying your mind to compare situations and circumstances with Scripture, for your discernment and sincerity and for teaching me that squirrel is boney but tasty.

Really, though gratefulness to the people I’ve worked with is good and appropriate, my truest expression of thanksgiving is to God.  Thank you, Lord, for leading me to Camp Joy, for sustaining me through the pressures of ministry, for faithfully loving and keeping me each day, for giving me godly friends and co-workers and for teaching me more of Your perfect faithfulness and my utter dependence.

My time at Camp Joy has been part of God’s plan for my life and I desire that lessons that He has been teaching me here will continue as He molds me to Christ’s humble likeness and prepares me for future ministry and service for Him!

I’m afraid so…  We didn’t have a lesson last week because of Missions Conference.  Next week, we will have Dr. Tim Berrey as a special guest, so I won’t be teaching on Ecclesiastes then either, and then the week after that, Baptist World Missions will be hosting their new missionary orientation at Camp Joy and we’ll have a missions focus that week as well (and since it’s Mother’s Day, I’m planning to be back in Illinois with my mother).  Then Sunday, May 18 will be my last Sunday in Ecclesiastes.  I was really hoping to spend 2 lessons going through the entire book putting all the individual motifs back together and going through the book as a unit.  But since I’ll be moving on May 22, I’ll have to compress that into one week.  I’ll need either to do some severe editing or else to talk exceedingly quickly and then slow the audio file down before I post it. :)

We’re currently having our yearly Missions Conference at Kettle Moraine Baptist Church this week – including a special Sunday School time with a missionary speaker.  From Sunday School to Wednesday night, we’re hearing from four of our different missionaries:

• Vic Labelle and family (Mexico)
• Mike McGowan (Japan)
• Mark Sheppard and family (Liberia)
• Terry Rushing and family (Wings as Eagles)

So far, the conference has gone well – the Lord has lined up much in the preaching for the week and a common theme is prominent: missions is all about God’s glory.  Our church theme is “Ambassadors for the Glory of God in Christ” and nearly every missionary has emphasized God’s glory during presentation and preaching.  And they’re not talking about God’s glory in missions in an aside to match the print materials – they’re talking about glorifying God as the heart of their ministries and as something that they preach & present at every church they go to.

I was reading last night about God’s passion for the spread of His fame as the grounds for the gospel.  He is zealous to see His name (reputation) spread across the globe.  That’s why we “do missions” – because we want to delight in the same things He delights in – namely, spreading His fame worldwide.

I opened Mail this afternoon and found the latest issue of In the Nick of Time – an essay by Dr. Kevin Bauder.  I thoroughly enjoyed his Christians and Scholarship series, but today’s post was a real gem.  Creative, clever and clear, it addresses a real issue in fundamental Christianity.  I wonder, though, about the option that wasn’t listed at the end.  I would ask, “Should they be ignored, allowed to fade away into oblivion as they starve for the attention that they previously received?”  I’m not sure which one is best, but I wonder if a position of arguing against that position is truly profitable.  From what I’ve read and seen, when it’s all boiled down, we’re dealing with a position that focuses on emotional reasoning and bypasses the facts that have been brought up again and again.  I may be wrong, but arguing against “Pseudo-Authorities” seems to be an unproductive expense of energy, time and resources.  Might we not be better served simply to go on drinking good water, thanking the Lord for it and letting alone those whose pride causes contention?

Since I’ve last sent an update, we’ve been busy (well, when are we not busy?) here at Camp Joy!  Right now we’ve got a dozen or so men from New Hampshire helping with our hillside cabin project (photos coming soon to a CJ Album near you!) and they are doing a great job!  They’re putting cedar siding up, installing drywall, building stairs and pretty much anything you could think of – what a blessing they are being!

