Your Plate Has Been Smashed ! ! !

Football in Alabama (I am sorry to say sometimes) is one of the most passionate religions that we have to offer. When I moved to Houston to go to Bible College, I was quite curious as to how the folks in Texas would support their teams. I was able to find some support for the Oilers and Astros but it never reached the passion that I witnessed here for the fans of Auburn and Alabama. Furthermore, I found very little passion for the Longhorns, Aggies, or Baylor’s Bears exhibited by the Texans. This really surprised me coming from the neck of the woods that I hail from.

To this day, Alabama fans are still quite focused on the success of the long departed Coach “Bear” Bryant and his group of stars that played for him in the ‘60’s, 70’s, and early ‘80’s. While I am not an Alabama fan, I must confess that more than once I have been inspired by some of the biographies I have read about “The Bear.” From his early Kentucky days to his legendary rise with the Junction Boys at Texas A&M and then his incredible quarter of a century championship teams at Alabama, one cannot help but admire his success.

As the two-a-days have finally come to an end for Alabama and Auburn, I am reminded of a story that I heard Kenny Stabler (a famous quarterback from ‘Bama) tell on a radio talk show a couple of years ago. He told about Coach Bryant recruiting him and one of his buddies from the Foley area. Both boys had been scouted out by some Mississippi teams but they really wanted to go to Tuscaloosa and play for the Bear. The Bear had an ability to pick out players who had a whole lot more heart than they did talent. He felt like if he could find men to play and coach for him who had heart, desire, and passion it would make up for any lack of talent on and off the field. He looked for character more than talent. He pushed education on these young recruits and told them that books were first and football was second. He was unimpressed with undisciplined talent as he would show with Joe Namath when he sat him down for late night carousing and skirt-chasing. He was not nearly as impressed with talent as with discipline and drive.

Stabler said that when he and his buddy David Chapman left Foley for Tuscaloosa that Chapman’s dad had told his son, “Son, when you live today, I am smashing your dinner plate!” This lesson stuck in Chapman’s and Stabler’s head because both sets of parents had basically told the boys that when you leave home to go to Tuscaloosa to play, you are going to be champions. You cannot come home for any purpose at all. The bridges are burned and there is no margin for error or failure or to give up and quit.

Stabler told about the freshman recruits being locked up in a gym that had no ventilation in the middle of August. One coach yelled, screamed, cajoled, intimidated, threatened, and terrorized those recruits for an hour every day. The gym was hot and smelled of sweat and vomit. Stabler said that there were two 55-gallon drums at each end of the gym that frequently had players bent over expelling breakfast or whatever meal had been most recent. Stabler told of the cramps, the pain, the intimidation by the coaches, and he also mentioned that some of the Crimson’s finest would be reduced to wretching sobs during the whole process. Stabler said it was nothing to be at a place of almost passing out and feeling like every muscle in your body was on fire. There were push-ups, sit-ups, sprints from one end of the hot gym to the other, and there were ropes that were hanging from the ceiling that they had to climb up and down. Not only was the pain physical but there was much mental duress associated with all of the “training.” Stabler said that it appeared to him and Chapman that the coaches were doing their best to make them quit.

Not only did they have to endure the gym, there were the long practices where they would run one play over and over again under the critical eyes of the Bear. He was in a tower above the practice field and there were times that he would rage and yell and resort to other things and come tearing down the steps of the tower and race to the field in a dead run. He would run the team in wind sprints all the while seemingly trying to break them down. Running plays, passing plays, blocking drills, and all sorts of other demands were made on these young men. What they did not realize until later was that he was creating a championship team out of them. If the afternoon/evening practices did not go well, they would be forced back onto the field at 5 AM to do it all over again.

Stabler said that there were many times that he felt like quitting and giving up and going home. But in the back of his mind was the fact that his parents had told him that his plate had been smashed at the kitchen table. To go home not only meant he had failed but the humiliation of not having a plate to eat from was something that drove him to physically and mentally condition himself to press on.

I have been mulling that thought over today about plates being broken and bridges being burned and back-trails being covered up. There is no turning back in this battle of life and ministry! To turn back is going to bring incredible horror to your walk. No matter how hard the task at hand may be, you must keep going because your plate has been smashed. Failure is not an option.

