Camp is over. How sad. Now it is back to work on Monday. If I had the means, I would spend my entire summer at a camp... perhaps someday. This is the first year I have taken off the entire week for camp and I don't regret using the time off one bit.

The most campers we had on a day was 75. I was looking through pictures of camp in the years past. I was amazed at how few campers we had and I am amazed at how much God has grown the camp over the last few years. I am excited for next year to see what God does with the camp and how He uses it. I also noticed the campers themselves as I looked over the last several years of camp photos. So many different kids who are now growing up and new campers taking their places. In a way I was sad to see some of the kids from years past that I haven't seen since then. At the same time, I was glad to see so many new campers enjoying being at the camp.

God reminded me that this too is a season. There will be a season and a time for the overall camp ministry. There will be a season and a time for me and my family to be a part of it. And there are shorter seasons each year that bring different campers to experience it. Each season is appropriate and needed and each brings a richness and a fullness to this small ministry in the kingdom of God.

So I am looking forward to next year with great anticipation. For one thing, I won't have to come home in the evenings and do school work after an exhausting day at camp! My children will be able to experience camp again and as they grow in their knowledge of God they can learn to serve Him at camp as well. I will get to see some of the kids I met this year as they have grown in a year and I will get to meet new ones.

Have a good year, campers. You will be in my thoughts and prayers in the coming year.

Creatures of Habit

We are creatures of habit and the schedule. Most every day I drive to work using the same route. Every Saturday we have waffles. Every Sunday we go to church. We have celebrations to mark important events each year at the same time like Easter and Independence Day. Most of what we do in life we either schedule out or do with regular consistency.

My lifestyle is no different and I must constantly remind myself that things are not permanent. I am the kind of person who moves into a house, carefully considers where I want everything, and then leaves it until the time we move again (Amber is not this way so the furniture does move around :). When I moved into my office, I planned out where I wanted the desk and other things and it hasn't moved since - nor do I foresee it moving. So I struggle when things change and are not constant.

For everything there is a season...

Nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. All things are for a season and there is a time, truly, for everything. Bad things will only last for a time - as will good things. The more I realize this the more I am able to cope with the changes that occur in my life. Right now, that means friendships. Even friendships are for a season. Does that mean we cannot have life-long friends? No, in fact I hope we are able to have life-long friends. But somehow even friendships change and (hopefully) mature over time.

Business

In business and strategic planning, we divide things between the short-term and the long-term. The definition changes based on what is being planned. For example, the short-term is sometimes defined as the length of time in which at least something is fixed (e.g. number of buildings the company owns). In the long-term, however, all things are variable (e.g. a company can purchase or sell buildings with time). Even in business, however, there is an understanding that things are only for a season. In the long-term everything can change. There are also business cycles: a business begins, grows, matures, and eventually will end. Even industries are said to be cyclical in nature.

Hold Loosely

In learning to cope with seasons in friendships (and other areas), I am learning I must hold loosely to what has been given me. This becomes more difficult with the things that generally last longer and that we tend to see as more permanent: a car, a house, a job, a friendship. If God should so desire for me to leave my house tomorrow, I must hold so loosely that I have no issues in giving it up. This is much easier said then done.

Some Things Have to Change

So here is the part that is anti-culture. Perhaps some of the practices we go through routinely are preventing us from living as though all things are seasonal - and that this is not our home. We make investments: monetarily and with time. And we schedule everything to death! So should we not plan for anything? No, that is not what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting, though, is we have allowed such methods to take over our lives.

… under heaven

Solomon makes us aware there is a season and a time for everything under heaven. So what will remain? Yep, love! We have this hope we hold to, this salvation that we wait to be completed, a God whose love for us is unchanging. This constant of God's unconditional love is the single greatest thing we can use to know when to plan, when to set things aside, and how to cope with uncertainty, change, and seasons.

My title for this post is a bit of a misnomer. These are two separate subjects that I am going to house under one post for simplicity!

Children or Specifically Jacinth

I was sitting in the living room the other day with my netbook out working away. Jacinth was sitting on the couch quietly talking to herself just passing the time. All I could think of was the line from the movie Cars where Lizzie says, "if people here you talking to yourself, they'll think you're crazy!". It made me smile and I thought it was cute.... then a little while later I caught myself talking to myself quietly while working on the netbook! Oh dear, she learned it from me!

