Stop the BB’s!

No, this is not a rant against BB guns. I was reading in Colossians 1 this morning, and I learned something that was a blessing to me, and since the point of this blog is to share what I’m learning (manthano - i am learning) I thought I would share it.

In one of my undergrad classes, an adjunct teacher (who happens to be a pastor), challenged us that our prayers for others should be more than “BB” prayers. What’s a “BB” prayer, you ask? You know, “bless ‘em, be with ‘em.”¹ So if we aren’t to pray “BB” prayers, how should we pray for other believers? In Colossians 1 where I was reading this morning, Paul recounts how he prayed for the Colossians. So let’s look at his prayer, and perhaps use it as a model to frame our prayers for brothers and sisters in Christ. [Ok, so maybe I've lapsed into preaching.. too bad, Bible majors are prone to do that ] There are a lot of references in the rest of this post, but you should just be able to hover over them and they should show up in a little box.

Paul tells the Colossians that he began his prayer with thanksgiving for two specific things about the Colossians (Col. 1:3). In Col. 1:4-6, he tells them that he is thankful for their faith in Christ, that is, their salvation, and also for the evidence of that salvation. The primary evidence is their love to all the saints or other believers, but it also shows itself in their hope of heaven (Col. 1:5) and the work of the gospel in their lives in bearing fruit. So in applying Paul’s prayer, when we pray for other believers we should thank God for their salvation and the evidence we see of that salvation, again, primarily love toward other believers (John 13:35; 1 John 4:7-8, etc.). But also their expectancy of heaven, or as it’s often put, their “living in light of eternity” and the fruit that has appeared in their lives through the power of the gospel.

Col. 1:7-8 are kind of a parenthesis while Paul expresses his appreciation for the ministry of Epaphras in presenting the gospel to them originally. (Remember, Paul has never visited the Colossian church.) He only knows about them through their pastor Epaphras whom he’s met there in prison.

Paul continues the recounting of His prayer in Col. 1:9, this time focusing on the requests he has made to God for them. In Col. 1:9-14 there appear to be four primary requests. The first request is that they might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, or in other words that they might know God’s will. This is not necessarily talking about what might be called the future will of God (things like who am I going to marry, where will I go to college, what ministry does God want me to have, etc.) although it certainly applies, but I believe Paul is more specifically referring to the present will of God. He’s referring to things like abstinence from immorality (1 Thess. 4:13), refusing to conform to the world (Rom. 12:2), serving God wholeheartedly (Eph. 6:6), counseling believers, not taking vengeance, following what is good, always rejoicing, always praying, giving thanks for everything, being sensitive to the Spirit, having a good attitude toward preaching, being discerning, not doing anything that might look like evil (1 Thess. 5:14-22), submitting to every ordinance of man (1 Pet. 2:13-15), possibly enduring suffering (1 Pet. 3:17; 1 Pet. 4:19), and not living to please self (1 Pet. 4:2). And this list isn’t exhaustive by any means.

Paul’s second request is not only that they would know God’s will but also that they would obey it, or “walk worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:10). He gives three ways they can do that. One, do what fully pleases God. What is pleasing to God? A couple quick examples are obeying parents (Col. 3:20) and sacrificial giving (Phil. 4:18), but there are many more. Two, bear fruit through good works. We know what fruit is. The Bible tells us of the Spirit in Gal. 5:22-23 and the essential virtues of the Christ-centered life in 2 Peter 1:5-8 (hmm… somebody ought to write a book about that…). And it’s through their works that they demonstrate that fruit. Three, increase in their knowledge of God, or as I often put it, grow in their relationship with God.

But how are they or anyone else going to do all this? Paul’s third request — that they might be strengthened with His glorious power. Obviously they can’t obey God’s will, do what pleases Him on their own (Phil. 2:13). And this glorious power has some side benefits, you might say. It results in joyful patience and endurance. When they know that it’s God doing it, and not them, they don’t have to worry about it, which bring joy rather than frustration. They can patiently endure because they know He is in control and will accomplish His will in His time.

Paul’s final request is that the Colossians might also give thanks to the Father for what He has done in their lives. Paul mentions 3 specific things that they should give thanks for: their eternal inheritance (Col 1:12), their deliverance from the realm of darkness and deliverance to the realm of the Son (Col. 1:13), and their redemption and forgiveness (Col. 1:14). We are to pray that other believers would be thankful that God has given them a home in heaven, that He has delivered them from Satan and delivered them to His Son, and that through His Son He has redeemed and forgiven them.

A lot better than “bless ‘em and be with ‘em.” Here’s a brief outline of Paul’s prayer.