So if ministry on this day and in this season finds you facing the “gym” of pressure, conflict, or even temptation, remember your plate has been smashed! If your walk with God finds you in the midst of the tedium of the long “two-a-days” of routine, time constraints, and people pressure, remember your plate has been smashed and you cannot go back! If your courage is taking a beating from trying to memorize the “playbook” you cannot go back for your plate has been smashed! Don’t allow the consumer “worship” mentality rattle you into giving up, your plate has been smashed! Press on! Don’t let the spiritually dysfunctional people obscure your view of Scripture’s high calling for holiness and purity. Don’t fall for the perceived idea that you have to walk on the water to be successful in ministry. Keep your head up and your knee down! Your plate has been smashed and you cannot go backwards!

All of these are nothing more than traps put in your path to make you turn back. . . but on today remember the concept of the shattered plate. . . .

A Reading List Concerning Revival

I grew up hearing many sermons and Bible studies on Revival through much of the late ‘70’s, ‘80’s, and ‘90’s. Those messages had much impact on me as a young man and then as a young preacher. Chiefly was the fact that when those messages had been preached there were long extended altar services following the messages. The altars would shore up the hunger that I felt for God and a desire to see the Kingdom of God press forward. Far too many times to count now were the times that I knelt at the wooden altars and many tears flowed not just from my eyes but from my soul. In addition to that there were some small rooms on either side of our platform that served as prayer rooms and often I would go there and allow God to add more to my life.

As I get older there are moments of great reflection as to how those sorts of things took place in my life. One of the things was I had a pastor, Joe Patterson, who was hungry for our church to have revival and spiritual growth to take place in the lives of those to whom he was preaching to. Secondly, I grew up in a home that literally served as an incubator for spiritual things to take place in my life and my brother, Mark’s life. I have to confess that there are still times that I pour out my gratefulness to God for such blessings that came to me early in life.

The reflection over time has given rise to my belief that the messages that we heard and the altar services that we were involved in were not so much about revival as they were hunger for God. When ministers and churches get hungry for God, the revival will take care of itself. When an insatiable hunger for God prevails in your life, prayer is of little effort as it will flow from a huge wellspring. Hunger for God also gives rise to evangelism because the closer to God that you are, the more willing you will be to reach out and witness to others the great impact of God in your life. Hunger for God gives way to sacrifice as one will be more willing to sacrifice his time, talents, and treasures for what God is calling him to do. I have found that a hunger for God will generally pull one more toward holiness and a desire for a clean heart and a right spirit.

Back in the ‘70’s, Brother Patterson would go to a meeting in Jackson, Mississippi, called “Deeper Life.” In fact there are still some of those old cassettes lying around the church that have managed to survive 30+ years of storage. In the ‘70’s, Brother Patterson was bi-vocational and ran a backhoe sometimes up to 70 hours a week and on top of that he was in the process of building a home missions church. There wasn’t an expense account to pay for lodging and travel, he simply went out of the sacrifice of his own pocket because he felt it would benefit the church. In retrospect, I see the great value in all of this as every minister needs something coming into his life because of so much that is going out.

I have only heard a few of the messages that were preached at “Deeper Life” but they always were those kinds of sermons that were spiritually probing and had a high call for commitment. That kind of preaching is in great necessity of reappearing in our generation, especially at the conference level. Time passed and for whatever reason (I am still unclear as to why) “Deeper Life” gave up the ghost. However in the early ‘80’s, Anthony Mangun and a few of his friends gave birth to Because of the Times. So with “Deeper Life” now deep-sixed, Brother Patterson started making the trek to Alexandria and he went to the first four or five of them by himself (except for once when he went with a neighboring pastor). Then in 1988, he invited me to go along with him. I made the first trip with Brother Patterson, my dad, and Richard West (now a pastor in Enterprise, AL) and have not missed one since 1988.

Those messages that I heard in my early years at BOTT poured it out concerning prayer, evangelism, and revival. Sermon after sermon moved men deeply to pursue and hunger after God. I would sit with some of my friends and we would soak it in and honestly I think that all of us were hungrier for God to build something within us than to help us build a great church. More and more I am coming to discover that if God will build the man in the pulpit, the church will take care of itself. It is simply an outflow of His grace that brings any success at all.

Significant during that time frame were all of the books that I had pushed in my direction by some thoughtful people. Brother Patterson pushed me in the direction of Leonard Ravenhill. I heard Sister Vesta Mangun mention A. W. Tozer and also Ravenhill. I did not have a book expense account (still don’t) at the time and had to make decisions about what I was going to do without to purchase those books. Whatever it was that I “sacrificed” at the time obviously pales in comparison to what I have gained from them. It is my thoughts to share with you some of those books.

