Back from Kid’s Camp 2007–1 vs. 99!

We made it back yesterday from Kid’s Camp up at beautiful downtown Roach, MO at Windermere. We really had a great group of kids that went, 64 kids total. There were at least 5 decisions for Christ over the week and several more decisions to follow Christ in obedience in baptism! Praise God! That is why we do what we do–in order for Christ to change lives!

The theme was “The Game Show of Life: The Great Commission.” There were three main teaching times. The first was on the parable of the Lost Sheep told by Jesus. We are told that the shepherd left the 99 “found” sheep to go look for the 1 “lost” sheep. This is really difficult for us “found/saved” sheep, isn’t it? “So you are telling me that we are important, but not THAT important? So it’s o.k. for you to go running off to get the lost sheep and all the while allow us to get hurt, attacked, etc.?” That seems to be what the Lord was saying. However, it is not that “found” sheep aren’t important, but that it is the mission of believers to go to extreme measures in order to help the lost find safety in Christ. Talk about your difficult sayings of Jesus! But in a positive way of looking at it–Christ loves ALL of us . . . so much that He goes to extreme measures to make sure there are more than 100 in the fold. John Hill, the camp pastor for the week, made a good point that there was probably a really good chance that the shepherd would find sheep from other folds that were lost as well. The fold actually begins to grow in size.

This is a hard teaching for many of our churches–to focus on outsiders . . . not necessarily on insiders. The problem happens when the “lost” don’t have a voice in our churches. Who is standing up for them? We build programs and buildings for us. Some churches go so far as to have the Christian coffee shop, book store, etc. I know what the initial idea is–“what a great place to invite outsiders to “‘ease into the pool!'” But all too often, the focus on outsiders wains and we are left with a bunch of things for us. The chosen ones. The found. Not exactly what Christ would want from us.

If we were all real honest, I think we kind of like the comfort and familiarity of the sheepfold. We like the fact that the shepherd is there watching over us. Not that we need Him because we pretty much have everything figured out. We just want Him around if we need Him in an emergency (see pretty much all the 8th century prophets). God wants us to realize that we need Him and He needs us to look out for the lost sheep in our lives.

Next lesson, the Fruit of the Spirit.