Come and go

I watched the movie Invictus today. I thought it was a solid movie. It contained so much Truth. The way Nelson Madella acted as president during that movie had so many Biblical truths behind it. All I have to say is that you have to see it to know what I mean. There are too many things on here for me to even get started. It's funny though. God himself is in everything. In a movie such as this that really had nothing to do with Christ in my mind had everything to do with Him. There are plenty of quotes, songs, movies and just people who have nothing to do with Christ but to me the meaning behind what they represent is Christ in my eyes.
It is hard to see people come and go. This last week here with first session really makes me sad. They are a great group of people that I will miss tremendously. It is hard to believe that I will most likely never see a lot of them again. They will be only memories to me. And then before I know it there will be a new group, new faces and all with a unique new story of Jesus impacting their lives.

This week my hometown area was here with kids. There are 350 campers this week which is over capacity for Malibu so you can imagine the controlled chaos here at the BU. Tonight is the dance party and I am excited to see what goes down.

Say-so is time where I remember why I do what I do. When I see that group of kids stand up.. It almost brings me to tears. I see it as that moment they are rescued. That is a very powerful word in my book lately.. Rescued. Those kids were rescued from a life that no one will ever know about.. they are rescued to come and live in eternity. There is a celebration in Heaven for these kids.

You just got served

then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:2-8

If you don't understand what being humble is about after you read this then you probably will never understand. Making yourself less then the person next to you knowing you have power over them. Knowing that you could easily do without them yet you serve them. When do we ever consider ourselves nothing? Jesus made himself nothing when He had all the power in the world. It's something that is hard to grasp. Take on the nature of a servant today.. think of the person next you first not yours.. It is tough but it would be what Christ would do.. How cliche this sounds but "What would Jesus do?"

The goal is to be aware of the unseen things even as you live out your life in the visible world.

The first official week is over here and I love it. I really connect with them summer staff here. It definitely helps having 3 of them from school as well as Gary and Judy as the summer staff coordinators. Earlier this year I heard a sermon on what a blessing meant and what it is. Because of it I asked Gary if he would give me one. It then came to my mind that I hadn't been baptized yet and what a wonderful and unforgettable place it would be if I got to do it at Malibu. So hopefully before the session is over I will be able to get baptized.

It is strange but I already feel the sadness of the summer staff and work crew leaving. It will be a strange deal trying to connect with these groups and then see them basically walk away for who knows how long. But no matter what we are still connected. No matter how long the time in between seeing each other we don't forget one another. We are united in Christ and we can't be divided because of Him. It is that common love. The love that we all get to share for eternity. We are eternity bound.. get excited.

Amazing love,
How can it be
That you my God
Would die for me

Amazing Grace
How sweet the sound
I come and lay my burdens down

Amazing Peace
No more to fear
My god my help
is evernear

Amazing grace
How the sweet the sound
I come and lay my burdens down

Amazing sight
No longer blind
You touched my eyes
New hope I find

Amazing grace
how sweet the sound
I come and lay my burdens down

Amazing life
Forget the grave
Jesus had died
My soul to save

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
I come and lay my burdens down

Amazing help
No more alone
New family
New heavenly home

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
I come and lay my burdens down

Amazing love
How can it be
That you my God
Would die for me

Amazing grace
how sweet the sound
I come and lay my burdens down

By Ryan Long

This song has been money for me to listen to with a couple of other songs that have been great to worship the Lord with.

Slower

Well the Summer Staff and Work Crew as well as our first camp and I really feel like I have something going on at all times. I feel like I have no time for the internet except to check it briefly between things. I love it though. Our ODC(outdoor crew) guys are great. I don't get to interact with them as much as I want but the time I have been with them, I love it. There attitudes to serve inspires to want to serve even more. It brings me back to when I was on work crew. Since the campies showed up as well things have become so much slower. Each day seems to be longer which opens up opportunities for more interactions with others.

God is changing me into a man. I strive to be a man after His own heart. This summer so far I feel like He is forming my character as well as my skills to be a man. A man to lead, a man to take care of his family, and a man chasing after Christ. There have been a couple times where I felt like I had crossed the line when poking fun at others and usually I just brush it off thinking that they could handle it because they knew I was joking but something inside me has pushed me into apologizing. Sitting down with the person and saying, "Hey, I know you knew I was joking but I just wanted to let you know I'm sorry and I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." It is like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. It is like I can't go on with my day unless I tell that person how I feel.

So I finished Crazy Love. What a great book. I recommend it to anyone who is looking into a challenging and convicting book. One of my favorite quotes from it is "Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers." I love this. It seems more common here then most places, especially for summer staff and work crew. You tell people that you are going to go and work your butt off for a month for no pay. You think they understand what serving means to you? Sure, I do get an honorarium for serving but does that change why I am here? In my mind it doesn't. I would do this for free in a second.

Crazy Love used this picture that I love to think about. You are swimming in a river against a current... if you don't swim against it you will never gain ground, but flow down the river and fall farther away. This is a picture of our relationship of Christ. WE have to chase after Christ with all of our hearts. If we don't.. if we stay complacent.. we fall slowly away from Him and the relationship He intended for us.

I am thinking of reading another book.. I haven't read any of C.S. Lewis so I might read Mere Christianity, but I am open for suggestions.

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40

This is a verse that I am trying to live out at the moment. Serving everyone.. that is my goal.

Do Something

I love vanilla chi tea.. had it the other night and it looks like I finally found an alternative to hot chocolate when everyone else is having coffee. There is a lot of stuff going down here at camp. We just had discipleship weekend with over 300 campers which is the largest it has ever been. It was a great preview of what camp will be like once the sessions start up. This summer at Malibu we will pushing capacity so everyone here on the property is excited and amped up for what God has in store. The assignment team for first session arrives this week.. CRAZY

Reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan has been great. It is a faith challenging book and already has me wanting to make myself more like Christ. One thing that I really wanted to share with you about Crazy Love was in Chapter 5 called Serving Leftovers to a Holy God. The chapter was essentially about how Christ wants all of you.. He doesn't want only parts. Look at it from His perspective.. He has made everything that you have or will ever want but you will only give part of yourself? It just doesn't make sense. Think of it this way, when you get a token "Thank you" or compliment you but you know the person doesn't truly mean it. I mean wouldn't you rather just have that person not say anything at all? God is that way. He doesn't want a courtesy prayer or for Him to be something on the check list. He wants to be the entire check list, He wants to be everything to you.

One of the things Francis Chan has you do is take the scripture from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which says

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all thing, hopes all things, endures all things..."

Now take this passage and replace the word Love with your name because God calls us to represent love to the world.

Brad is patient and kind; Brad does not envy or boast; he is not arrogant or rude. he does not insist on his own way; he is not irritable or resentful; he does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth. Brad bears all things, believes all thing, hopes all things, endures all things...

I don't know I thought it was really cool and thought you guys would enjoy doing this exercise as I did. I know I haven't lived up to this yet but I know that I can... Love each other because that's what is all about. Serve one another. Your love for Christ will show.

Twice this week I have heard someone say that the poor are better off with Christ then we are. I was in the doctors office thing here at camp and he told us that Africa will be the center of Christianity by 2020 because they don't have anything so all they can do is focus on God and read his word. By living without the safety net we have to depend on God to get us through those tough times and if we don't suffer those times do we truly know the power or love of Christ?

Here at camp we consider our staff one big team. One team with one goal and that is to serve kids and prepare a camp to help show the love of Christ. We were each chosen because we were the cream of the crop. We were chosen for our abilities. I came across a verse today which I thought represented exactly what us interns are here for.

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." 1 Peter 4:10