Bible Camp - A Place That Changes Lives

This past Sunday Chad Campbell from Good Earth Village (our Bible camp near Spring Valley) came to Peace and talked about the wonders of a camping experience.  Memories from my younger days flooded back to me.  Bible camps changed my life.

I’ll never forget the absolutely wacky camp counselors.  These college age men and women were the height of coolness.  They put on bizarre skits.  They played practical jokes on each other.  They led us in huge games like capture the flag and hide the counselor.  They loved Jesus.  I wanted to grow up and be just…like…them!

A Young Pastor Pete - The Camp Man with a Plan

As I look back on things, I was a typically self-conscious kid.  For 51 weeks of the year I obsessed about what others would think of me.  For that one week of camp, I felt free to be my wacky self.  I remember the time that some girls dressed me and my cabin mates in drag (hair…make-up…the works) as we shared our lip synching ‘talent’ with the whole camp.  Another time, my cabin got ‘dinged’ during cabin inspections for having too many shoes on the floor, so we proceeded to gather hundreds of shoes from people all over camp.  At the next inspection shoes covered the floor…the beds…even the rafters. One camp tradition was that people who received 3 or more letters from home had to sing to everyone before receiving them.  The day before I left for camp I’d mail 20 post cards to my buddy Craig, ensuring that he’d get nailed!  The fun that I had that one week a year exceeded anything that I experienced back home.

Bible Camp was a place where I felt free to be myself.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this happened because camp provided a safe place for me to experience the unconditional love of Jesus.  Every aspect of camp, from swimming to singing, from laughing to reading the Bible, from counselors to cooks, oozed with the deep message, “God loves you just the way you are.”   As a kid, I desperately needed to hear that word.  I didn’t have to conform to someone else’s definition of ‘cool.’  God gave me my weird sense of humor, and at camp I could use it.

Bible Camp became a place where I grew deep in my relationship with Jesus.   The awesome counselors provided wonderful examples of people who loved their Lord.  They put on goofy skits that told the story of God’s work in the world.  They led us in times of quiet reflection on our lives of faith.  They sat us down and taught us about the God who has done so much for us.  Every year I left camp with a deeper relationship with the God who claimed me.  I found that following Jesus wasn’t just about rules and regulations!  I experienced the absolute joy of the Lord.

A week at Bible camp can change a kid’s life...it did for me!  That’s what happens when the unconditional love of Jesus washes over people.

For more information about Good Earth Village, check out their website at

www.goodearthvillage.org. 

Life Isn't Fair

Life isn’t fair.

Last Thursday afternoon shouts echoed through my family room.  Big Ten Basketball Tournament time had come, and the Northwestern Wildcats (my alma mater) were on the brink of making the NCAA tournament.  Never in the history of the NCAA tournament (which began in 1939) have the ‘Cats made it into the Big Dance, so this was a HUGE game.  I felt fortunate that we got to play the Gophers (face it; they’ve been embarrassing this year).  Conventional wisdom held that Northwestern just had to beat the Gophers…and history would be made!  The monkey would be off our backs!

I held my lucky Northwestern gnome and cheered as the ‘Cats took a second half lead.  Everything seemed to flow our way.  Then…Northwestern suddenly forgot how to play basketball.  Their shots fell short.  I grumbled.  They dribbled off their feet.  I complained.  The lead disappeared.  OK, I yelled a wee bit.  The game went to overtime, and the ‘Cats went from bad to worse.  I shouted more than a wee bit.  As the final buzzer sounded, with the Gophers winning the game and dashing my hopes, I fell into a stupor. 

Life isn’t fair.

Northwestern players are true student-athletes.  They go to class. They earn quality degrees.  They graduate!  The school has always done things the right way.  If there were justice in the world Northwestern would at least have made the NCAA tournament ONE time. 

Life isn’t fair.

Some people work hard in life and make very little income.  Others do next to nothing and sit on vast wealth.

Life isn’t fair.

