Day 1 of RCP

I arrived at Redwood Christian Park yesterday about 4:30pm. RCP is located in Boulder Creek, CA which is very close to Santa Cruz, up in the mountains among the mighty Redwoods. It’s pretty beautiful here.

This week I am the camp speaker at their junior camp for students in 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. The camp deans are friends from church and many of the camp counselors are youth and young adults from the church. RCP is truly amazing. I am staying through the weekend and next week I will be helping with the youth portion of family camp. Basically our whole youth staff from church will be here that week and most of our youth leaders so it should be pretty amazing.

At first glance last night when I looked at the kids they looked so young to me and I was a little nervous, but my first message went over really well with the kids. I had been talked about among the counselors who knew me as the “comedian pastor” and although I’m not sure how I feel about that one, I had some major expectations to meet. Good flippin’ grief….

Chapel this morning was good. I was super tired and after I spoke I went back to my room and slept till noon. This is pretty odd, so I started thinking and I realized that the allergy medicine I had been taking was actually making me sleepy. So I guess that means I’m not the smartest guy in town, but ya know…it could be worse.

Every Monday the church I grew up in Washington sends out an e-mail. Here is a piece of that e-mail that I was deeply encouraged by…

I want to draw your attention to a verse that is probably very familiar to you this morning. It is found in Psalm 30. “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.” I noticed that this Psalm was sung at the dedication of the temple, written by David. He had been through tough times in his life, and had found that the new day brought a new brightness, a new hope, and optimism, and hopefully, this is the case with you and myself as well. But, then the verse that follows that, Psalm 30:6, he speaks about his prosperity and security and then somehow distancing his life from God. He says then “you turned away from me and I was shattered.” Sometimes when things go too well all of a sudden you look around and wonder where is God now, where is God in all of this. David, true to his heart, a heart after God, cries out to the Lord and begs for mercy. What amazes me is that David doesn’t say, you have to return Lord for I have done so much for you and have more to do for you, but rather his appeal is as follows in verse 9. “What will you gain if I die, if I sink into the grave? Can my dust praise you? Can it tell of your faithfulness? And it makes me think this is David’s reason for living. He appeals to God when God seems distant, and he says to God “If I die who will be left with a heart to praise you and speak of your faithfulness. This is a wonderful reason for each one of us to live each and everyday of our lives, and to appeal to God that we may live longer so that we might tell more of His faithfulness and praise Him more and more.

And what a wonderful reason for living right now. Lord, I pray that you would use this week to change the heart of each of this kids at camp. Father, I ask that you would show each of them how much you love and how powerful your Word is for their lives.