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Observations on Great Churches

July 26, 2011 by Mark Woodward

I am out of pocket for a couple of weeks, so I am going to re-post the very first series I did–long before any of you were reading this blog–on Great Churches.  I hope you find it relevant.

Sherrylee and I often joke that all we have ever seen in the 60+ countries we have visited is the airport, the road to the church building, and the missionary’s living room. While this is not literally true, it is true that we have had opportunity to visit with hundreds of churches around the world and to talk with hundreds of missionaries and national Christians. This proximity has given us an unusual vantage point for observing what I believe to be essential qualities for great churches.  And by great I do not necessarily mean the largest, but I do mean those churches that seem to me to be truly living and breathing as a strong body of Christ in their culture/country. Allow me to share these with you over the next few days.

Great churches and great missionaries realize that neither the church nor the work belongs to them.  “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1) Missionaries/Ministers/Leaders may give their lives to a country or a congregation, but regardless of how much they have given for how many years, the church belongs to Jesus who paid for it with His sinless blood. Too many mature congregations have been “owned” by charter members, by large contributors, by family dynasties, or special interest groups. Equally as many have been owned by founding missionaries, legacy ministers, or irreplaceable elders. I have seen churches forced to literally ban their founding missionary from their building to escape their ownership.

Great churches have leaders who know that they are replaceable; in fact, great leaders plan to replace themselves. It may feed some egos, but it is no compliment to admit that a work might die if a particular leader were not there. A great leader would be working intensely to remedy that situation quickly.

Even Jesus, the Greatest Leader, said, “Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work” (John 10:37). He also said, “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you” (John 16:7).

Great churches have great leaders who acknowledge with every word and deed the One who owns them as slaves and who intentionally give up a posture of “ownership” for the health of the body of Christ. The practical result of accepting this principle is the absolute end of turf wars, of jealousies over resources or results, and of battles over authority and control.

Question:  How would you know if YOU were acting as an “owner”?

Next:  Great churches work from a prayer-sought Vision with a prayer-based Strategy. 

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The Story of the Apple Green Hat!

July 21, 2011 by Mark Woodward

We know what idolatry looks like when we see it! We see people bowing before images, lighting incense and offering food for images. Yes, any traveler in Asia has seen this and recognized it immediately as idolatry.

Paul wrote a disturbing note to the Christians in Colossae saying, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (3:5).

I’m not sure that we would recognize sexual immorality or impurity as idolatry—but certainly not greed!  I’m not even sure we know what greed is! Is greed the desire to make as much money as possible? Is greed having more of anything than we need?  Is greed acquiring something to the detriment of another?

Erich Fromm, a famous psychologist, said “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”  Pretty scary definition in a society that coaches us to never be satisfied, to always want more, earn more, build more, grow more, simply More more!

But if Greed is idolatry, then it must be something akin to what we do recognize as idolatry. Are there objects for veneration?  Do we attempt to obtain our wishes and desires by serving the idol of Greed?  Do we worship Greed but give it a loftier, almost divine name: Manifest Destiny, the American Dream,  Capitalism, Business,  for instance?

Let me tell you a story that helps me put my wants and desires into proper perspective. My dad went to school in Kansas City during WWII to become a radio operator. His first job after receiving his training was with Braniff Airways, maintaining communications with the pilots in the air. It was a pretty good job in those years—especially for a young, single man.

One day he noticed a beautiful apple green hat in a store window, but it was very expensive. He really wanted that hat, so he saved and saved, walking by that store window everyday  to make sure the apple green hat was still there.

Finally, he had saved up enough money to splurge on the apple green hat, so that day after work, he walked into the shop, purchased the apple green hat, put it on and walked out of the store.

Immediately, a gust of wind caught the hat, blew it off his head, and down the gutter hole into the sewer! Irretrievable! Gone!

The moral of the experience for my dad and for all of us children as we heard the story told and retold at home was “Never buy anything you can’t afford to lose!”

Now hearing this story again with more mature ears, I am also reminded that we will lose everything in this world that is not redeemed for eternity.  A simple gust of wind blows everything obtained by Greed into the sewer!

Serving anything other than God is idolatry. Desiring anything more than God is idolatry. Loving anything more than God is idolatry.  

Do you have an apple green hat in your life?

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Insurance or Assurance?

July 20, 2011 by Mark Woodward

An insurance commercial that is on TV has captured the zeitgeist of our times:  a dog has a big bone that he keeps moving from one hiding place to another for fear that a bigger dog might come and take it away from him.  He buries it, then digs it up and stashes it, then transfers it to another hiding place where he stands guard over it through storm and rain.  The insurance’s umbrella appears, cover him, and gives him relief! Oh really!

I do not find that insurance gives me that much peace of mind.  We have life insurance—but the premiums go up to a billion dollars a year if I don’t die young! We have home warranty insurance—but we have been denied coverage as often as we have really been able to use it.  We have house insurance—with a huge deductible unless the house burns down! We have car insurance—but about half of the drivers in the state don’t, so what happens if you are in an accident with another person??  No, I don’t find insurance to be that reassuring!