Earlier that same morning Jacinth sat down beside me on the couch with her pink dog - Fluffy. I heard her saying something and then realized she was making the dog pray to God - it was very cute.

Singles

I had someone ask my opinion on a recent Crosswalk article: Singles in the Church. So head over and read it first then come back and I'll give you my thoughts.

Overall, I like the direction the author has taken with this topic. I like the idea of deemphasizing the separation of life stages or groups and instead emphasizing our unity in Jesus. I'll first address some of the quotes I found as cautions and then give you my general thoughts.

"After all, if the whole point of going to church is to avoid 'forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,'..."

The author has made the assumption that Sunday services exist for the purpose of fulfilling the scripture quoted. What I question is what is the purpose of Sunday services and is it necessary to fufill this scripture? If Sunday services becomes the box we check to fulfill this scripture then I believe we have missed the heart of that passage.

How does this apply to singles in the church? Well, my admonition for those single would be the same as it is for those married: do not allow Sunday service to be the sole means by which you gather together with other believers. Does simply being present with other believers fulfill the heart of this passage?

Connecting

I thought I had a quote for this one but I can't seem to find it. The article speaks about singles and other ministries existing for the purpose of connecting people. Is this such a bad thing? To an extent, no, but whose job is it to connect the various members of the church (and I mean the church as in Christ's body)? We are grafted into the vine by Jesus - surely He can take care of linking  us up to others who will help us on this journey.

Learn to look for those whom God is bringing across your path to connect with. He will bring the right people into our lives at the right time. Who knows our needs better than the One guiding us on this journey? God may use a ministry in a local church to connect you - and He may not. The point is not to rely on the ministry to connect us with others, but rather to rely on God and be willing to step out of our comfort zone at His biding.

"Take some initiative for creating fellowship and ministry opportunities for singles within your church—or, gasp!—from other congregations." (emphasis mine)

The author rightly uses sarcasm at this point. Yet what sadly makes this statement funny is how true it is. Read the first comment made under the posted article - do you see the defensive tone the man has with regard to his singles ministry that has been going for 30 years? The local church tends to instill the same defensiveness with regard to its members and other congregations.

"...understand what your pastors expect of you, and what you think you need..."

I respect what the author is trying to accomplish yet I question the underlying assumptions being made. Who should fulfill my needs? My Lord! My Friend! He fulfills all of our needs. When we begin looking to people (e.g. the local church, the pastor, elders, a ministry, etc.) to fulfill our needs we miss the best relationship we could be having with Jesus.

Jesus wants to fulfill our needs. Can He do that through others? Yes! Absolutely! In fact, we are often His instruments to others around us and He delights in using His children to fulfill the needs of brothers. Yet when we take our eyes off of Jesus as the one who supplies our every need, we create an environment of failure. Too often, we look to a ministry, a pastor, or someone else to fill a need in our lives.

Final Thoughts

I am not sure how much I truly addressed the article and my thoughts around it. We all have an underlying desire to fit in, to be accepted. We are relational beings and we desire to have relationships with others. Our first and foremost relationship should be that between us individually and God. I firmly believe when we learn to rest in His love, meaningful relationships with others will naturally arise. This is not to say there is no place for having ministries that reach out to believers within the body. It is to say, we should not place our hope or trust in such ministries.

There's a recent post over at Boundless titled "Single Guy Living with a Widow" that caught my attention today. I appreciated the clever way the author grabs his audience and takes an Old Testament story and brings it to life. What I didn't like was the way the author strips cultural context from the story. Head over and read the article before you finish this post for my post to make more sense.

This author makes the mistake of overlaying our culture on a biblical story. Yes, such a story as a homeless single guy living with a widow and her son would be interpreted in a bad light in our society and culture. The problem is this story didn't take place yesterday, it took place thousands of years ago. Different culture, different norms, different expectations. Oh, and Elijah was a pretty well known prophet so he was hardly just some homeless guy.

As a result, the author seems to draw some off-base conclusions from inferring our assumptions on a story in a different time where we have very limited detail. This points to the caution we have in interpreting scripture and how cautious we must be in applying the Bible to today. Does this mean the Bible is not applicable to today? No! The Bible is very applicable to today and will continue to be so. But one must keep in mind the time in which it was written and what the norms of that day were.