CAMP 101

Well I thought that after about 20 church camps in the last 8 years, I would know everything to know about the camp thang. However, one thing that continually baffles my mind is how, incredibly, God seems to make each new camp better than the last. Every year God builds my faith to remember that he truly does answer prayer, and that he does do “exceedingly and abundantly beyond what I could ever ask or think.”

God did a ton of amazing things, but probably what I was most encouraged by was how he uses discipleship "life on life" to bring people closer to him, and to actually save souls. For me, one of the blessings of students ministries is discipling students to maturity in Christ. I wanted you to take part in my joy, that true discipleship is happeing, and that people are being conformed more to Christ. Thus, here is an email I just received from one of my students attesting to this truth. I will leave it anonymous, but I had to let you read it because it was so incredibly encouraging to me. This student said,

“Hey, man I just wanted to tell you that i had a grate time at camp. Thank you so much for talking to me on wnedsay you were so helpfull to me all the time. I also wanted to let you know that your finger prints are all over me as tim was talking about. you have contributed to my spitual grouth so much. Thank you so much. Love in CHRIST, Anonymous”

This to me is just a beautiful picture of what God has done up at camp, and the spiritual growth that God is producing through means of discipleship. This young man that wrote this email is such a huge encouragement to me, and he really convicted me with his passionate heart for sincere worship, his genuine hatred of sin, and his desire to be more like Christ. There was also at least one of my guys that wasn’t sure if he was a Christian or not, and I had the opportunity to share the simple truth of the gospel with him and the rest of the group. There were a few that were dealing with un-confessed sin, some that were losing passion, and others that just needed to build relationships . God has been so gracious to have given me so many opportunities in the last couple of weeks to share the gospel with students and just encourage them in their walk. Have I told you all how much I love student ministries and discipleship in general? Anyway, I am so blessed to be able to serve them and be a discipleship leader for them. I am so grateful that God is allowing me to be used in something that I love doing so much, and what is cool is that they teach me probably more than I teach them.

One other thing that also needs to be mentioned about camp is this: We had the coolest pine cone war (slash) capture the flag game that I have ever played! This was the 2nd annual pine cone war that I helped establish last year, and I think this year we had about 30 junior high guys participating. My discipleship group challenged Jon Schultz’s group to a war to see which team could capture the flag three times. We had an amazing time, and it was so cool to see relationships being formed. After we played the game for about an hour and a half, we had a time of prayer praising God that we could have so much fun playing a mere game that involves throwing pine cones at each other and capturing a flag; we then asked God to give us as much passion and energy in sharing the gospel when we got home as we had in playing the game. I can hardly wait for next year’s competition!

Thank you all for your prayers, and I can’t wait to see the fruit that continues as a result of God working through the last week.

In love with Jesus, and passionate for student ministries,

Brent

East Valley Bible Camp

Well, in about 1 hour I will arrive at EVBC and will proceed to start another camp experience. It will be to the same place as I taugt at last week, but this time I will simply be shepherding my own discipleship group. There are about 10 guys in my group that will be going . . . with a total of about 360 people in all.

Pray for my students: Andrew Andrade, Brett Bouchy, Mason Gailfus, Adam Garelick, Jonathan Heckart, Luke Kirstein, Brett Larsen, Jed Maughan, Michael Zowada, and Daniel Bremner. Pray that God would use this weekend to excite them to devote their lives to God alone. Though many of these guys are believers, I am praying that God would light them on fire; and for those who are not saved, that God would graciously save them.

I'm praying also for myself and that God would radically encourage my heart to follow Him with every ounce of my being. I want to love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Is there any other way to love Him? Sadly the answer is yes, and I do this all too often.

Camelback Camp

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Much thanks must be given to my precious heavenly Father, for without Him, this last weekend would have been a total and complete failure. However, by the grace of God, I had the amazing opportunity to have been the camp speaker for the junior high winter retreat for Camelback Bible, and I saw the Spirit move. The weekend started out by having an amazing time of encouragement and prayer with my beloved friend Isaac Weinhausen. We met at IN-N-OUT right before I headed off to Camelback Bible, and it was there that Isaac reminded me that I shouldn’t worry about the results of my teaching, for God was in control of that, and he told me that I just needed to be faithful. Thanks Isaac, you’re faithfulness and friendship mean so much. You are a Godly man, and a dear brother and friend!