Some people abuse their bodies in all sorts of ways and live long, healthy lives.  Other people watch what they eat, exercise regularly, and get the proper rest…and die young.

Life isn’t fair.

God never promised that it would be. Jesus didn’t come to live on earth to bring fairness.  Heck, he got put to death for crimes he didn’t commit!  Jesus came to live with us in the messiness of life.  We live in a broken world!  ”For God so loved [that broken] world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but have eternal life.” 

Life isn’t fair…but God loves us and claims us in the midst of the injustice.  Is that enough?

No Youth Group...No Problem!

“We’re looking for a church with a strong high school youth group.” 

Those words from a Peace Lutheran Church visitor a few weeks back raised my anxiety level.  I had to sheepishly admit that Peace really doesn’t have a ‘youth group’ for those in high school… but that we were working towards activities that involve the entire family (and high schoolers could be a part of it)!  What a lame attempt to justify what appeared to be a glaring gap in our ministry.

The church that I grew up in had a very active Luther League, complete with a full time youth director to lead us in many awesome activities.  I remember the camp-outs, lock-ins, youth trips, bowling nights, and doughnut sales. 

If only we could recreate that experience at Peace!!  I’ve dreamt of having a fun, camp-style youth director who could build relationships with the youth and shepherd them to faith.  Many larger churches get to have that…but sadly Peace just doesn’t have the resources to pull it off.   IF we had the resources THEN we’d make a positive impact on the faith of our youth.  For years I’ve felt the disappointment that smaller churches like Peace have let their kids down!  I suspect I’m not the only one!

It’s a lie!  My whole way of thinking changed last week as I had the opportunity to attend a “Nurturing Faith @ Home” class at Luther Seminary.  I went to find some creative ways to overcome our ‘smallness’ and help kids grow in faith (despite our lack of a cool young director).  What I learned shocked me!  Study after study reveals that the model of ‘cool youth director and lots of youth activities’ does a POOR job of raising kids in the faith.  And you know what kind of ministry actually impacts the faith of young people?  The very family ministry that I sheepishly offered!  

The research overwhelmingly shows that children (whether toddlers or high schoolers) grow in faith as they share in faith activities with parents and other adults.  For years there has been a major disconnect between ‘youth’ faith activities and ‘adult’ faith activities.  The youth had their own Sunday Schools, youth groups, and service trips.  Very few parents helped to lead them (and most parents were too intimidated to do it!).  Most adults took part in separate faith activities (leading worship, gathering in small group Bible studies, having personal devotional time).  We always made the assumption that the youth would make the transition from ‘youth faith’ to ‘adult faith,’ but the church provided few ways for that to happen.   Youth ministry focused on the personality of the leaders and the fun activities they attended.  As the youth grew and matured in life, those events faded away.  Nobody (including parents) had prepared them for an adult life of faith.

If youth ministry is about hiring a full time youth director and planning many activities…Peace can’t do that.  But if youth ministry is about gathering families together to grow in faith together…we’re all set!

In December and January many people from Peace gathered together to ask the question, “What is the goal of Peace’s faith formation activities?”  A group of people boiled the whole conversation into four core values:

·         Help people develop a personal relationship with a God who loves them.

·         All people are God’s children…so all should be welcomed and made comfortable.

·         Faith building activities can involve the whole family.

·         Providing a variety of faith building activities will allow the most people to take part in some of them.

For once, I’m not ashamed to not have a rockin’ youth group!  We build faith in our youth (and adults!) when we get families together to work at Channel One…when we take time to teach the whole family to pray (as we’re doing in our Wednesday night Lenten time)…when we gather families for movie nights at Peace… when families work together to usher or serve communion on Sunday mornings!   In the next few months you will hear all sorts of creative ideas on ways that families can come together to grow in faith (and it doesn’t matter if the family has toddlers or high schoolers at home…whether the family’s kids have grown and left the house…whether grandma now raises the kids…whether the family consists of one person or many…).