We were in a conversation the other night when someone raised the question of why all the great classics of literature are dark and/or tragic!  Lots of films are that way as well. When was the last time a comedy got the Best Picture Oscar?

I used to deal with that question a lot as a professor of literature. Especially students don’t want to see Hamlet die or the whole fish disappear in Old Man and the Sea.  I bet you have never shown your kids Old Yeller because you were so scarred by watching it as a child! Even Bambi is on the banned list, isn’t it, because Mama Rabbit dies—and we don’t want our kids to have to deal with tragedy.

My answer to my students was that life is absolutely tragic—if you are not a believer in Christ raised from the dead!  Take away Christian hope and there is no relief from loss!  You lose your youth, your health, your wealth, your loved ones, your family, your achievements, your memories! Fifty years after your death you are only remembered by a handful of people and 75 years later they are dead too, so you are virtually forgotten except for your name on the tombstone.  Another hundred years and even your engraved name may be worn off or covered in moss.  You lose everything—eventually!

I once heard a little dialogue that went something like this:

Did you hear about the rich guy who died last night?

No, how much did he leave behind?

He left it all!

If you believe in eternal life through Jesus, these losses are just momentary discomforts.  You know that you have life, that you are loved, that you will be with all who love God, and that you will never cry because of loss again.

The Christian faith is not insurance; it is assurance!  Big difference!  

Posted in Christian Culture | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Summer Mondays!

July 18, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Lost Luggage

Summer Mondays are the most exciting day of the week at Let’s Start Talking!  Beginning the first Monday of May and extending through the last Monday of August,  this first day of the work week is a day when we try to make sure that all LST staff members are totally accessible—and, if they are not out of the country on an LST project, they should be in the office.

We discourage taking comp days or vacation days on Summer Mondays.  This year the 4th of July fell on Monday—but the LST office was open!

Summer Mondays require our full attention at LST because Summer Mondays are big travel days, and travel days can be very unpredictable.  Let me explain.

This year LST will organize approximately 120 different short-term mission projects to 25-30 different countries.  Between 60-70% of these projects will happen between May and August. It used to be even more.

For the first twenty-five years, LST was primarily working with university students, so summer months were the only times they were available for short-term missions.  About five years ago, however, we started focusing on recruiting from churches. Not only was the pool of potential workers much larger, but adult church members were not locked into the summer months as the students were, so many could go in the Fall and/or Spring!

In 2010, LST sent twice as many adult church members on LST projects than university students!  In 2011, LST will have recruited, trained, and sent approximately 500 workers, with about 160 of those being college students and the rest being church members.

In spite of this demographic shift, the summer months are still the heaviest travel time.  And because Monday is not only the day of departure for teams, but also the day that all of the student teams return to the U.S., it is the day when things go wrong!

Just a few weeks ago, a campus minister was traveling with his team to China. They flew from their homes to Los Angeles, where they were to catch their international flight.  When you check in for an international flight, the agents always make sure you have a valid passport and the proper visa—because if the airlines take you to a country and you are denied entry, then they have to fly you back immediately at their own expense. (That happened to me once on a flight from Rome to Tirana, Albania, shortly after that country opened up!)

The campus minister and his team made it through security and all the way to their gate, but while they were waiting to board their international flight, someone stole his passport which contained his visa to enter China!  He, of course, could not continue, so they called LST—as they should have—for help.

Well, the team went on without him, but we were able to help him replace his passport and get a replacement visa from the Chinese—and re-book his ticket, so that he was able to fly out on Wednesday—just two days late to his project.  That’s a typical Monday issue for LST.

Just a couple of weeks ago, one of our church workers in Asia  fell and hurt her back enough that the week before she and her team were to return, she could not sit or walk at all. She actually conducted her reading sessions while lying flat on the couch!  But how does she get to the airport with her luggage, sit in Economy seating for 15-20 travel hours in order to get home from Asia??  To make this particular problem even more interesting , our staff member that was coordinating with her team was in Rwanda, Africa, on her own project. Nevertheless, she did a great job staying in touch with the worker in Asia and our office, so that we were able to get this worker home with minimum discomfort.  That’s a Summer Monday’s work for you!

Flight cancellations for storms or mechanical difficulties are just pretty routine on Mondays. The LST team doesn’t even break a sweat for those blips on the screen, we have faced them so often! Lost luggage and lost tickets are a cake walk!

Right now we are dealing with a harder situation with a new LST site, hosted by American missionaries to an island in the Mediterranean.  We felt like this new work was going to be difficult from the beginning because the church was very small and the avenues for recruiting Readers very limited, so we asked two of our most seasoned workers to go first and try to work out the difficulties. They have done a fabulous job—but it has still been difficult even for them. Many Readers are refugees, others are just short-term visitors to the island, so few of the Readers have been dependable about keeping their appointments.