Following an excellent time with Isaac, I trekked my way over to Camelback where I began meeting the students that I would be speaking to. After the first twenty minutes on the 15 passenger van with the junior high boys, I quickly realized that at least 5 of the guys in the van were not Christians. Though they may have claimed to have been believers, their lives readily screamed the opposite. I didn’t confront them on their sin as I was in the bus, for I wanted their lives to continue to reap judgment on themselves and I wanted to see what I was dealing with. After having sat with them in the back few rows of the van for about an hour I made my way to the front of the van where the main discipleship leader Andrew was sitting. Almost through tears, he proclaimed his deep love for these guys and his acknowledgement with me that they were all very lost and in deep need of a savior. We prayed some big prayers, and I looked forward to sharing the gospel with these lost souls.

After getting up to Pine Summit in Prescott, we unloaded and soon arrived at the meeting time. After an interesting game, we worshipped to some great songs and then I got up to teach.

The first session was filled with some pretty weighty material as I was going over the rich young ruler from Luke 18. They left knowing that they were either on their way to heaven or hell and of the 18 students that were there, about 7 claimed to not know for sure if their destination was heaven. I was encouraged by their honesty and looked forward to giving them the good news of the gospel the next three sessions.

The next morning’s session included a talk about the idols that get in the way of following Christ and this is where I could really start to see people connecting a few of the dots. I had relaxed a lot, having gotten to know some of the kids, and I was much more interactive since it was such a small group.

The third session Saturday night was absolutely my favorite. I shared about the brutality of the crucifixion of Jesus, and I could see people amazed at what Jesus did for sin. . . however, I left them with the point that they could not just feel pity about Jesus’s death, but that they needed to turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

After this session we had an awesome time of praise and worship, and then some of the kids shared what God was doing in their life. I was encouraged by some of the responses and was also in prayer that God would reap a harvest of righteousness even in the years to come for those that did not come to Christ. I don’t know if any kids got saved, but I know for sure that they are all left without excuse, for the gospel was clearly presented at least four times . . . praise His name!

The final session was great as well, as I talked to the students about how they will be “prone to wander” when they get home, and how they need to really be ready to count the cost of being disciples for Jesus. Overall, I praise God for the opportunity to have shared the gospel. I was also stoked that I was able to encourage some young believers to blaze for Jesus.

Here are some things that were extremely encouraging about Camelback:

1. Bill Pinalto the youth pastor was a huge encouragement as I saw him shepherd his students and staff. What a great brother in Christ!

2. Their music was so God centered . . . every song they sang was directly from Scripture.

3. Their staff (Denise, Kelly, and especially Andrew) had such a bleeding heart of compassion for their students.

4. A high school guy and girl (Stacy and Rob) were invited as well to help shepherd the students and be examples. This was a great idea, and they added so much by their love for God that was seen by the junior high students.

5. They had a camp dad named Randy who helped out amazingly! He rocked and had such a servants heart . . . he has been faithfully serving and attending Camelback for 30 years. WOW!

6. The students were honest and genuine, even though many were unsaved.

7. They have fun! In fact, they played the coolest game while I was there. We did a staff hunt where the kids had to come and find the staff as we went and hid. Bill told the kids if they found me they would get extra points, so naturally in my competitiveness, I wanted to find a really good spot. So, I squeezed myself into a small trash barrel and threw trash on top of me so no one would find me even if they opened the trash lid. Though it was traumatic and cramped being in a stinky trash can, it was all worth it when after 30 minutes the kids gave up because I had hid so well. Andrew finally told the kids that I was in the trash can and what was hilarious was the fact that the kids tipped the trash can over and still didn’t see me. After they started rolling me down the mountain, I finally came out. What a great time! Bill said that in 20 years of doing that game, he had never seen someone go to such lengths to be kept from being found. YEAH BUDDY!


Well, to God be all the glory for anything good that came out of my mouth this last week. I am just so grateful to have had the opportunity serving in a way that I am so passionate about. Though I was sure before, I am even more convinced that I love student ministries and I would love it if God would keep using me in this capacity and even more in the future.

