Update from a former TBC intern

I thought I'd post an update from Matthew Lundy, former Youth Intern, for those of you interested in what he's been up to. Pretty cool ministry! Note his request for prayer at the end.

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In the pine forests of rural North Carolina lies Cameron Boys Camp. A branch of the Baptist Children's Homes of North Carolina, Cameron Boys Camp is a therapeutic wilderness camp designed to reconcile troubled boys and their families. For the last year, I have been working at the camp as a counselor (aka: Chief) in the Trailblazer group. My group, ages 12 to 14, live in primitive shelters that we build out of pine logs and heavy tarps.

Campers learn relationship building, personal hygiene, wood carving, cooking, and many other practical life skills.
Camp is also a fully accredited alternative school. Aside from the standard reading, writing, and math, academic activities include menu planing, budgeting, and hands on studies of nature. Our field trips have included a month long, 250 mile canoe trip from the Okefenokee Swamp, down the Suwanee River, to the Gulf of Mexico.

You can be in prayer for me and my fellow counselors, the campers and their families, and the camp for girls that is set to open in the next six months.

I have included several pictures. One of the tent that I live in, one of my group on the Suwanee River, and one of me building a tent at the girls camp.

Shepherd Study Guide

For those of you who wanted to use Pastor Ryan's sermon as a jumping-off point for your devotions this week, and didn't get a chance to write down the scripture passages he encouraged for further study of God's role as Shepherd, here they are:

As Shepherd, God...
Meets the needs of His sheep (Matthew 6:25-26)
Gives rest to the weary (Matthew 11:28-30)
Leads his flock to food & water (John 7:37-38)
Restores & heals (Matthew 9:1-8)
Protects & comforts with rod & staff (1 Samuel. 17:34-37)

Happy studying!

What's your name?

We're getting back into our series on the Names of God this Sunday. Pastor Perry kicked it off on Father's Day with "Father," Bill Kehoe spoke about God our Healer, and this Sunday Ryan Anderson will speak about God our Shepherd. One feature we'll have during this series is members of our congregation sharing about their name. How they got it, if they have any nicknames, if they know the meaning of their name, etc.

I'd be interested to hear about your name. We won't have time in our services to hear from everyone in the congregation, so why don't you tell us blog readers about your name? How did you get your name, how has it shaped you, how have you come to grips with your name? Comment on this post if you're interested in participating.

All-consuming

God wants to be everything in our lives. He wants all of us, not just part. He desires to be placed in the top spot or all our priorities, so that other things, such as our love for family, is a distant second (so distant that it might even be seen as hatred in comparison…see Luke 14.26).

Ryan McGladdery spoke to us yesterday about Colossians 1:17, “[Jesus] existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” Jesus holds everything in this world together, and without his active intervention, things would spin out of control, both literally and figuratively. We ought to live our lives with Jesus in the prime spot, forming our values and informing our view of the world we live in.

God desires all of us, and hates being relegated to a more trivial place in our lives. We’re going to hear from Pastor Gene later in the summer that God is a jealous God (Ex. 34.14). He is jealous in a righteous way that is totally foreign to our human understanding of jealousy. His jealousy is primarily about over this matter: He wants our total devotion. Israel provoked God’s jealousy over and over by putting idols in place of God. We don’t usually actually worship false gods such as Baal or Asherah, but, as Ryan pointed out, we often put money, human relationships, escapism, food, or other things in place of God as our “sustaining force.” Only God can truly sustain us.

He doesn’t need our love, for he was perfectly complete before he created the universe. But he created us for the purpose of having a relationship with us, showing us his glory, and having his people reflect his character to the rest of the world (Romans 9.23, 2 Cor. 3.18, 2 Cor. 4.6, Eph. 1.11-12).

God wants us to find our satisfaction and sustenance from him alone for at least a couple of reasons. First, it works the best for us. God created us, and he knows how we function best. It’s like operating your car with gasoline, as the manufacturer recommends, rather than dumping carrot juice in to the tank. Second, God wants to bless us and satisfy us completely so that other can see how good and glorious he is. God’s people are the objects of his mercy so that our lives can shout out God’s goodness. We ought to be walking tributes to the grace and mercy of God (1 Peter 2.9-10).

Romans 12.1 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.” I’ve heard it said that the problem with living sacrifices is that we keep walking off the alter. Let’s daily re-commit our whole selves to God, placing our whole life on the alter so that God can work his grace and mercy in us, and through us bring glory to himself.

Books, brick, and mortar

I just purchased our "summer reading" books at Vine and Branches bookstore in Lodi.

In case you haven't heard, Pastor Perry encouraged the congregation to read three books along with him while he's on his sabbatical this Summer. They are:

The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul
Crazy Love by Francis Chan
The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller

I'd strongly encourage you to pick up a copy of each of them and read them with us this summer. I'd also encourage you to buy them from your local Christian book store. Why? Here's a story:

I was trying to find a Christian bookstore while on vacation recently. In both Seattle and Portland I had great difficulty locating one. Many Christian book stores I had frequented in the past had been shut down. (I was able to find several good stores in Salem, Oregon however). I don't want to drone on about economics and e-commerce, but I do want to offer an encouragement to support your local Christian book store. It's great to have a great one in Lodi, where we can look through books, get exposed to products we might not otherwise encounter, and learn about events happening in our local Christian community.

I know you might save a few bucks here or there by shopping online (or maybe not! Sometimes there are great sales and discounts at local stores), but can you smell the pages online? I think not.