Sadly, this genre of books is almost extinct now in most Christian bookstores. Books that demand sacrifice, prayer, and transformation have given way to all types of self-help, your-best-life-now, monster-within, relationship-mending, fourteen-ways-to-create-spiritual-do-dads-in-your-life, six-steps-to-emotional-bonding-with-God stuff. If life-application books could only give way to the deeper things of God, spiritual life would flourish.

Some of the books that drastically altered my way of thinking and put some spiritual muscle where flab could have been are listed as follow:

Leonard Ravenhill -- He is not for the faint-hearted! In fact, recently a minister told me that he knew someone who would not read Ravenhill because he demanded so much change to occur in the spiritual life. Ravenhill will do this for you. It is becoming more and more difficult to find his probing writings but the man who can track them down will greatly value from them.

Why Revival Tarries -- This is probably Ravenhill’s best known work. It is loaded with some quotes at the beginning of each chapter that will strike fire in your soul immediately. In fact, there have been some of the quotes that have been leaping off points for sermons for me. Some of the chapter titles: With All Thy Getting, Get Unction; Prayer Grasps Eternity; Where are the Elijahs of God; Is Soul-Hot Preaching a Lost Art?; The Prodigal Church in a Prodigal World; and Give Me Children or I Die.

Sodom Had No Bible -- This would be the second most well known work of Ravenhill. It is also a very heart rending and yet soul building book. Some of the chapter titles: We Need A Baptism of Holy Anger; Pentecost At Any Cost; Why This Suffocating Indifference; No, No! It’s Not An Easy Road; and Spirit-Anointed Preaching. One of the most valuable assets in this book is the section that Ravenhill gives “portraits” of revival preachers. He writes of Francis Asbury, Billy Nicholson, Gideon Ousley, John Wesley and others.

Revival Praying -- Another work that is geared toward the sacrifice of prayer that is required for revival to occur. The chapter, “The Prayer Chamber Our Mirror” is a very convicting chapter that will work like water priming a hand-pump well, it will put you on your knees. Other chapters: The Shame of Our Nakedness, Prayerlessness is Sin; The MUST of Prayer; There Were Giants In The Church; “I Say This To Your Shame,” and Sow in Prayer—Reap In Power, among others.

Revival—God’s Way -- There is a painting in the front of this book entitled “The Sleeping Sentry” that shows a watchman on the wall that is asleep. His head is lying on the top of the wall and with his trumpet about to fall from his hand he is sleeping deeply. In the background, there is a huge army approaching the city and they will be destroyed because the sentry is asleep. When you mull that around in your mind, much serious contemplation is given to what you are doing with your ministry of being a watchman. Chapter Titles: We Are Still A Valley of Dry Bones; Growing Out of Spiritual Infancy; Have We No Tears for Revival?; The Cost of Intercession; and We Plead or We Perish.

(Ravenhills other works that I do not have: Meat For Men; Tried and Transfigured; America Is Too Young To Die. You also can find sermons of Ravenhill at sermonaudio.com. I was very surprised at the lack of emotion in the messages.)

A. W. Tozer -- I was very struck by his book The Pursuit of God. This is probably his most famous book but it is just the tip of the iceberg to his thoughts. The chapters of this book are Following Hard After God; The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing; Removing the Veil; Apprehending God; The Universal Presence; The Speaking Voice; The Gaze of the Soul; and a few others. His other books are Men Who Met God; That Incredible Christian; Born After Midnight; The Root of the Righteous; Rut, Rot, or Revival; Man: The Dwelling Place of God; The Set of the Sail; and the two-volume Tozer Pulpit is also filled with some very good words concerning the press for Revival.

Charles Finney -- Finney’s autobiography was one of the first books that I ever read when I first started preaching. I was greatly blessed to read of the conversion experience that happened in the life of the young lawyer. The more and more one reads of his writings, the more one realizes that there was a great depth of spiritual life present. Finney was instrumental in a number of revivals that shook entire towns during his times.

E. M. Bounds -- His writings on prayer are very weighty but they will also press you into a place of prayer. I have mentioned him with some frequency in the past and will not belabor the point here. You simply must acquaint yourself with his writings on prayer and give yourself to this ministry.

