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