Camp Sunday!

I'm here today, and I want to talk about the fun of camp and let you know that

the fun of camp is serious business.

But it is camp, and so to illustrate that, just a warning, this is a camp sermon.

So we're going to have some audience participation is required.

So most of you have rubber bands that we handed out when you came in.

You're going to be shooting those rubber bands at me, but not until I tell you.

Not until I tell you, okay? You're going to shoot them at two different times.

There'll be a couple questions that I ask, and I would love for you to shout

out answers to those questions.

But before I get into the why of camp, why the fun of camp is serious business,

the single most thing that I want to start with, the single most thing that

you can do, and that is to pray for us.

And we have these cards on our table back there for you to take home.

And I would love if you would put it on your fridge, in your prayer journal,

in your Bible, wherever it is, that you will see it during your regular prayer time.

And these are five priorities, prayer priorities that we have as a camp right now.

And we're asking that you pray for these things and not stop praying for these

five things until we ask you to stop.

And you can see there clear vision, firm financial footing, wise decision-making,

passionate partners, and healthy culture.

And we've already seen the Lord answer those prayers for those things in incredible

ways so far, but we want to continue just to lay ourselves at his feet and ask

that he would continue to build those things in and at Sky Lodge.

So why is the fun of camp serious business?

See, camp ministry provides, I believe and know that camp ministry provides

a necessary rhythm in a healthy spiritual life.

And to understand that, we first have to dive a little bit in and examine our

daily lives. So here's my first question, your first audience participation.

You know, if you think of a typical week and what it's like for you,

how would you describe it in one word? So describe your typical week in one word.

I heard crazy. I heard...

Busy? Quick? Fun? Oh, good. I like your life. Yeah.

That's right. There's a lot of words that we can use, and the one that jumps

to my mind, and I hear how many of you just, with a show of hands,

raise your hands if it would be adequate or accurate to say that your daily life,

your weekly, typical week, is busy.

How many raise your hand? Be like, yep, that's, yeah. Look at that.

Almost all of us raise our hands because our lives are busy in today's day and age.

We're either actively engaged in a commitment. We've got work or school and

then all these other things.

We're either actively engaged in a commitment or we're trying to recover from

being actively engaged in commitments.

And these are things that, for the most part, we voluntarily chosen and we enjoy doing.

Even so, the result is a crowded life.

And the question this morning is, how often do we stop to consider the effect

that a busy, crowded life has on our spirits?

When is the last time that you've wrestled with the truth that even good things

can have a detrimental effect on you?

You know, that's a good question. That's an

important question because when our lives are

crowded there are things that either must go things or people that must go we

just don't have time for them or that will be relegated to the fringes and they

only survive off the scraps that we have left to give in life right isn't that

what happens in a crowded life.

Because we only have so much capacity to focus. After all, we're limited beings. We're not gods.

I know sometimes I forget that. Sometimes I like to make commitments as though

I'm infinite, but really I'm finite.

And I may say that I'm a multitasker, but the truth is I can only focus on one thing at a time.

We can't focus on more than one at a time. So when our life gets too crowded.

Other things get pushed out.

And this reality reminds me of the scene from the life of Peter.

It's found in Matthew 14, and I'll read it for us.

It says, Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead

of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd.

After he had dismissed them, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray.

Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable

distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them walking on the lake.

When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.

It's a ghost, they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them, "'Take courage. It is I.

Don't be afraid.'" "'Lord, if it's you,' Peter replied, "'tell me to come to

you on the water.'" "'Come,' he said.

And then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water,

and came towards Jesus.'" In case I'm reading too fast.

Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came towards Jesus.

But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink,

cried out, Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

You have little faith, he said. Why did you doubt?

Okay, so here we see that Peter was walking on the water, which,

how many of you have done that?

No? Amazing. Uh-huh, right.

Yeah, he was walking on the water, and then he wasn't. What changed?

What changed from the moment that he was walking on the water and then he wasn't?

Yeah.

That's right. That's right. And what did he look at instead?

The waves, right? He looked at the wind, which we know when you're on the lake,

right? What happens when the wind comes up?

The waves pick up. All right. So what changed?