Ron Auch -- He wrote a book that was recommended to me in 1990. The title was “Pentecostals In Crisis.” I purchased it but it laid around for several years before I even opened it. Once I did, I was so shocked by it that I ended up scouting around and finding everything else that Auch had written. In the “Crisis” book, he basically is talking about the sectarian cycle where groups have a diminished effect the longer that they are in existence, especially the third generation. Some of the chapter titles, The Power Encounter; Cisterns That Hold No Water; Technology: The Holy Spirit of Today’s Church; Rebuilding The Ancient Boundaries; and Doing the Right Thing the Wrong Way. (Other works: The Seven Spirits of God and When He Appears.)

Wesley Duewel -- This is one of the accidental findings that I am thankful for. I first purchased Mighty Prevailing Prayer and found much fodder in it. He writes about fervency, desire, and importunity in prayer. This led to another book Revival Fire which is a composite of revival history primarily beginning with George Whitfield, the Wesleys, and concludes with Evan Roberts. Very good resource! I then ran across Touch the World Through Prayer and it was sub-par compared to Mighty Prevailing Prayer.

There are some older writings that you may find beneficial in your quest and hunger for God. The publishers at Schmul Publishing which contains a lot of the old revival and holiness works that have been reprinted are some very good avenues to travel down also.

Other articles concerning books have been posted before on Sermon Preparation, Devotional Material, Personal Growth, and a long list by E. E. Jolley.

The Disastrous Emerging Church - Part 3 - A Schizophrenic Jesus

Several months ago, I endeavored to spend a little time writing about the Emerging Church as it has been called by some in this generation. It is somewhat driven by a WASPish crowd of “enlightened” folks who are attempting to soften the Gospel into a socially acceptable “community” that is “inclusive” of every religion that has ever come down the pike.

As I revisited some of the points in the earlier blogs (Part 1 & Part 2) I noted their doctrinal indifference, a false sense of humility, and the mockery of those who adhere to a strong message. Their doctrinal indifference completely waters down every major doctrine that is presented in the Bible which very much blurs the line of what it takes to be saved. Their false sense of humility seems to escalate into much sarcasm towards those who hold strong borders with the attitude of “how can you actually say you can proclaim the truth?” and “who are you to say you have the truth?”. Furthermore this false sense of humility endorses the idea that no one can really know what truth really is. Lastly, I brought to bear the fact that those who hold a strong doctrinal statement with an adherence to the truth are castigated as “Pharisees” because they preach an uncompromising and strong message. Their words always come cloaked in a strong dose of self-induced piety.

With those points in mind there is another element that seems to be a battle cry (one of many) among the Emergents. It is “Sirs, we would see Jesus!” or “Just give us Jesus!” Then they clearly define which Jesus they want. They want the non-judgmental Jesus, the one who casts about with harlots, winos, and other societal misfits. They want the non-confrontational Jesus, the one who walks about and brings wine to weddings that have run dry. They want the non-conformist Jesus, who being environmentally conscious, retreats to places of prayer in grassy meadows and rocky wilderness crags. They want the Gospel Light, tastes great, less filling Jesus! What they are really asking for is a schizophrenic Jesus that is not dogmatic but instead ambiguous and hazy. Holiness, divine judgment, sinfulness of man, and sacrificial living are all tossed out and the social ills of man are picked up as the real needs of “fixing” the man.

The Emergents think that if we pass out enough meals for the homeless, pay enough electricity bills for the destitute, give out sleeping bags to the sleepless around the underpasses, and get involved in some “eco-friendly, green” outlet that mankind will fare much better. In actuality, what all of this sort of social action does is enable those who seemingly are circling the drain for the last time. Sorry to seem so harsh but I spent 20 years in the medical field and ran practically the entire gamut of medical care and I quickly learned the drug seekers are not helped when you rubber stamp another prescription to help them get high. So suffice it to say that this kind of schizophrenic Jesus won’t work. In fact, it was never intended to work like this. Jesus Christ is transformational and He never leaves a man where He found him. A simple study in the Gospels will bear this out. But when you cannot put your trust in the authority of God’s word, much lesser substitutes will have to pass for the Gospel and revival.

