I had a crazy, God experience yesterday. It wasn’t a Moses “burning bush” experience (see Exodus 3) or an Isaiah “I am ruined” experience (see Isaiah 6). It was more like an Elijah “gentle whisper” encounter (see 1 Kings 19).
I am a pretty driven guy. I feed off of getting things done and I frequently get annoyed when things or people get in the way of MY plans. God has recently given me two words that I am learning to live out at home: “gentle” and “present.” In learning how to be consistently gentle and present with Nancy and my two sons, I often feel like I’m do something as simple, and as necessary, as learning to breathe. It is so fundamental to how God has called me to live but it is so foreign to me because of how I have spent the past 40 years of my life.
Yesterday I received an email at work that threw my plans for a loop. My initial response was not gentle and present; it was irritation and annoyance. If my thought was put into words, it would’ve sounded something like this: “How dare this person derail MY plans with their agenda. I have plans and these plans need to be set in stone so I can cross it off my list and move on to the next thing. Surely God wants me to get this done! In fact these aren’t just MY plans, these are GOD’S plans.”
You get the idea…
It was then that I had a thought that had to be God’s Spirit within me. The reason I know it was God is that it was so foreign to me. My brain could never have originated this thought because it was so different from my way of doing life. I’m pretty sure this thought was worded as a question (I honestly don’t remember much except the truth that God was conveying to me). In the midst of my internal, self-centered rant God asked, “Charlie, what if this interaction IS my plan for you?” This question has been rattling around my soul for the past 24 hours.
It’s crazy! God isn’t so much concerned with my plans and all that I want to get accomplished. He is far more concerned with the way I interact and relate to another human being that has been created in His image. God is far more focused on what I learn as I live life in community and love the people He has graciously placed around me. It is through this that God will accomplish His great purposes in me and through me.
Summer at Mount Hermon is coming and I am excited to continue learning this truth. As we live and serve students, families, churches and one another in community, our theme verse will be Jesus’ words in Matthew 20:25-28:
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
I can’t wait to achieve greatness with all whom God has calls to serve at Mount Hermon this summer!
We continue to spend our days praying and preparing for all that is to come. The closer we get, the more sobered I am by the reality of what God is entrusting us with as we minister to students, their families and their churches. I can’t wait for this summer but I am really glad that we have a little bit more time to prepare and pray. I am really looking forward to meeting each of you face to face next month!
As you are praying for this summer, there are 2 main things I ask you to be persistent in praying for. First, please pray that we (the summer staff) would be united in love through serving one another. The summer is amazing yet it can be long and arduous at times. We are going to need God’s power to serve Him, each other and students with hearts that are unified. “We are here to serve” is something we will hear throughout the entire summer! Second, I ask that you pray that students would be led 1 step closer to Jesus. It can be so easy for a student to come to youth group or a camp and leave having had a lot of fun without experiencing the transformative power of God. It is our desire that students leave their week at Ponderosa having taken 1 step closer to Jesus. It could be that they came as someone not interested in Him and now they are seeking Him. Maybe they came not being a follower of Jesus and they left a follower. It might even be that they came as a Christ follower with an area of their life not surrendered to Jesus and they left with it surrendered to Him. Whatever it is, our calling before God is to help them take 1 step closer to Jesus as God’s Spirit moves in their hearts.
If you have yet to become a fan of Mount Hermon Youth on facebook, please do so by clicking here. We are really going to push for this to be a place for staff and students to interact before and after the summer. It is our hope to get students connected not only to camp but also to have great follow up with them after the summer to make sure that their week at camp was more than just a mountaintop experience. If you can, please take a moment to answer the question for summer staffers by clicking here. The more you interact, the more students will be drawn here!
The time is near—keep praying! I look forward to seeing you soon.
As a former youth pastor, one of my biggest issues with camp ministry was the “mountaintop” experience that many students have at camp. Students would go away for a week at camp and then come back on a camp high having made decisions to change their lives for Jesus. However these same students returned home to the same problems, the same families and the same friends that they had before camp. Ultimately many students would return from the amazing mountaintop high of camp to the difficult valley of their lives. Camp decisions could be quickly forgotten and lives could easily fall back into old habits. For some students, camp didn’t contribute to change that lasted.