Peter got distracted. his eyes off Jesus and onto the circumstances around him.

You see, a busy life is a distracted life.

And then we've added to our already

busy life screens. Oh, I don't have my phone on me. What do you know?

Screens, right?

And these screens, they eat up the vast majority of the time that we have before

events. How many of you are guilty of this?

Like you have five or ten minutes between something, what do you do?

Yeah, you pull out your phone. Now we already have a busy life.

And now into that busy life where we just have, we don't have a lot of time

in between things. Now we have these phones, these screens in our pockets or

these TVs that we turn on.

And all of the extra time that we have is eaten up by screens.

And so what happens is that all of our time, the scarce time that we have for

self-reflection and prayer and rest,

listening and connecting with the Lord, is eaten up more and more by busyness

and by the distractions of screens.

So, I know this is real good news so far, isn't it?

Don't worry, it's going to get better, but first it's going to get worse.

Because if the busyness and distractions of life weren't bad enough,

the truth is that we are under attack.

In Revelations 12, 17, it says, Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and

went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's

command and hold fast to their testimony about Jesus.

We got a target on our backs, right? All of us in this room,

we hold fast to the testimony of Jesus, don't we?

And the scripture tells us that the dragon, who in Revelation symbolizes the enemy, the devil,

that he wages war against those who keep God's commands and hold fast to the testimony of Jesus.

So you've got a target on your back. And the enemy uses a variety of weapons,

but his goal is always the same, and that's to get us to doubt God's provision

and goodness, that God is not good and you can't trust him.

Raise your hand if you've ever experienced that you can think back to a time

or maybe even currently or in a struggle right now,

and that is the lie that the enemy is tempting you with, that you can't really

trust God. Does God really know?

Did God really say? We had a close family member that went through a major depression.

And I'm going to tell you the lie that the enemy was telling me day after day

after day. Because God's got good, not good, and you can't trust him.

It wasn't maybe always that direct, but that was what he was trying to get me to.

That I can't really trust God to take care of this family member. To bring them through.

Let's read mark 4 35-39 and see if we can catch this ploy at work it says that

that day it's again around the lake but when that,

that day when the evening came he said to his disciples let's go over to the

other side and leaving the crowd behind they took him along just as he was in

the boat so here they are in a boat again,

and there were also other boats with him a furious squall,

came up and the waves broke over the boat so it was

nearly swamped and Jesus was in the stern sleeping on

a cushion the disciples woke to him woke him

and said to him teacher don't you care if we drowned

he got up rebuked the wind and the waves

quiet be still then the wind died down and it was completely calm what was the

lie what I just read did you catch what was the lie that the disciples that

the what was it right they were doubting they were huh.

Yeah, don't you care if we drowned?

Doubting his character. Doubting his goodness.

Right? And this is what he does to us as well.

He tries to obscure the truth of God's character and make it difficult to hear

him. It kind of feels like this.

Got a rubber band? Take one of your rubber bands out.

Take one. You're going to do this twice, but right now just take one, okay?

All right, so it's kind of like this. It feels like this, like we're living

our life and we're under attack. So it's kind of a large auditorium.

So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start over here.

I'm going to walk this way, and I want you to attack me with your rubber bands.

I won't walk too fast. Are we ready?

Okay, let me have it. This is what life feels like a lot of times. Come on.

I didn't like you to get her. I didn't like you to get her.

All great, children. laughter laughter laughter laughter.

All right, all right.

All right, well, you're going to get a chance to do that again, but that's what

it's like it's what it feels like a lot right life

feels like that it's the attacks it's the distractions

and camp in our case skylight christian camp but camp provides the secret ingredient

called awayness being away from the distractions the busyness of our daily life,

the hard people in our lives,

from screens and bad habits.

It's more like this. Now, I need my volunteers, Brittany, Wes,

and Tim, I'm conscripting you, so come on up.

All right, now we're going to do this again. This is going to illustrate what

it's like at camp. Guys, come on over here.

I want you to try to shoot me again. Come here, come here, come here, come here.

You guys are protecting me you guys are protecting me all right and we got to

walk this way all right get your rubber bands ready again see if you can get me,

all right let's walk walk walk walk walk all right we got to watch out watch

out back up back up back up okay uh-huh get me get me come on come on come on.