If you cry for Jesus, there will be offense that comes along with Him, unless you get the eco-friendly, emergent, schizophrenic Jesus. This is the exact Jesus that worldlings and sinners are looking for, a Jesus that does not demand much and still promises entrance into heaven. One man in years gone by characterized it like this, “this curious fact—when men talk thus about propagating Christianity without defending it, the thing that we are propagating is pretty sure not to be Christianity at all. They are propagating an anti-intellectualistic, nondoctrinal Modernism; and the reason why it requires no defense is simply that it is so completely in accord with the current of the age.”

Erwin McManus is quoted by Leonard Sweet in The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives (p. 248): “The power of the gospel is the result of a person—Jesus Christ—not a message. The gospel is an event to be proclaimed, not a doctrine to be preserved.”

On the surface this may sound good but when I start poking and prodding at some (most?) of the things that Jesus said and begin to preach them, the concepts are entirely opposed to the modern world that I live in. When you begin to tell people who Jesus is, suddenly the Gospel becomes exclusive and confrontational. In fact, Jesus clearly stated “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). Jesus is stipulating that this is not even up for debate or consideration. This is doctrinal and cannot be altered by anyone who is honestly attempting to preach the gospel in its entirety. There are certain truths about Jesus Christ that are unchanging and inevitable. The fact remains that if you have the wrong thinking about Jesus it can send you to hell (Gal. 1:8).

Just to briefly explore what wrong thinking about Jesus Christ will do to the church, one need look no further than to Tony Jones who is considered one of the top leaders in the Emergent movement. The following excerpt is from an interview in Relevant magazine (an online journal) where Jones details his thoughts about doctrinal statements or statements of faith :

Statements of faith are about drawing borders, which means you have to load your weapons and place soldiers at those borders. You have to check people’s passports when they pass at those borders. It becomes an obsession—guarding the borders. That is simply not the ministry of Jesus. It wasn’t the ministry of Paul or Peter. It stated to become the ministry of the early Church, and it abated somewhere in the Middle Ages and blew back to life in the time of modernity. For the short duration of time that I have on this planet to do my best to partner with God and build his kingdom, I don’t want to spend it guarding borders. I’d like to spend it inviting people into the kingdom. Statements of faith don’t do this. They’re a modernistic endeavor that I’m not the least bit interested in.

Jesus, Paul, and Peter all spent significant amounts of time with their “statements of faith” about what should be including in the Kingdom of God. Furthermore there are many examples biblically of the man whom God calls to serve in the role of watchmen, shepherd, and so on and all of these analogies demand that God’s man be a defender of the borders. Jones betrays himself terribly when he is asked if lesbian pastors and conservative purists can both be part of the emergent church. He answers, “We haven’t yet found that there’s anything that justifies us breaking fellowship with somebody else who loves and is trying to follow Jesus.” Now the moose really is on the table or the camel in the tent! Either way you define it, if this is the sort of Jesus the Emergents want to embrace, He has become emasculated and schizophrenic all at the same time!

Another leader, Spencer Burke, who is a formative voice among the Emergents (creator of the www.theooze.com , which I recommend you visit but prepare yourself for all sorts of “ooze” to muck through when you go) had the following things to say:

Could it be that—beyond religion, reason, and conventional wisdom—grace is something to be opted out of rather than opted in to? Is it not something you get but something you already have? (Can we say self-help, self-esteem, human potential ala Ayn Rand?)

When I say I’m a universalist, what I really mean is that I don’t believe you have to convert to any particular religion to find God. As I see it, God finds us, and it has nothing to do with subscribing to any particular religious view? (What he really means when he says “religion” is a doctrinal viewpoint. All roads very well may lead to Rome but they don’t all lead to Heaven.)

The God I connect with does not assign humans to hell. (See, a schizophrenic God. The longer I live the more convinced I become that Hell is the outgrowth of two of God’s attributes mainly holiness and justice.)

This is only the tip of the iceberg concerning the Emergents mentality about “just give us Jesus!” My only other point of advice is for the Emergents not to give their “Jesus” a dose of lithium because when they do, “Jesus” very well might wake up and become much more than they have bargained for.

Alabama Teen Camp UPCI Youth -- June 18, 2008 -- Day Two

Funny how those guys who thought all the coughing and gas passing was funny at midnight last night don’t think it is too funny at 0730 this morning. These clowns did not want to go to bed last night and now they don’t want to get up this morning. They have it all backwards. Confused about when to get in and when to get out. The thing that they have to remember about sleep is that you need it and you need to get all you can when you can. All the pictures are at this link.

