Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 2
June 10, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
LIVING AS MISSION-MINDED CHILDREN OF GOD
Matthew 28:18-20; Psalm 98:4-8
Acts 16:11-15
Philippians 1:3-11
2 Corinthians 9:6-8, 11-15
John 13:3-5, 12-15, 34-35
(Children’s Camp Sunday)
On Monday morning we left at 10:00 putting children in cars because the bus wouldn’t hold them all. 46 campers, including 8 from among our Karen friends. Children held back their tears. Parents held back their smiles (I mean tears).
Around 11:00 we arrived at Camp KYSOC, an Easter Seals Camp in Carrollton, Kentucky. Our first year at this camp. Some people were actually complaining beforehand about what it was going to be like with no air conditioning, but we really didn’t need it until Thursday when the temperature hit the 90's. It was a beautiful place.
The theme for camp this year was “Living as Mission-Minded Children of God.” During the day we took trips around the world, led by the ship’s captain, Carolyn Posey. And each evening around the campfire we talked about what was involved in living as God’s mission-minded children: Evangelism, Hospitality, Prayer, Action, and Generosity.
Mission-mindedness calls for the practice of evangelism, hearing Jesus’ great commission to his disciples to share the good news of God’s love and forgiveness for each of us, not just receiving it for ourselves. On Monday, Steve Clark and Annette Ellard came and taught us how that happens in Thailand.
One of the highlights of my week came on Monday, watching Brian Bunger shoot rockets hundreds of feet into the sky and wondering where they would come down.
On Tuesday, Sharon White led us on a trip to Morocco and taught us how missionaries helped meet the needs of refugees fleeing to Morocco. We learned about the practice of hospitality, welcoming all people as God’s children, sharing God’s love in tangible ways of help.
That night around the campfire, I shared the story about Lydia offering her home to Paul and his companions as an act of hospitality
Later in the week, I tested my teaching on hospitality.
The showers were in the center of our little village. Your privacy was guarded but you could also hear what was going on outside.
I asked a group of boys if we should dump spiders in the girls’ showers. And they refused. Lesson learned. One of the girls who was showering at the time said much to my delight, “Mr. Adam, I don’t think that’s very nice.” Thinking it was his idea.
Bain Schnur and I contemplated beginning a food fight in the dining hall. The chocolate pudding was a tempting weapon, but we decided it would not be the hospitable thing to do.
I’ve been thinking a great deal about hospitality recently, especially our opportunities to extend hospitality to the Karen refugees. It is clear that they return our hospitality with love and gratitude. A dozen or so of our Karen friends helped us in the demolition of Fellowship Hall yesterday morning. And if you take the time to get to know them, you will realize what a blessing their presence is among us. I sometimes wonder if we are not “entertaining angels unawares.” Don’t worry if you cannot remember their names. They are very understanding. But trust me: it is worth the effort to get to know them.
This week made me continue to ponder the desire of our church to be a hospitable place for children. I began asking myself how we could do it better, wondering how we can make this a place where children crave to be. Let’s think together some more about that.
On Wednesday, Norm and Martha Lytle, along with Margaret Cole, came to camp and took us on a trip to Israel and taught us the importance of keeping people in prayer as we sought to be mission-minded.
Liz Buster was a prayerful example this week. Last year Liz gained a following of disciples by wearing her hair in a particular way. She has gotten particularly more spiritual this year. After lunch one day I’m looking around the dining hall and I catch her eye. She immediately has her table clasp their hands in prayer. The rest of the time she is fighting off the boys who are falling in love with her. Liz is always a big hit at camp.
Several of us in the congregation are praying the daily office together during the month of June. Praying the daily office morning prayer concludes with a call to hospitality and generosity: “We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, and to live our lives so that those to whom love is a stranger will find in us generous friends.” A daily call to hospitality and generosity.