Thank You for… (Col. 1:4-6)
saving them (v. 4a)
the evidence I see of Your saving them (v. 4b-6)
love for others (v. 4b)
hope of heaven (v. 5a)
the gospel bearing fruit (v. 5b-6)
Help them to… (Col. 1:9-14)
Know Your will (Col. 1:9)
Obey Your will (Col. 1:10)
by doing what pleases You
by bearing fruit
by growing in their relationship with You
Depend on your strength that produces joyful patience and endurance (Col. 1:11)
Thank You (Col. 1:12-14)
for their home in heaven (Col. 1:12)
for their deliverance from Satan and deliverance to Your Son (Col. 1:13)
for their redemption and forgiveness (Col. 1:14)

Week 7: Prayer partners and answered prayer

Thanks once again for your prayers. I can’t believe there are only 3 more weeks of camp. Aaaaah! That’s too soon to go back to school!

The Lord was very good this week as He continued to show me that He doesn’t need me to work in the lives of my campers. I had a couple challenging campers this week who would not open up to me and let me help them with the needs in their lives. Of two campers I was particularly burdened for, one was unsaved and the other was a very bitter pastor’s kid. In fact it was the supposedly saved pastor’s kid that acted the worst most of the time. And the other guy, despite admitting to me that he was unsaved, he refused both after the services and during freetime to let me share the gospel with him and get that taken care of. Wednesday and Thursday I spent almost the entire God and I time as well as some of CLS pleading with God to change them. They had both come to camp several times before and left unchanged. On Thursday night my prayer partner gave his testimony during cabin devotions. He had basically run from the Lord all through high school until his senior year when during a football game his leg snapped as the result of a tackle. As his football scholarships no longer did any good, he headed to a Christian college where he got involved in the wrong crowd and for a while was kind of their leader. But God in his grace began to cause him to get caught in the wrong things he was doing, to the point that he almost shipped and was given an hour and a half to get off the campus. But some additional details came up, and he was given a second chance. His life made a drastic turnaround. As he shared this with my guys, they began to open up and for no apparent reason (apart from the working of God) began to publicly admit being involved in numerous sins that they had hidden from their parents and youth pastors - bitterness, drinking, immorality, etc. Several of them came outside the cabin with my prayer partner and me to talk about these things, and several talked to my prayer partner on Friday during freetime as well. Although I did not see everything change that I would liked to (the one guy did not get saved for example), and some of the guys may have just been wanting to relieve themselves of the guilt they felt by telling us about their sin, rather than repenting of it, they at least were able to get some biblical principles of how to deal with their specific sins and were encouraged to let their parents know what was going on too. I found their youth pastor later in the week and shared with him what they had told us as well, so he could follow up with them when they got home. Please continue to pray for the two guys i mentioned specifically as well as two other guys that are dealing with similar issues.

Saturday I got a rare opportunity to go see 3rd falls. If you’ve been to the Wilds for any length of time, you’ve probably seen 1st, 2nd, and 4th falls, and maybe even Stairstep falls, as pretty much anybody can go to them. But as trips to 3rd falls have to be led by a full time staff member and in groups of 12 or less, they are a lot less frequent. In fact, even though I’ve worked here 3 years now, this is the first time i’ve been. The hike isn’t too difficult (about how 2nd falls used to be before they put in all the stairs), but there’s not a whole lot of room to stand and look at the falls and it’s pretty much right at the top of 4th falls, so any slip into the water could be pretty deadly… If you’ve been to 4th falls, you’ve passed the trail to 3rd on the way back, but unless you know it’s there you wouldn’t see it. So anyway, i was very glad to get the opportunity to see that.

Since my prayer partner factored in to my week so significantly, let me take a few moments to talk about prayer partners. Each week the counselors are paired with someone on op staff as a prayer partner. Every morning during counselor meeting (that is if their lead remembers) each counselor is given a list of their campers names that they write different initials after something like this…

….
Joe Camper A, Bit, D, Dr, M, Dev, Fr
Jim Teenager Pr, Par, TV, R/V
….

and etc. Each set of initials stands for a different area of concern in that campers life. The ones listed above would be… Assurance, Bitterness, Dedication, Dress, Music, Devotions, Friends, Pride, Parent/Authority, TV, Reading/Viewing (i.e. pornography). Yep, we kinda have our own secret code Anyway, these slips are given to the prayer partners so they can pray about these different issues. Sponsors are also given an opportunity to provides areas of concern about their teens as well, and ones that sponsors provide are underlined. If the campers make a decision about one of the areas, we draw a circle around the initials. Prayer partners also typically sit with your cabin during the evening services, try to get together and do things with the cabin during free-time if they aren’t working, and give cabin devotions one night. It’s a great program as it allows the op staff to have a more intimate connection with the campers and, of course, increases the prayer for those campers.