The morning started off with a bang with my good buddy, Pastor Perry Wells from Vincent, Alabama. He told this bunch of kids this morning that things went pretty smoothly last night except for at Midnight Madness there were about 1001 Skittles lying around that needed to have something done with them. So before breakfast could be started, they all had to be picked up. So we got the Skittles taken care of and scooted off to breakfast.

The Dothan gang pretty stays together for most of the days as you will notice from all the pictures, today wasn’t any different. They were all together at breakfast except for one. He managed to slip away from me although this was the first time he had managed to do so. Jacob Puckett went missing in action. So I went off in search for him. I looked in the concession stand, no Jacob. I looked on the front steps, no Jacob. So I decided to go into the auditorium and see if he was there. When I opened up the doors, I was being serenaded by a drum solo although I could not see who was playing. However as I turned the corner and looked all the way across to the platform, Jacob was playing the drums. He was apparently having a time with it. So I went over and told him that if we did not get breakfast then we would miss it for the rest of the day. So we headed back toward the café and had a hearty breakfast.

Our first session of the day involved a forum of sorts. Numerous questions were asked to Sister Vanderford (forgive me for not knowing her first name), Jeremy Sherrill, Shaun Meeks, Kelly Martincic, David Goodwin, and myself. Good questions and good advice came from all around. Hopefully some of it connected with the kids.

Then Brother Kelly Martincic, one of the sectional youth directors, preached “Your Father Has the Final Word” from Genesis 35. Again, it was a good message that challenged the youth to understand that God has much control in the circumstances of our lives and it will work toward His plan if we will just be faithful to what God desires.

After this session, we were turned loose for lunch with recreation to follow. Lunch today consisted of the other end of the box of the chicken fingers. In one end, I think they pack chicken fingers and in the other end they pack what is left of the chicken, such as toes, lips, ears, and such and put it into a handy little patty. That is what we had for lunch, chicken patty sandwiches. Teresa and I ate with Brother Wells who again rivaled us with some famous stories from Vincent, Alabama. I think that toe-to-toe Brother Wells could give the late Jerry Clower a run for his money.

Brother Wells told his that his grandmother would sit out on her front porch and rock in a rocking chair, read her Bible, and dip snuff all at the same time. He assured us that she could do this because she was Baptist! This was greatly amusing to me when he was telling us about it. He told us that one day his grandmother intended to spit a big wad of snuff out in the yard and then toss her Bible on the small little cot next her rocking chair on the porch. The cot was there because the “old country folk” would sometimes take a nap on the porch. Anyway, instead of getting the snuff in the yard, she got a little confused. She spit a big wad of juice on her nice white sheets on the cot and tossed her Bible out into the yard!

He also told us that he had traced his family tree all the way back to the mid 1700’s and the Wells had come out of South Carolina with some very strong Irish and German stock. They were all army officers and such but he said that the tried to trace his wife’s family back (the Reynolds) to 1946. They could not find anything beyond a jail break in Clanton, Alabama! All of this is hugely funny to me. At breakfast he had rivaled me with great stories about how to make sauerkraut. He went into much (too much) detail about how it was done. I always thought that sauerkraut made a bad hotdog worse. But I have now come to find out that sauerkraut is actually very good with ribs that you BBQ with. I doubt I shall try it in the near or distant future but at least I know how to make sauerkraut now, which I did not last week.

The afternoons were full of hanging out and the boys spent a lot of time on the basketball court. I managed to slip off on my bicycle for about a 17.5 mile ride through the Pike Road community and found some valuable decompression time on the bike. Bikes are sort of like those broncs I am reading to the boys about at night in Dorm D, they can jerk the kinks out of your spirit.

Supper was around 5:30 PM and when I got down there, all of our kids were settling down in front of meatball subs. It sort of stirred up that old camp song of something about a meatball being on top of spaghetti all covered with cheese and I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.

Silent Praise was due to make their debut in singspiration but after some technical difficulties with the CD, they were unable to do so. They aren’t interested in doing it tomorrow night because they have the Pizza Party and no one wants to wear black to the party.

One thing I am discovering this year and it appears to get worse yearly is that there are some extremely messed up kids that come to our camps. The devil has done everything he can to wreck our society. Kids have little discipline in their home life and it plays over into all that we see at camp. Suffice it to say that we need an old-fashioned revival in America. Having said that, it makes me clearly more committed to our Dothan bunch and doing all that we can with them!