Small churches like Peace are perfectly suited to gather families to grow in faith together.  The time to be ashamed that we can’t have a youth group like someone else’s church has gone.  It’s time to hold our heads up high…and boldly lead families together in faith.

All Are Welcome in This Place? Really?

²⁷ After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, ²⁸ and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

²⁹ Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. ³⁰ But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³¹ Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Matthew 5:27-32

Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, tells the story of a friend of his who worked with the down-and out in Chicago.  A prostitute who had been driven to do unspeakable things came to him and poured out her story.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help.  I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face.  “Church!” she cried.  “Why would I ever go there?  I was already feeling terrible about myself.  They’d just make me feel worse.”

Ironic, isn’t it?  A person who desperately needed to hear a word of love and grace in her life feels repulsed by the very institution that proclaims that love and grace.  How quickly we turn into Pharisees!

What would it look like for God’s church to actually welcome people as Jesus welcomed them…to love them as children of God?  It’s easy ‘in theory’ to say that God welcomes all people…but what does that look like when someone high on meth walks into a church building…or when the man on the sex offender list stops in to pray.  How easily we justify keeping ‘those’ people out!

Custer Lutheran Fellowship in Custer, SD has this note of welcome posted on their wall.  It’s a radical welcome: one that Jesus just might agree with!

Who Is Welcome Here?

·         We want it to be of public record that those of different colored skin and heritage are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that those who suffer from addiction to drugs and alcohol (whether recovering or not), and their families are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that women and children are welcome here and that they will not be harassed or abused here.

·         We want it to be public record that in this congregation you can bring children to worship and even if they cry during the entire service, they are welcome.

·         We want it to be known that those who are single by choice, by divorce, or through death of a spouse, are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that if you are promiscuous, have had an abortion, or have fathered children and taken no responsibility for them, you are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that gossips, cheats, liars, and their families are welcome here.

·         We want it to be known that those who are disobedient to their parents and who have family problems are welcome here.

·         We want it to be of public record that gays and lesbians and members of their families are welcome here.

·         Let it be public knowledge that we at Custer Lutheran Fellowship take seriously that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The young and old, the rich, the poor, all of the broken are welcome here.

·         We want it to be public knowledge that we are justified by the grace of Lord, which is a gift through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

·         We offer welcome here because we believe that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly. That's us. Christ did not die for us after we showed signs of "getting it all together." Christ loved and still shows love to us while we are yet sinners.

·         Sinners are welcome here; sinners like you and me, and like our neighbors. Let us not condemn the world, but let us proclaim to a broken and hurting world, God's forgiveness and grace.

·         We want it to be of public record that since we are a sinful people, we will not always be as quick to welcome as we should. Let us be quick to admit our sin and seek forgiveness.

·         May God give us the grace to welcome and forgive one another as Christ has welcomed and forgiven us.

Written by Pastor Chuck Hazlett, who served Custer Lutheran Fellowship from 1978 - 1998 

Remember that you are dust...

One of my earliest memories from my childhood is a bit choppy, since I was probably somewhere around 4 years old at the time. I remember that I’d been playing at the park near my home in the innocent, happy way that kids do.  When I got home my mom broke some terrible news: my goldfish had died.  I ran and saw it floating upside down in its small goldfish bowl.  To this day I can still feel those 4 year old emotions.  I loved that fish!  I can vividly remember watching my dad taking a shovel to the earth under the lilac tree.  We put the fish in a small cardboard box, placed it in the ground, and covered it with the dry earth.  I’d had my first experience of death.  Were I to go to that lilac tree today I probably wouldn’t find a trace of that little fish.  Ashes to ashes…dust to dust.

I’ve experienced a lot more death in the years following that fish.  Time after time I’ve stood at gravesides, watching caskets get lowered into the ground…or vault…or urn.  Sometimes it was family: my mother Edee Reuss, my grandfather Jim Bantz, my grandpa and grandma Dave & Esther Meier, my grandpa George Reuss.  Sometimes it’s been members of congregations I’ve served: Marianne Morton, 10 year old Lichahan Kennell, Roaland White, Max Cliff.  These beloved people would not live on earth forever.  While gravestones mark many of their final resting places, the bodies that we buried slowly decompose.  Ashes to ashes…dust to dust.

