My most humble and sincere apologies for the past few months or so. I know I have neglected my faithful readers (all 3 of you), and I am sure you have all had trouble sleeping every night due to the anxiety of wondering what in the world was God doing in my life. I understand that my exceedingly insightful posts are crucial to the well-being of most of you beautiful people. However, I have good news: This should catch you up on what you have missed. The flip-side is length: Because I have been absent for so long and so much has transpired, I find myself at a crossroads, and I am not sure yet which road I will take (I will only know once this blog has been finished…its like an adventure that you, the reader, and me as the writer will be taking together). This post could be comparatively brief, in order to fit all the big things in, or it may turn out to be gruelingly long if I attempt to include the precious details of God's work in me this summer.
And so it begins:
This summer, as many of you know, I worked for Camp Fuego as an Intern. From the last two weeks in May to the first week of August, I worked to provide a noteworthy, life-changing, Spirit-filled summer camp experience to students who otherwise may not have been able to afford such an experience. I will try to save you the details in the name of brevity, but sometimes when I write, the proverbial pen takes control with a mind of it's own.
The first few weeks were very difficult. I did not enjoy the office work, nor the environment. However, this is the first place the Lord taught me something during the internship (Duh, Chris!…it was where the work of the internship began…I'm an idiot. Forgive me). Through the excellence of my co-workers, specifically Alicia Fox, I began to realize that the reason I hated the office work was because I was not great at it. I didn't know what to do, and I went stir crazy in about 2.33 seconds. The office wasn't my home field. This was the beginning of a revelation of the beauty of Christ's Bride (she has a hot body…Just let that sink in).
When camp began, I was much more in my comfort zone. I could lose myself in service in any area of camp. So much needed to be done at any point in time, I could always find a place to fit into some work. This, coupled with seeing the next generation of church leaders being called to my beautiful savior, really gave me a sense of worth in this ministry, and a sense of accomplishment. However, I saw that I was profoundly bad at controlling my tongue. Thanks to the accountability of some men of God like Shane Pevehouse, Chris Ransbottom, and Justin Horton, along with many others, honestly, I was able to see my proclivity for tearing down the body of Christ–my brothers and sisters, and fellow body parts. Because of this, I have started a process of being changed. I have always said that the Lord changes me as much as I'll let him at any given time, and I have decided to allow Him to change me. But let's be honest, because I am so dense, it may take a while. Regardless, I am trying to focus on controlling my tongue, as it says in the book of James, in order to demonstrate control over my whole being as well as love for and devotion to Christ and his Bride.
I went running one day and experienced a beautiful moment of freedom, but that is getting its own blog. Be on the look out.
Andie Lance, a fellow World Racer and Fuego Intern, was by my side through this learning process. Her consistent encouragement to allow myself to be molded, uncomfortable, and grow was crucial. Because of her steadfastness, I believe I have begun and will continue to grow from all the things camp has taught me.
Around the home stretch of my camp stint, Shane Pevehouse, an exceptional leader, man of God, and future church planter/pastor, challenged me. He asked me to shed my exterior of grumpiness and be vulnerable with our staff. He asked me to be the person he knew me to be, but to be that with everyone. It was really rather tough for me, because I do not like being vulnerable. Because all of my readers are great Humans, I know I am alone in my distaste for vulnerability, but perhaps you will all forgive me and attempt to understand. Vulnerability, for me, comes with time. Once I have gotten to know a person, and deemed them worthy of the ability to complete destroy me, then and only then do I allow them to see who I really am. Because when we reveal our true selves, when we become vulnerable, there is no more defense. We are utterly open. That being said–or typed, as it were–I did not want to be vulnerable with our camp staff in its entirety. But for this particular week, Shane was the boss. So I did what he said. And I experienced elevated freedom and relational growth like never before.
To complete the freedom that The Father was teaching me through Shane's faithfulness, my friend, roommate, bed mate, and fellow intern Chris Ransbottom was sharpening me in the usual Christian reference to Iron. He and I were walking through a podcast series by phenomenal Christian speaker and Pastor Judah Smith. The series was called Enjoying God, and it comes highly recommended by Ransbottom and myself. This particular series of podcasts taught me about enjoying God (obviously), and reaching new levels of freedom in Him, as well as new levels of grace toward God's children.
At the same time, I was also reading Messy Spirituality, by Mike Yaconelli. Through it, the Father was teaching me to accept my messiness and the messiness of others in the church. Because I no longer felt condemnation for the mess that is my Spiritual Life, I was able to have more joy and more freedom with my Heavenly Father.
The last week of camp happened to be the week where absolutely every person in authority anywhere had a brain lapse because it was when I was allowed to be the Co-Director of camp. For those of you who don't know, that means I was the boss. But I was fortunate enough to share my Directorship with The Amber Gish. Her personality and mine could not have fit together more perfectly in this role of leadership. She and I ran camp together for a week, and I saw something amazing. Besides keeping me sane, and demonstrating the very meaning of "calm and quiet spirit", God used Amber to teach me something else. Actually, God used Amber to punctuate a lesson he had been teaching me throughout the internship as a whole:
God taught me the beauty of The Body of Believers. In Corinthians we are told there are many gifts, but one spirit. There are many parts, but one body.
Throughout the Internship, God painted for me a beautiful picture of The Church. He showed me the inter-workings of The Church. I saw something I had known before, but never seen or actively experienced. I saw the cogs coming together in harmonious union to make this thing work–to make Discipleship, Evangelism, Worship, Prayer, and all other aspects of the church actually happen!
I saw each of the interns contribute something unique and important.
- Alicia showed the gift of administration.
- Andie, the gift of encouragement.
- Amber demonstrated exceptional wisdom as well supernatural faith.
- Shane was the definition of an apostle, and prophetically spoke truth to me.
- And I was priveledge to see, over and over again, the gift of teaching be demonstrated through Chris Ransbottom.
These are by no means all of the ways I saw the Body work at camp. Every staffer, worship leader, camp pastor, church group leader, and student had something to offer. I just spent an insane amount of time with these interns, so I can most easily speak of them.
I think God was showing me this for a reason. I think he wants me to get over myself, and stop being a hard-shelled, critical, loud mouth moron. I think he is asking me why I think I have the right to condemn his children when he says that even He does not (Rom 8:1). I think he is preparing me for the my World Race Squad. He is showing me that all of his people, whether I like it or not, are part of this thing we call the Church Movement. Whether I am too fleshly and hard-hearted to like those people, or if I show them the perfect love of Christ, he wanted me to understand that we are doing this. All of us. Together. And if ministry/making Jesus famous is my passion, like I say it is, He told me I better recognize that that doesn't happen alone. He has placed this community of Christians around me in places all over the Globe, and he has made them my co-workers.
1 Corinthians 12:14-19 "Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?"
So often, I am this part of the body (probably the butt) that wants to do things on my own. I like the control I have then, and I assume I can do it better–whatever IT is. But The lord has taught me so much this summer. He showed me how flawed my way of thinking was. And he showed me the dependence one body part has on another in order that all function properly. I believe this is what he brought me to/through the internship to learn. And I believe he did that in order to impact all of my future ministry, including the World Race.
Again, you have my apologies for the length of this blog; I assure you, I really did try to keep it short. Nonetheless, I hope you brought snacks, and were able to stop and picnic along the journey of reading this behemoth. If you didn't take this thing in sections, visit a psychiatrist.