The service took off with a bang and the choir continued to roll it and Brother Linder ended up not getting to preach tonight. Seven kids got the Holy Ghost for the first time tonight. After an extended altar service, the kids were dismissed and told to return to the auditorium at 9:45 PM for Midnight Goofiness. I again retreated to the kitchen not desiring any excessive nerve jangling and had some leftover chicken. During that time, Brother Wells and I commenced again with our task of rectifying the societal problems at large. I think we are making some headway and if President Bush hears a peep out of our ideas, there is great potential in the both of us being whisked off to the White House.

Tonight in Dorm D, the giddiness of our bunch seems to be giving way to fatigue. Not much objections tonight to settling in. I read about 2 chapters from Mustang Man by that prophet L’Amour and it was again a resounding success.

See you tomorrow. . . .

Alabama Teen Camp UPCI Youth -- June 17, 2008 -- Front Row!!!

We arrived in Montgomery around 10 AM on Tuesday morning for the most part in pretty good condition. Everybody was in their usual excited state about getting into the dorm they were in last year but the boys group was too large to all get housed in Dorms A, B, and C, so we had to pack up all the stuff and move it to Dorm D. The only problem with this is the A/C. In the other dorms it is usually cold enough to “bust the bark” so to speak. But this year we have to make some adjustments and will have to fair in a little warmer climate to get all the boys in the same place. I am told the registration is somewhere around 165+ and it appears that we have a good crew this year.

We have a few newcomers this year. Christy, Morgan, and Nikki are the new girls. On the boys side we have Clay who has never stayed in the dorms without the close presence of his mother and also the Pucketts. Andrew and Jacob are with us from Atlanta. Jacob is a mile a minute to keep up with but he has spent much of the day with Brother David or myself.

Shortly after dumping all of the things in the dorm it was time for lunch. Some of those hearty soybean burgers from all appearances and taste! Along with chips and chocolate chip cookies we realized that we were in for a high-carb week.

After lunch was over with we all hustled over to the auditorium for a rally that was preached by Ryan Vanderford who is the Alabama District UPCI Youth Secretary. He preached a message about “The Power of a Discovered Identity.” He encouraged the youth to understand that there are two choices. Saul, who never really lived up to the intended identity, ended up flopping entirely at what God really had intended for him. On the other hand, there was Paul, who did live up to his discovered identity of what God really wanted. As young men and women the choice of seeking out the right things of life are incredibly important.

This message was ended with a good time of prayer and a challenge. The challenge was issued to the kids and they were encouraged to sign their name on a banner that will be on the front of the pulpit all week during the camp. I was proud of the Dothan bunch who took up 22 seats on the front row. The guys and gals are stretched across the whole front (as you will see on the Flickr photostream).

The altar service ended with the introduction of the illustrious pastor of Vincent, Alabama, Perry Wells. He immediately called for all knives and pistols to be coughed up and if they were not voluntarily handed over they would be forcefully taken! Furthermore, Brother Wells is about to start a cell phone company and anyone who is caught “texting” during the service is going to contribute their phone to his company and the phones will be leased out to excited customers who are in the Vincent, Alabama area. Both of these comments were received with much mirth. He also was concerned about those who had not been potty trained and asked for a showing of hands of those who did not know how to operate a commode! This too was received with much hilarity.

We were then turned out into the hot, humid Montgomery afternoon to play softball, volleyball, basketball, and football. For those who sought the cool rooms on the inside, there was ping-pong, air hockey, foosball, and just general hanging out. The concession stand is again being manned by the famous Blaylock family from Sulligent, Alabama. With her usual demeanor, Sister Blaylock has proved herself to be one of the most famous and active talkers from the north end of the state. Very few women can hold a candle to Donna Blaylock when it comes to talking, fabricating, sarcasm, and everything in between! She can sell pickles, eat a Subway sandwich, and harass me every single time I even venture into the concession stand area.

A bunch of the Dothan girls showed up for choir practice and my battery died to my camera and so I have no pictures of any of this although I do have some from the night service. They were well into the songs (as you can see, although you will have to pardon the red-eye effect that I could not correct with my digital camera).