We’ve had some really good retreats lately – March ended with our first ladies’ retreat with Mrs. Cindy Melius.  Granted, I wasn’t too terribly involved in that retreat, but from what I’ve been told, the messages were a blessing, the activities were enjoyable and the ladies left Camp Joy having been ministered well to.

Then we worked for a week (I spent a lot of time on summer skit preparation) and got ready for the next weekend retreat: Singles for Service.  We were a little nervous about this one – coming down to the day before, we had less than 15 campers registered.  But the Lord provided and between last minute registrants, walk-ins and late walk-ins, we had close to 30 people at the retreat!

Then we had a teen work crew – about 30 teens from the youth group at Community Baptist Church, South Bend, IN, came to help for a couple days.  I had a crew of 3 young men who helped me rake leaves.  One of them (Matt) was quite a trooper – he stayed on my crew the entire time (another one got sick and one switched crews), including the 3-4 hour “rake in the rain” party on Tuesday afternoon.  Did anyone ever tell you that wet leaves are heavy?  Wet leaves are heavy.  With the volunteers, we also got some deep cleaning done in the lodge, some painting and deep cleaning in the kitchen, organization in the shops and warehouse and a lot of assembling for our Scripture Memory kits.  They did a lot of good work.  This particular group was significant for me because I worked at that church 4 years ago for a summer as a pastoral intern.  I was pretty surprised to see how some of them had grown, not so surprised to see how some of them had not grown, and tickled to watch the light-bulbs go on above several heads the first evening when they realized, “Oh yeah, I thought he looked really familiar!”

Then our second ladies’ retreat – this time with Mrs. Pat Berg.  What a group – over 200 campers at the retreat!  We had to stay on our toes to keep all the activities, services, and especially meals going on time.  It was definitely a weekend to serve in the infinite strength of God and not of ourselves.  He gave grace and the weekend went well – what a exciting time it was to have such a full camp again!

And now, here we are with the New Hampshire volunteers.  This coming weekend was scheduled to be our Teen Extravaganza retreat, but since hardly anyone registered, we had to cancel.  Please pray that next year’s Teen Extravaganza will be a full camp – it is particularly focused on evangelizing lost teens, and we would love to see the Lord bring in a full camp of souls to hear the gospel preached!  What a joy it would be to be a part of that sowing and watering work as we pray and rely on the Lord to send increase.  So go ahead and start telling all your friends about next year’s Teen Extravaganza (probably in April again) and pray that the Lord would bring 200 campers to that retreat!

Summer hiring has been going well – the Lord has provided staff more quickly than in previous years.  Right now, we’d appreciate your prayers for a sound-booth worker and a couple guys to work program/team-leader/counselor.

I am so thankful for my pastor!  Besides his heart for God and for the church, his personal integrity and his wonderful family, he has a solid preaching philosophy – he preaches through books of the Bible in series.  What better way could there be to preach the whole counsel of God?  [Aside: of course, he is sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading for breaks in those series and he chooses each series carefully and prayerfully.]  In his current series on I Corinthians, we came to chapter 7 and Paul’s instruction on a number of issues having to do with marriage.  The main text of the message was I Cor. 7.28ff and the applicational emphasis of the sermon was directed to the “college & career” segment of the congregation – those of us in the “never married but old enough to be” category.  Pastor spent a good bit of time in review (it’s been a few weeks since the last sermon in this series) and reminded us that though it is not a sin to marry (I Cor. 7.28), we don’t need to press for some change in social/relationship status as a measure of spirituality (I Cor. 7.17-24).  While I eagerly look forward to marrying someday, the message was a well-aimed encouragement to patient contentment in God’s plan.