I'm taking it i know you know you're okay guys thank you thank you all right.

That's what camp is like.

The Sky Lodge provides the sustained but temporary refuge from screens,

from people, and bad habits, busy daily rhythms, so that the truth can be declared through creation.

Romans 1.20 says that since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,

his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood

from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

When people are at camp, they can see the truth declared through that, through creation.

They can see the truth declared through teaching. In Colossians it says that

he is the one we proclaim.

This is what we would say at Sky Lodge as well. That he, Jesus,

is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so

that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.

To this end we strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in us.

And the truth is declared through intentional community. In Hebrews it says

that let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

That phrase, let us consider, it's intentional.

It's our intention to spur one another on towards love and good deeds.

So at camp, we're more clearly able to see, to see what the truth is,

to see clearly God's character.

It's a gift like Elisha gave his servant in 2 Kings 6, 15 through 17.

It says, When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early in the

next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city.

Oh no, my Lord, what should we do? The servant asked.

Well, don't be afraid, the prophet answered. Those who are with us are more

than those who are with them.

Really? You and me? And Elisha prayed, Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.

Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full

of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

At camp, we try to intentionally create this.

It's more, you're more clearly able to see the truth of God's character and who he is.

So that you can return home knowing and remembering the truth declared in Psalm

46, 1 through 3, which says, God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall

into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains

quake with their surging.

See, at camp creates a rhythm that clears the fog and lifts high the banner

that God is good and he can be trusted.

And that is serious business.

So the fun of camp is serious business and it's something that we can't do alone.

We talked about i started with the prayer partners

and the prayer priorities because i want

to it to be clear that that

that's the most important thing but there's other

ways too how you can participate in the

work that god's doing at sky lodge and participate and

being this safe place of refuge and

one thing is obviously kids you can

send kids to camp if you if kids you

can come to camp if you have people kids that

you have influence over you could let them know about this opportunity maybe

it's a financial a burden you could help

alleviate that burden but you can help spread the word about the camps that

we have available we also always need counselors and sometimes there's this

this myth that you have to be like 25 or you know 20 to 27 to be a counselor,

and that's simply not true.

Anybody can be a counselor if you have a heart to spend time with kids and declare

to them the truth of who God is.

There is a thing too, like if you are, there's a scholarship that can be given.

There's a scholarship, first of all, for first-time campers.

If there's people, kids who have never come to camp, they can come to camp completely

free through the Crossroads Scholarship for that first time.

And then counselors are also given a break. So if I had a child at camp and

I came to council, there'd be like a $200 discount for that.

And if I didn't have a kid, but I came to camp to council, but I knew of somebody

else in the church, I could offer that scholarship to them as well.

So two ways that you can participate hands-on is sending kids counseling.

And then we always need nurses and program workers.

Nurse Tim could probably need some help so that he doesn't always have to be,

but Tim does come and help us a lot.

So anyways, for those kind of activities and to register your kids for camp

and to find out more about counseling, you can scan the QR code up here.

And there's also some cards in the table in the back that have that QR code

that will take you there.

Also, there is summer staff opportunities.

Rising sophomores and above, rising high school sophomores and above can come

spend two or more weeks working at camp.

And this is an incredible opportunity. It's a great way to experience independence

and build confidence. independence.

They get to be independent and on their own, but in an environment where your

mistakes are not as high risk.

So this is a great way for kids to build independence and build confidence.

There's foreman and training for high school graduates and then foreman,

which are our supervisory positions for college age and above young adults.

So those are those summer staff opportunities that we have.

And I'm a little bit biased, but I have been in the camping ministry for many,

many years in this camping industry.

And I would have to say that our Zone Summer Staff program is the best that

I have ever seen in all of that I've experienced.

So if you know of anybody who would remotely be interested, I would greatly

encourage you to encourage them.

So...

We talk about half inches at Sky Lodge as a way to break down this huge task

of moving Sky Lodge into the future, into a good future.

And so it's a huge task. And then so in order to break it down into manageable

chunks for us as a staff to think about and also for our volunteers to think

about, we talk about half inches.

And this is to invite collaboration and so that we can see and celebrate positive momentum.