What I am most excited about at Mount Hermon is the opportunity we have to create a camp experience that is much more than a mountaintop experience. Our vision and our prayer at Mount Hermon is to see lives transformed. Transformed lives don’t go back to old ways of living. Transformed lives become more and more like Jesus and fall more and more in love with Jesus. I see our role at Mount Hermon as that of being servants to the churches who are doing the hard work of consistent, daily ministry to students. We want to partner with churches and serve churches so that students are set up to succeed in the decisions they make at camp after they return home. We have some ideas of what this may look like but we are just starting this journey. I am excited in these next few years to continue the dialogue with students, youthworkers, pastors and parents to figure out how we can better create camp experiences that are much more than a mountaintop experience.
Lord help us to love you and love students and not be satisfied with camp highs and change that doesn’t last. Give us a heart for students that desperately want to see transformed lives for your glory and your Kingdom.
It’s finally here! For all of you who have stayed awake at night tossing and turning and wondering about our summer theme at Ponderosa Lodge, all of your questions will be answered after you watch this sneak peak. OK…maybe not all of your questions. Ah, who are we kidding? You will probably have more questions after you watch this video! That was kind of our goal!! Either way-sit back, relax and enjoy your sneak peak. If you have yet to register for this summer you can call us or register online.
We look forward to seeing you in a few months. It is going to be absolutely life-changing!
Dear Youth Pastors and Youth Directors of the churches affiliated with Mount Hermon,
I am the new Director of Youth and Young Adults at Mount Hermon and I am looking forward to serving you! I can’t tell you how much I marvel at all that you do for the students in your youth group. Having been a youth pastor, I know how difficult that job can be.
We have an amazing opportunity coming up on Friday April 16th designed specifically for you. Mount Hermon wants to give you and one of your associates some time away in the Santa Cruz mountains experiencing our Redwood Canopy Tour. There is no experience in the world like it! On this tour you will adventure through the forest high above the forest floor on a network of zip cables and sky bridges. To sign up, just click here to email me. Please let me know your church, your contact information and the best way to reach you. I will call you to confirm your arrival time and get you the details. There are no strings attached to join us for this adventure. We simply want to meet you and give you some time away from what I believe is the most stressful job in the church. We have limited spaces so sign up as soon as you can.
To learn more about Mount Hermon’s Canopy Tour, click here.
I look forward to seeing you on Friday, April 16th!
“So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”
Luke 17:10
Following Jesus is not easy and it is oftentimes unAmerican. Luke poses this absurd question about a servant’s role in ancient times: “Does the master ever thank the servant because he did what was commanded?” The answer is very cleary “No!” Why? Because that was what was expected of a servant. A servant was EXPECTED to serve. He wasn’t doing his master a favor; he was doing his job. He was doing what was expected of him as a servant–an unworthy servant.
I think about my life and the life of other western Christians around me. We have rights! We deserve to be treated a certain way! We are owed happiness. We expect the American dream–life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when we don’t get it, we think something is wrong because that’s what we were promised.
I do this in so many ways. I deserve a good job, a nice house, a fulfilling life, a great marriage, lifelong happiness, wonderfully obedient children, enough money to buy the toys I want and friends that are there for me. More often than not, I expect these things. And when I don’t get them, it is tempting to get frustrated and I believe it is my right to go somewhere else and find them!
But Jesus’ response to this leaves no room for anything of the sort. We are not owed anything. We don’t deserve anything good. In fact, if we got what we deserved we would be headed for eternal separation from God. Even as I read this, it sounds really harsh. To use Jesus’ words, we are unworthy servants. Try that on for size. I am an unworthy servant. It is my duty to serve. A life of being poured out in service to Jesus is what I can expect. Everything else is a gift.
The beauty is that I don’t even deserve to be a servant of the Living God. His grace is evident even in the title “unworthy servant.” The God of the Universe loves me, has saved me and allows me to be His servant. When my perspective is right, this is far better than any job, home, relationship or toy I might buy.
When I get this, truly get this, I can say with confidence: “My name is Charlie and I am an unworthy servant. It is my duty to serve.”