Welcome to Ash Wednesday, the day when God’s people all over the world receive a blunt message, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”  Tonight we will gather at Peace to receive the mark of dust on our foreheads.  God created us from dust (as he did with Adam in Genesis, chapter 2).  When we die we will return to the dust (no matter how much embalming we receive).

Ash Wednesday is no mere morbid fascination with death!  It comes as a reality check in our lives.  We often try to pretend that death will ever come to us…we act like we will live on this earth forever.  We won’t.  We are dust…and we will return to the dust.  We can live a healthy lifestyle…we can eat the right foods…we can be good people…we can love our neighbors…we can worship every Sunday…and we will still die. 

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our utter dependence on God.  That fish that I buried cannot rise from the grave on its own.  My mother and grandparents cannot rise from their graves on their own.  Life beyond death is God’s work, not ours.  Ash Wednesday begins the long walk with Jesus as he heads to the cross and the tomb. 

I cannot save myself.  This body that I know and love will die and return to the dust.  My only hope is in the God who comes to raise the dust to life once again.  Death could not hold Jesus.  Death will not hold me.  I can do nothing to earn that salvation.  It comes as a free gift from the God who created and claimed me.  I need not fear death because Jesus has conquered it!

Remember that you are dust…and to dust you will return.

Who's invited to the party?

There’s no night like Super Bowl night.  As the game kicked off, people all over this great nation huddled around televisions to catch the ‘Big Game.’  Many parties made it quite clear who was invited…and who was not!

·         Some parties were all about the commercials.  The Super Bowl has a reputation of spawning very clever ads and people didn’t want to miss out.  This isn’t a party where you can just get up and head to the restroom once a time-out is called.  You’d get in the way of the screen and might get tossed from the party!

·         Other parties endured the football game to see Madonna (and all those other famous folks) at the halftime show.  People might have been milling about during the game, but once the music started all eyes focused on the screen.  This wouldn’t be the party to start a monologue about the “Peyton vs. Eli Manning debate: who is the more elite quarterback?”  Nobody would listen…or care.  It’s also not the party to ask ‘ignorant questions’ like, “Who is that guy singing with Madonna?”  Really, you SHOULD know these things!

·         Many parties use the Super Bowl as an excuse to get together, but people really have no interest in turning the TV on.  They just enjoy a night of food, friends, and conversation.  They might even break into a game of cards!  If you insisted on sitting alone in front of the TV, people would find you to be a party-pooper.

·         Surprisingly, some Super Bowl parties actually have people who want to watch football!  These are people with high ‘football IQs’ who discuss the finer points of the game.  This isn’t the crowd to ask, “Refresh my memory, what is a first down??”

·         New York Giants fans gathered in parties surrounded by other Giants fans.  I’ve known enough New Yorkers over the years to know that ANYONE rooting against the Giants would get instantly booted from the room!

·         Some parties (like the one I was at on Sunday) include a variety of people who come for many different reasons, but nobody is made to feel guilty for not being just like everyone else in the room.

Over the years I’ve found myself at Super Bowl parties where I knew I didn’t really belong…because I’m a football guy!  I’ve been that party-pooper who wouldn’t play cards during the game.  I’ve ignored the halftime show…when everyone else raved about it.  I’ve talked during commercials, only to be ‘shushed.’  I watched the Super Bowl with some Giants fans back in 1991..ugh!

How do your Super Bowl parties include…or exclude…people?

Every Sunday Christian churches around this great nation gather for worship…a weekly ‘party.’  Many of these parties make it clear who is invited…and who is not!

·         Churches often have unwritten ‘rules’ regarding when people stand…what they say in worship…where they go for communion.  Someone who doesn’t know these ‘rules’ will stand out like a sore thumb and feel like an unwelcome idiot.