This stuck with me particularly well because of a recent conversation I had with a distant acquaintance.  This young man expressed concern that my singleness was evidence that something was wrong between me and God.  Even after I reassured him that I am waiting for God to provide a wife in His time (don’t get me wrong – I’m not sitting around passively, waiting for her to magically drop into my lap either!), and that I’m content to be single now, he still repeated his concern that “God gives us a chance but we can blow that chance” – as though God leads one “Miss Right” in front of a guy for a brief period of time and, boy oh boy, if you goof off too much or miss the boat or whatever, you’re doomed forever to a “less-than-the-best marriage!”  I fail to see that “once-in-a-lifetime” view of marriage in Scripture – it is, however, prevalent in television shows and movies.  Scripture makes it clear that finding the right wife is the result of a wise walk and that she is a gift from God (Prov. 18.22; 19.14).  It strikes me as very strange that someone should base his entire estimation of a Christian friend’s relationship with God upon whether or not that person is married. 

My testimony is this: God is gracious and I am sinful.  I haven’t done anything meritorious enough to deserve a wonderful wife.  I’m trusting God (like in every area of life) to bring my future wife and me together out of His free favor and in His perfect timing.  And honestly, although I’m really looking forward to meeting, getting to know, marrying and daily walking in love with my wife, I’m not going to connive or manipulate or press brashly past God and ahead of His plan.  I won’t be satisfied merely to marry God’s best wife for me – I want to marry her in His timing as well.

Solomon closes Ecclesiastes with a two-fold exhortation: fear God and keep His commandments. This lesson looks into the relationship between the New Testament Christian and the Old Testament Law.

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Yes, after celebrating another birthday today, I have lived a quarter of a century.  That’s quite a while: 300 months, or 1,300 weeks.  9,125 days, if you prefer, or 219,000 hours.  My life has exceeded 13 million minutes: I’ve lived over 788 million seconds.  As I fight for enough time to accomplish each week’s goals, I would give anything for a few more hours (especially in the morning when my alarm rings!), but I find myself unable to turn time back – not even with my snooze button.  What can I do?  Time pushes on inexorably and I can’t do a thing about it!  My life isn’t waiting for me!  The opportunities and responsibilities of each day rudely push past me without so much as a howdy-do and I’m left standing open-mouthed, knowing that things are getting done and life is going on, but also realizing my inability to fully appreciate, enjoy or even be aware of all that happens in my life.  I’m reminded the final act from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town – the one where the recently-dead Emily Gibbs observes a day from her young life.  Overwhelmed by how much she took for granted while life raced by, Emily asks, “Doesn’t anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?”  The Stage Manager answers her, “No. Saints and poets, maybe; they do some.”  And he’s right – while some people seem to get more out of life (more joy, contentment, success, prosperity or fame), nobody comes to the end of the day and thinks, “What a day – I got everything I could out of it.  I can’t imagine being more satisfied with a completely experienced day!”  If we would honestly look back over our day as we pillow our head at night, we’d face the knowledge that we missed something here or we did something wrong there or something over here just didn’t make sense.  We may find contentment and sweet rest, but ultimate satisfaction?  Not likely.  Oddly enough, our inability to enjoy life fully isn’t the only source of dissatisfaction.  Just as pertinent and poignant is the realization that this life isn’t enough.  I feel a sense of disappointment because I can’t make full use of life’s opportunities; even if I could, I still would have find fulfillment because there’s some potential in me that life can’t fill.  In the words of Wilder’s Stage Manager, “We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”  Or if you prefer the words of the wisest man who ever lived, “He has also set eternity in their heart” (Solomon, Ecclesiastes 3.11).  Where did that “something way down deep that’s eternal” come from?  God put it into our heart.  We’re created to run on a bigger track than “life under the sun.”  Solomon’s conclusion in Ecclesiastes – the way to satisfy that heart-eternity – is a relationship with God: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments” (Eccl. 12.13).  Do you feel the frustration of an unfulfilled and unfulfilling life?  The solution to your problem is found in a personal relationship with the loving God who made you.

Solomon closes Ecclesiastes with a two-fold exhortation: fear God and keep His commandments.  This lesson explores the Old Testament background to the phrase fear God.

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This lesson finishes the notes and subject from last week.

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