Evening prayer in the daily office calls us to give thanks for “all those in whom we have seen the Christ.” I saw the Christ in children who took turns pushing Nate in his wheelchair. Others comforting those who were afraid. Others who cleaned the messes of others from their table. There were those who helped one another along the walking trail. The camp staff helped make us feel welcome and provided for us. Even the food was quite good. I did get a little concerned Tuesday night when they started mixing things together. I wondered what the rest of the week would hold.
Night prayers asks God to “grant us a quiet night and peace.” That is a fervent prayer of every adult at children’s camp!
Fervent prayers were said Friday during the shipwreck on the SS Matilda with five of our children aboard. Efforts were made by our counselors to corral the boat in. But the motor needed a new battery. The rescue was successful, but made for quite an eventful morning.
On Wednesday we took a three hour hike up to Lookout Point and back. We looked down and saw where the Kentucky and Ohio Revers came together. The beauty of it reminded me of Monday’s Psalm of prayer and praise to God, the psalm that called us into worship today. And on the way back we sang songs of praise.
We sang other songs too. We sang Don McLean’s American Pie about drinking Koolaid and rye. With a little help from Garth Brooks we taught the kids how Jesus had Friends in Low Places. A Carrie Underwood song helped teach the value of fidelity in relationships. We digressed a little with Avril Lavigne and a song about stealing a boyfriend. Eh Ka Paw’s shower concert series brought in some much from Akon. He has a great voice by the way.
I offered to lead the classic, “A Hundred Bottles of Milk on the Wall,” which would have gotten us all the way back to camp, but it was struck down. We did the other camp classic, “Little Red Wagon,” instead.
We wanted to keep singing to keep our minds off how tired our feet were and to deflect the children’s attention from a black snake stretched out a few feet off the path. Which led many of us to prayer, prayer being the theme of the day. And it worked.
Once we got back to camp it was lunch time. Which was the only really disappointing meal of the week. Beef stew. I got into trouble with our camp director by leading half our campers to eat Fruit Loops and Raisin Bran instead. She said it was not a hospitable thing to do. She said it like I should know better, having led the campfire Bible study on the theme just the night before.
I apologized. But Beef stew? For children’s camp? This was not some senior adult camp. This was for kids. And I know what kids like to eat. I have three of them, and my own taste buds stopped maturing at age five.
So because I had cereal for lunch, I had a headache by 3:00. But supper came around and it was fried chicken. And we all said prayers of thanks.
We also said prayers for the mother donkey very pregnant waiting to give birth.
On Thursday, Brent Williams led us to Nicaragua where we learned how to share God’s love in action even in small deeds like purchasing coffee and chocolate from fair trade cooperatives like Equal Exchange, so that coffee and cocoa farmers can earn a living wage.
The scripture text for the day was the one I read during the Children’s Moment from John’s Gospel about Jesus serving and loving his disciples and calling us to do the same.
I thought for a moment we were having a problem with love and respect. Sterling Baker and Millie Horn, two of our youth counselors, kept trying to hit me in the head with a ball. But I realized it was not an issue of respect. It was simply a matter of their being too short to get it over my head!
On Friday, we returned to Louisville before coming home where we learned how we can express our generosity by giving cheerfully to people in need through United Crescent Hill Ministries.
Paul prayed for the generosity of the Corinthians, and told them how their giving was an act of thanks to God, and giving calls out the best in us.
One evening while preparing for the campfire I’m sitting outside and a soft rain begins to fall gently through the trees and birds are singing. A couple of mornings I witnessed the sunrise. I experienced them as gifts of God’s generosity.
There were also generous moments of escape to enjoy camp communion, which for me consisted of Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies and Mountain Dew.
We also had healing oil called Benadryl for the one case of poison ivy among us.
Living as Mission-Minded Children of God calls for Evangelism, Hospitality, Prayer, Action, and Generosity.
I tried to tie all the themes of the week together by saying that all these practices helped us become the person God created us to be.
Paul’s prayer for the Philippians was our prayer: that our love for one another would grow.
Paul told the Philippians we thanked God for them every time he remembered them in his prayers. I will thank God for my every remembrance of this past week - the faces of children, and the adults who gave of themselves.
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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