Well, the week I have been waiting for all summer has arrived! I’m finally in JBC (Junior Boot Camp). As there are only two teams in JBC, red and blue, I won’t be on the white team, this week. Instead I will be the RED team! The theme in JBC is Sky Wars so my team mascot will be the Falcons (F-16), while the blue team’s mascot is the Hornets (F-18). The speaker in JBC this week will be my good friend Bob Roberts, who, in my opinion, is the best preacher to junior age young people I know. He’s also the founder and director of Kids for Truth (www.kids4truth.com). I’m looking forward to hearing from him this week. Well, my laundry is about done, so it’s time to sign off. Thanks again for your prayers!

Week 1: Dealing with the fruit…

Well, the first week of camp along with over 1,000 campers have come and gone. In all it was a great week. I had 8 senior high campers aged 13-16 this week. They were a good bunch of guys. I don’t think I’ve ever had a more responsive bunch of campers. A majority of them made a decision every service, and all of them made at least 1 decision. It was great to see them deal with areas like music, bitterness, obedience, assurance of salvation, and surrender to full time Christian service. My only disappointment was that they really only seemed willing to deal with the surface issues or fruit, instead of wanting to get down the the root of the problem and change their way of living. For example, they were willing to get the secular rock music off their iPods, but not the CCM. Continue to pray for them that the Lord would help them keep and strengthen the decisions that they made this week.

The speaker this week was Tom Farrell as I mentioned before, and as usual he didn’t mince words preaching on what the Bible has to say about sin and mediocre Christianity. I thoroughly enjoyed the messages and they were encouraging and challenging to me as well. I look forward to hopefully hearing him again later this summer. Next week we will have Morris Gleiser, who probably has the biggest heart for teenagers of any man I know. I’m looking forward to hearing him again. I should again have senior high guys.

Let me tell you about a couple of things that went on this weekend. On Saturday afternoon the Bull Moose guy counselors went on a little outing to a couple of waterfalls at a nearby state park. (Evidently we weren’t tired out enough from this week ) It was a great time of fellowship, bonding… and goofing off. Below are pictures of the waterfalls we saw. The little one is called Turtleback Falls. It’s about 20′ high at the highest point and makes a great waterslide (Yes, i speak from experience ) The other one is about 150′ high, and is called Rainbow Falls. Unfortunately for us it was cloudy when we went and we didn’t see the rainbows this falls is known for. It was still an awesome example of God’s majestic creation. There is a trail that goes down beside it that allows you to stand at the top and look down as well as at the bottom and look up. There was also a ledge about 25′ above the pool at the base of the falls that some of the other counselors were crazy enough to jump off of, but i exercised my better judgment as you had to jump out a little ways to avoid hitting the rock ledge at the bottom. I figured at least one person should spot for those jumping All in all it was a great outing.

Turtleback Falls

Rainbow Falls

Tonight we Wilds staff had a required service followed by a special meal of grilled bacon cheeseburgers and banana splits. Willie Partin preached a very challenging message on principles of compassion. He closed with the following prayer from Valley of Vision:

My Father,
Enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips,
supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’
There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son,
made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;
There thy infinite attributes were magnified,
and infinite atonement was made;
There infinite punishment was due,
and infinite punishment was endured.

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in,
trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,
stripped that I might be clothed,
wounded that I might be healed,
athirst that I might drink,
tormented that I might be comforted,
made a shame that I might inherit glory,
entered darkness that I might have eternal light.

My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
groaned that I might have endless song,
endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
expired that I might for ever live.

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,
All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;
Help me to adore thee by lips and life.
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed,
Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,
mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

As has been my custom in these notes, I’ll be telling you about an aspect of the week in greater detail. This time I want to write about the Fireside service. In case you’re not familiar with it, the fireside service is a testimony service where the campers are given a stick that represents their life that they throw on the fire that represents God, symbolizing their complete surrender to God to be used by him. As Rand puts it, throwing the stick on the fire doesn’t cause a big “S” to appear on your shirt and you all of a sudden become a super Christian that will never sin again, it simply pictures your willingness before your peers and sponsors to be fully surrendered to God’s will for your life, and that as far as you know there is nothing that you have not already surrendered to Him. The main reason I wanted to write about this aspect however is that the format of the service has changed somewhat from previous years. In previous years while a group of campers was throwing their sticks on the fire we would sing songs of dedication and surrender such as “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” “Lord, I Need You,” and “Servant’s Heart.” We’re still doing that this year, but in addition we’ve added the reading of camper testimonies from the week. The testimonies are written by the campers on Thursday and then read by Rand and Matt and Christy Taylor. It was so neat to hear about how God worked in the hearts and lives of campers this week. Evidently this week we had several campers from South Korea. Although their English wasn’t perfect, their testimonies of how God worked in their lives brought tears to my eyes. I’m really looking forward to the Fireside service as a highlight of the week this year.

Thanks so much for your prayers! I can’t wait to see what the Lord will do this week in my life as well as in the lives of my campers.

…that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent.