Retreat Topics Wanted

As I send my 6 year old daughter on the bus off to First Grade this morning in the cool late summer air, I recognize the need for my attention to swiftly shift from the post summer camp reflection to the intensive pre-retreat fall planning. Columbus Day, LaPorte and Almont Winter retreat are all on the horizon and it's time to start getting busy doing all the work necessary to make these great events happen. That means all the usual tasks involving finding staff, managing budgets, helping with travel, setting the menu and all the other details that go with pulling a teen retreat together. It also means getting flyers sent out to announce the retreat. But before I can do that - I need to lock down the topic for each of these retreats. This is where you come in. This is your chance to help me and also get answers to questions that may be stirring inside your head. What do you want to learn about? Please let me know your thoughts and ideas. You can email them to me, call me or respond with a comment to this post. I want to know what you are interested in and I will try to either make your topic the next retreat theme or will otherwise work what you suggest into the program. Thank you so much for your input. I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully seeing you this fall.

His Love Endures Forever

The August edition of the Chaplain's Corner by Pastor Dave, SCYL Chaplain (the third in a trilogy of truth, good and love)

We have looked at truth as pointing the way to good; we have looked at good as being truth expressed from the heart; our subject today is love. Love is the object of religion. Teaching the ways of love is what all Christianity is about. God is love itself. And religion is about a person’s relationship with God. When we let God into our hearts, we are letting love into our hearts. We only love truly when God is in us.

Love that motivates us to do anything. And when we are involved with what we love, we are in delight, enjoyment, and blessedness. So when we speak of love, we are also speaking of what gives us our delights and enjoyments. Take away our delights, and we will not want to do anything. Since love is what gives us our sense of delight, everything we enjoy is a reflection of love. So loving is doing and it is also giving and receiving love in an interpersonal way. So we are not abusing the word when we say that we love working on cars, or playing the piano, or preparing balance sheets for businesses. And we all recognize that when we are showing care and compassion for others in an interpersonal way we are also loving.

Consider the story in Luke 7:1-15. In it a so-called sinful woman shows her love for Jesus by washing Jesus’ feet with her tears, drying them with her hair, and anointing them with perfume. The Pharisee in this story is concerned with ritual purity, and would have refused the woman’s expressions of love. He thinks to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39). But what kind of woman is she? She is a woman brimming over with love. And it is this love that makes her other failings of no account. Sin is whatever blocks love, and this woman is filled with love for Jesus. Therefore Jesus can say, “her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much” (7:47).

I would ask you to take this story to heart. It seems to me to capture the nature of religious life. We have two people involved in a loving relationship. We have the woman showing love and we have Jesus accepting love. So we are called to give love and to become vulnerable enough to receive love from others. So in this Gospel story we have love in both its dynamics—giving and receiving. And we are taught to both give and receive. So may it be said of us, as Jesus says to the woman, “her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much.”

The Joy of Almont and Fryeburg Summer Camps

Almont Summer Camp is over now. It was an exhausting and beautiful experience. And, as you can see and hear from the video, it ROCKED! The large teen group (close to 20) made Almont so much more fun! 10 new people (9 teens, one adult) were initiated into the Survivors (the Almont teen group). The weather was perfect for most of the week and despite the vicious mosquitoes, we were able to spend much of our time outdoors. With around 120 campers most days, this was critical to maintaining camp spirit. The camp theme was King David. Chapels, lectures and classes were filled with interesting and intriguing discussions about his life.

Now Fryeburg Assembly is in the second week and the teen group here has also steadily increased. From the brief visits I have made, the teens are having a great time. The Saco river is open for swimming after being closed for high water most of the first week of camp. The first week theme was 40 days and 40 years and the second week is Path of Spiritual Growth Through Daily Life. I hope to visit more as Fryeburg camp approaches it's conclusion on August 16th.

Cody, Nina and Holly are three teens that were able to attend both Almont and Fryeburg camps this year. It's great to visit with them and get their opinions on the two experiences. They are very different camps, but also have much in common. Both offer an amazing opportunity to live in community with people of all ages seeking to learn, grow and play together in an environment of love to God and your fellow neighbor. I hope that all of you who were not able to attend either Almont or Fryeburg can visit one (or both!) of these camps next year and experience the excitement, energy and joy of summer church camp.

I hope to get a post on Paulhaven too, as although I have not attended for quite a few years now, I know what an incredible place and camp that is as well.