After a time of song and worship, Brother Sammy Sherrill, our district Youth President, introduced Brother Harold Linder (from parts unknown to me at this time) who had to quickly fill in from Aaron Soto who could not attend due to some very extenuating circumstances in his church. Brother Linder preached a very short sermon (alas I do not want our kids getting too used to this) about the power of God-given desire in your life. He used examples like Joseph, the Hebrew kids in the fiery furnace, Esther, and a few others to get his point across. The altar service followed and a number of kids spent some time praying.

Following the service was the infamous “Midnight Madness.” I stayed for about 7 minutes and 28 ½ seconds and couldn’t handle it any longer. I left the restless savages in the hands of the Youth committee and staff and went somewhere to keep my nerves from getting more jangling than what they could handle. Very fortuitously or maybe even directed by God, I ran into my good friend and Vincent, Alabama pastor, Perry Wells. We rambled around to the backside of the old campground and snuck in the back door of the kitchen. Lo and beheld we thought God had sent ravens to save us but found out later it was Sister Oma Overton. She put up the leftover chicken fingers, a few buns, sliced tomatoes, and left them lying about for a few hungry prophets, umm, preachers to come and enjoy. We had cold chicken samiches and Coke and spent considerable time fixing all the problems of the world. Be on the lookout, things are going to get better here in a few days from all the changes we will endeavor to make.

When the kids got in from Midnight Madness, I picked up a tradition that I started a few years ago. I read aloud to the boys in the dorm to try and wind things down so that they will go on to sleep. I pulled out my trusty Bantam paperback and struck out on the trail with Nolan Sackett who was the central character in “Mustang Man.” I read about 18 pages in 20 minutes or so but should have read for about another ten because they were still a little wound up when I cut the lights out. Typical boy stuff goings on that has been around camps for years. Stuff like coughing, giggling, whispering, passing gas, fake ailments of every sort, and some were “texting” somebody in the way off cellular world. I think I shall invite my friend from Vincent, Alabama in here tomorrow night to see if he can add some of the phones to his collection!

When I shut the lights down, Justin called me to tell the Celtics had trashed the Lakers and won the finals by a score of 131-92. Brought back some sweet memories of my high school days when Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Robert Parish, and Coach K. C. Jones were wearing out the likes of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy of the Lakers.

Nothing like these Youth Camps! See you tomorrow!

Last Weekend. . . . Work, This Weekend. . . Celebrate

Last weekend, Power Supply worked for a Sheaves for Christ carwash. This weekend, we celebrated!

Five graduates from our church have made it! Amanda Collette, Ashton Foster, Daniel Elmore, Melissa Mills, and Caleb Stark are our graduating class of 2008. Our hats are off to them as they now enter the “real” world.

This year Amanda’s graduation will be etched down in history. At her graduation from Enterprise High School, First Lady Laura Bush gave the commencement address. It was pretty interesting watching it all unfold especially with the Secret Service involvement. She gave an inspiring speech and all the grads got to shake her hand after they had received their diplomas. Mrs. Bush came because President George Bush came to Enterprise in March, 2007, when a wicked tornado came and destroyed the school. The aftermath of the storm left eight students dead. Four of them were posthumously awarded diplomas on Thursday night.

Friday night, we went to see Daniel Elmore, Ashton Foster, Melissa Mills, and Caleb Stark graduate. This is my old alma mater. I sang with great gusto the first two lines of the alma mater along with the Rehobeth High School graduating class of 2008. You can see the graduation pictures here of EHS and RHS.

On Saturday, we had our annual graduation party for all the grads. You can see the pictures here.

These Kids Are Incredible!

Memorial Day Weekend kicked off today and the vast majority of Power Supply, our youth group here in Dothan, was in fine form. Our youth group was not at the lake or the beach starting summer vacations but they had their sleeves rolled up and worked at a car wash. It was all-out work. . . . they had a tremendous day and raised $$$ (of which we are keeping a secret so the “enemy” does not find out how much we have).

Sheaves For Christ is a program that helps the United Pentecostal Church, International lend support to home missions, foreign missions, our Bible colleges and Urshan Graduate School of Theology, just to name a few of the things SFC supports.

Our General Youth President Shay Mann had the following words at the General Youth Division Website: “We cannot just arbitrarily choose an ending at the conclusion of this campaign, we must write the story now.”

Today, President Mann, Secretary Williams, Promotions Director Francis, we wrote a small part of the story that we have joined. . . . We are pushing from our end. . . . thanks for the challenge. . . .

Power Supply. . . . My hat is off to you!

You can look at the pictures here. . .