Like when we celebrate that we are making progress little by little instead

of having to wait for big things to be accomplished.

And I'm happy to report that we have a lot of forward and positive momentum.

Our half inches have turned into feet.

And so since December 1st, we've had literally 50 volunteers come and volunteer

helping serve guest groups and advance various projects.

And that's how half inches work. It's our half inches and everybody else coming

and helping little by little.

It doesn't take one person, it doesn't require one person to do a lot.

It just requires a lot of people to do simply what they can.

And so we've had a lot of good forward progress on several things, a lot of projects.

And I know everybody's curious about the hitching post, our new snack shopping game room.

And we're nearing the end of drywall, finishing the drywall and several rooms have been primed.

Electricity now works. We can turn on lights with switches rather than plugging

them in, so that's a good thing.

The goal is to get it painted hopefully by April 5th in preparation for the

electricians coming for another workday.

And I'm going to be honest with you, that's an ambitious goal at this point,

and it's going to require some volunteers,

people just willing to come and basically do what we tell you to do.

Let us teach you. Let us teach you some skills.

The also for the hitching post the septic plans have been submitted to the state

and we anticipate installing that in the early spring.

Hopefully it will be usable by early summer.

And I think we'll be able to do that with a big push here in April and May.

But this finishing the hitching post is a huge task that's too big for one person.

It's just a prime example of how half inch by half inch produces big results.

Motel 6 is another project that we've been working on, and it's getting close

to completion. The contractor who's volunteering his time to do this project

will be coming back in mid-April, and we fully anticipate to have Motel 6 ready to use by men's retreat.

So if you're coming to men's retreat, I don't know, we don't want fistfights

over the new room. I'm not sure how we're going to handle that,

but it will be ready for use.

And the log house, which we've had to renovate, is also coming along really well.

We've got the wood stove installed. All the insulation is in.

The electric is done. the drywall is hung and now we have to mud it.

And I don't know about you guys, but.

Building projects would just go a lot faster if we didn't have to mud and tape and sand drywall.

So I don't know if somebody wants to like volunteer,

not volunteer, somebody wants to create a way, like we need an entrepreneur

to figure out a way to like kind of skip over or or make that fast step faster,

but that's where we're at there.

And we have a May 1st move-in date. We need to get, Wes and I need to get moved

in there because we have to do a staff shuffle to be ready for summer. So another big push.

So basically you can tell that we don't work very hard at Sky Lodge.

So no, we've been working hard, and I'm very thankful for a staff who works

hard and all the volunteers that have come along.

And hopefully you know that we've been doing a big fundraiser called

the finish what we started fundraiser there's eight projects on

that fundraiser and three of them we were just talking about

and the but i'm happy to say that our progress is we've made 91 of our 275 000

goal so we're 91 either pledges or money in the bank so that's amazing that's

over 250 000 that has been raised,

supporters have given of their resources,

many of them sacrificially to help us move over the finish line.

So we're very, very thankful for that.

Well, like I said, the serious camp, the serious business, the fun of camp is serious business.

And it takes all of us, all of our supporters, all of our churches,

whether it's raising funds, coming and volunteering time and skills,

sharing about camp with other people.

One of the favorite things that I've seen happen this fall is Sky Lodge.

There's one supporter in particular who volunteered her skills to come and to

help on a big project on Motel 6.

But she also reached out to her contractor that she works with.

And he's the contractor that's volunteering his time on Motel 6.

Somebody who had never heard of Sky Lodge before.

All that was was a Sky Lodge supporter who was like, hey, what does it hurt

to ask if they would be willing to donate some time.

And his name is Mike, and he has just been an incredible, incredible support.

He's donated time and to the motel, he donated materials.

And Wes has his number now and calls him up all the time and asks him a question.

And he's just, he went from somebody who didn't know about Sky Lodge at all

to somebody who is a supporter of Sky Lodge. And how?

Because somebody he knew just told him about and asked if he'd be willing.

So I just think that's an incredible thing. And that's the way of the future

for us is everybody talking about Sky Lodge and,

making the opportunities known to everybody that we come in contact with.

So thank you so much for the support and for the listening ear. You guys have a good day.