PREACHING THE WORD

I have been given a huge and astronomical ministry opportunity. A few months ago I was approached by Bill Pinalto, the Student Ministries Pastor at Camelback Bible Church, and was asked to be the speaker for their upcoming Jr. High Winter camp this next weekend (January 20-22). I have known Bill for the last year and a half as we have both been involved in the Training Center at EVBC, and I have learned many things from him and his passionate heart to reach students for Christ. He is a man who loves God and loves ministering to students, and so when he approached me to be the speaker for this camp I was extremely encouraged that he would think of me. I let him know that I would pray about the opportunity, and that I would get back with him. Well God in His wisdom knows what he is doing, and after I spoke with people that know me very well, I only received positive feedback that I should go after this opportunity with all of my heart. Bill, his staff, and I have been praying that God would raise up about 20 or more students to go up to Pine Summit this weekend, and though this isn’t a huge group, I am so excited that God has given me the pleasure of proclaiming His Word. As I have been preparing for this opportunity, there have been a number of things on my mind about how my heart should approach this incredible time. Here are a few things that I concluded:

1. I do not care what people think about me, I want lives to be changed by the Word of God and the gospel of Christ! This really became a reality for me after I spent a weekend with Mike Paasch when he was preaching at a men’s retreat for Family Bible Church. I have often been one to care too much about what others think about me as opposed to what really matters . . . life change. However, as I spent time with him that weekend, God used him to greatly affect my heart to be that of a humble servant simply desiring for peoples lives to change by the power of the Word of God, not my words. It was after that weekend that I sure that it was God having me speak for this retreat not my own will. Thank you Mike for reminding me that I need to have a heart that desires to attract others to Christ and not myself. Here is a quote from a pastor from the 18th century that exemplifies this truth: "A man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ's sake - until he gives up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only to attract them to Christ." [1]

2. My cup must first be overflowing and I must be on fire for God. My old discipleship leader and dear friend Mike Griffith once told me that before a believer should try to encourage or share his faith with others, he must first have his cup full with Christ. He gave me an example of a simple cup with water in it. If a person holds a cup that is full of water, the person barely has to move, and water flows out all around the circumference of the cup. However, if the cup is close to being empty, it will not bubble over as easily and it will be much more work to spill out onto others. My desire is that I would be so filled up with Christ and his amazing Word, that my passion would just bubble out to all those around me. I don’t want to have to work hard for others to experience Christ by my life. I want it to be so easy because others can clearly see that I am overflowing with passion for Jesus. I want to say with Tozer, “. . . if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.”

3. Personal holiness is the key to effective preaching. There have been times in this last month of preparation that have been dry in my life and even full of sin. I have noticed that as my personal holiness decreases, my passion for the word decreases as well. I praise God that this last week has been an awesome experience of the presence of God in matters related to holiness, and I am so excited to preach the message that I am living. Probably one of the greatest quotes that I’ve heard on this subject is from a pastor from the 18th century named Robert Murray McCheyne. He said, "Study holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister, a lover of praise, and pleasure, he has ruined your ministry. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart is full of God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin."[2]

Oh that I may be a man that puts these three things into constant practice. For His glory, the salvation of sinners, and the sanctification of believers, please pray that God would use me this weekend to share the gospel of Christ as I minister the Word of God to the students and staff of Camelback Bible.

[1] http://www.watchword.org/smithers/ww39a.html
[2] http://www.watchword.org/smithers/ww39a.html

BURN

I want to burn for Christ. There really isn’t any other way of saying it, so I decided to just spit it out . . . I WANT TO BURN FOR CHRIST!!! The very act of burning could seem very sick or even morbid. But when I say that I want to burn for Christ, what I am saying is that I want to live such a radically passionate life for Jesus that people have no doubt that I am on fire for Him. John Wesley once said, “when you set yourself on fire, people love to come and see you burn.” I want to be the person that sets myself on fire and people can’t help but look at Christ in me. I want to so experience the presence of God that I am left shining for the world to see a display case of Gods glory. I am currently re-reading Tozer’s The Pursuit of God and there was a paragraph that made me strive to have the fiery urge to be driven by Christ and for him.

Tozer said, “The fiery urge that drove men like McCheyne is wholly missing. And the present generation of Christians measures itself by this imperfect rule. Ignoble contentment takes the place of burning zeal. We are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and, for the most part, we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience.”

I never again want to be one who allows ignoble contentment to take the place of burning zeal. I want to personally experience the presence of God and I want my life to look radical. I love Jesus and I want the world to see that He is what fuels me. For his glory, Brent