·         Churches in this nation tend to gather along racial and socio-economic lines.  People with ‘light skin’ can be made to feel uncomfortable in a church of ‘dark skinned’ people…and vice versa.  People ask, “What are they doing here?  Don’t they have their own church to go to?”

·         Some churches frown on any ‘kid noise’ upsetting the atmosphere of the worship service.  At the first peep people start turning around and staring.

·         Some churches hold to a strong sense of morality and shun those who have made poor choices in their lives.

·         When churches gather to study the Bible, people often assume a deep knowledge of Scripture.  The person who struggles to even find the right page can feel like an idiot.

When Jesus walked this earth he spent his time with the ‘outsiders’: prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, fishermen, and terrorists.  Jesus didn’t exclude anyone…Jesus’ church doesn’t have that same track record!  One one point or another, most of us have felt like that 'poor schmuck' who didn't really fit in.

How have the congregations in your life worked to include…or exclude…people?

The Unreality of our Reality

Last month I was a happy man: McDonald’s McRib had returned to the menu.   I’m not usually a big McDonald’s fan (though don’t get me started on their chocolate shakes), but the McRib is a perfect combination of BBQ sauce, pickles, and ‘rib.’ 

Unfortunately I just did a bit of quick research.  McDonalds packs 70 ingredients into my beloved McRib…and one of them isn’t rib meat (it’s actually restructured meat product, including pig bits like tripe, heart, and scalded stomach - YUM)!  McDonalds did their market research…took some random flavors and chemicals (my favorite is azodicarbonamide)…and packaged it all into a meal engineered just for my taste buds!  Even though I’m a good cook, I know that I couldn’t possibly recreate the McRib at home in my kitchen. 

McDonalds has done their homework…they know what I want!  They work to find ways of giving it to me, and are not averse to ‘tweaking’ what God has created a bit to make it happen.

The beauty/fashion/advertising world shares that belief!  Everywhere we look we see ‘perfect’ bodies.  Magazine ads…Sports Illustrated and the swimsuit issue…TV shows…movies…perfection abounds.  We see people with perfect skin, perfect hair, and perfect teeth.  The men look suave and have muscles that bulge.  Women have bodies that would make Barbie turn green with envy. 

McDonalds uses chemicals and random ingredients to give us what we want.  Modeling uses the wonders of make-up, lighting, and (most importantly), Photoshop! 

Take this image of Jessica Alba.  The one on the left is the original – she’s a very pretty woman!  The one on the right has been ‘tweaked’ to give us what we want to see.  Some of the changes are subtle.  Her hair is more vibrant…her eyes sparkle…her lips a deeper red.  No big deal.  But look a little closer.   Her waist has been trimmed down…her hips changed shape…her legs slimmed …her bust grew. Ah, the wonders of the computer.  The end result is not Jessica Alba…it’s a body that even she could only dream of.

From the time that we were little children we saw these images and thought, “I could never look like that.”  Do you want to know the truth?  Nobody does.  Corporate America is giving us what we want to see, not what God created.  Even the most beautiful women and handsome men don’t look like they do on TV or in magazine.  Someone behind the scenes changed their bodies to become more ‘desirable.’

Supermodel Cindy Crawford said it well a few years back when she commented, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.”  She knew what she looked like when she looked in the mirror every morning.  She knew what she looked like on the cover of a magazine.  They did not look the same!  Isn’t it ironic: God looks at Cindy Crawford (one of God’s good creations) and God says, “It is good.”  Someone with a computer and a pile of marketing research looks at Cindy Crawford and says, “It’s not good enough.  We need to change a few things.”

How can we be content with the body that God has given us when we’re constantly faced with such unrealistic expectations?  It forces us to do whatever we can to ‘fudge’ the truth about ourselves (make-up, push-up bras, slimming girdles, hair coloring, hair implants, etc).  God looks at you (and me) and says, “I made that.  It is good.”   Do you look in the mirror and think, “It’s not good enough.  I need to change a few things?”

When it comes to your view of your own body, who do you believe: God ... or some corporate executive armed with market research?