In addition, the host missionary’s wife has had to have surgery on the island for a pretty serious condition, so both he and she are not able to do all for the project that they certainly had intended to do. Next week a student team of five is scheduled to go to this site, so we have spent the last week trying to decide if they should still go. Today, Summer Monday is the day that we will meet and make that final decision.  Pray that we are wise! If the team does not go, much preparatory work and effort seem lost, and there will be people on the island who do not hear the Good News!

Summer Mondays are great days to watch God work!  

Posted in Christian Missions | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

I Love God’s Church–no matter what you say!

July 14, 2011 by Mark Woodward

I regret that some people think that I have a low opinion of the church. I assume they think that because I have said that we as a fellowship could fulfill the Great Commission better by doing a number of things differently than the way we have done them.  I respectfully disagree with them and want briefly to show you why I think I have a higher opinion of the church perhaps than even those critics.

The church of Christ

In a recent conversation, a group of mission committee members were wrestling with the fact that several of their members had become full-time foreign missionaries without actually being a part of the mission budget of the church.  Many individuals of that congregation were supporting these member-missionaries privately, giving their money directly instead of to their local church. In this particular case, the church mission budget also contributes to these missionaries, so the mission committee certainly approves of and encourages these member-missionaries, even treating them like their own missionaries to a great extent, but still the committee wrestles with the feelings that somehow the individual supporters were bypassing the church’s system and the money given outside of the church contribution was in competition or lost to the church.

Many years ago, Sherrylee and I were new members of a congregation and were looking for something we could do. Sherrylee decided to start a young mother’s class in homes during the week, which met a great need and took off like a rocket.  Several months after this class had begun, one of the elders of the congregation came to Sherrylee privately and began apologizing! He said he wanted to apologize to her for the fact that the church leaders should have recognized this need among young mothers in the church and should have begun this class.  He went on to say how appreciative he was that Sherrylee had taken the initiative to start the class, but now the elders would like to assume responsibility for it and let the staff be responsible for it.

It was all kindly said and well-intentioned—but it broke Sherrylee’s heart because she had seen a need and invested herself in meeting that need, only to have it taken from her and absorbed into the official program of the church.

I believe the church is much more than the official programs of elders, deacons, and ministers. Why aren’t all the activities of the members, done in the name of Jesus the work of the church?  Are we sometimes guilty of thinking that if it is not a budget item, it is not really a work of this local church?

Sherrylee and I have fought for years—usually unsuccessfully—to keep people from describing Let’s Start Talking as a parachurch ministry.  By this, they mean an organization other than the church that is doing work similar to what the real churches do. So what’s wrong with this designation?

We have always argued that everyone involved in LST is a Christian and a member of a local church, so we are also church—not something other than church.  For most of our 31-year history, LST has been officially under an eldership. Only in the last few years was the ministry organized under a board of Christians as opposed to an eldership, mostly because of the size of our budget and because of Internal Revenue Service’s rules.  Still, we are doing everything we do as a ministry to advance the kingdom of God and to help people go into all the world. We are acting as members of God’s church—not as anything other than the church!

So I want to argue that I have a very high view of church and that those who misunderstand this may be locked into a view of church that is defined by bricks and mortar and by staffs, committees, and budgets.

Open the doors of our churches! Empower all members to initiate, to search for areas of service, to solicit others to join them in good works that advance the Kingdom of God!

I am not saying that we should do away with our collective works, but church leaders need to be careful about hearing their top-level decisions as the entire voice of the church.  Everywhere we go, we hear of churches working on getting their members to be externally focused! Congratulations to those churches that succeed in this worthy goal without it being controlled from the board room!

I love God’s church! 

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How To Change An Engine With The Airplane in Flight!

July 11, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Building a new airplane is easier than changing out an engine while the airplane is flying! For existing churches, shifting to a new model for doing mission work is more like the latter than the former.

I recently had a lengthy conversation with the minister of a new church plant about how his church could adopt a new paradigm from the beginning of its existence; I also have been approached by a person wanting to do missions that would like to explore establishing a different way of doing support/oversight.

I’m eager to continue these conversations and work on the very practical questions that arise when building a new plane—but I’m also scheduled to talk to a couple of established churches in the near future who have established mission programs, but who feel the need for re-thinking the way they do mission work.  This is the more difficult–but not impossible— task!

A Plan for Transitioning

Step One:  Reach consensus on the desire for a better model for the church’s missions program.  If the call for change is coming from the elders, perhaps the preacher, then it is easier for the mission committee, the current missionaries, and the members of the congregation to be persuaded.  The lower in the church hierarchy the call for change begins, the more difficult it will be to reach consensus.  The most resistant person/group is likely to be where the most ownership/control of the mission program currently lies—unless they are the ones calling for change! 

Step Two:  Establish the goals and the broad parameters for the new model.   For instance, if a church wants to adopt a greater member-driven, relational model as I have been suggesting, then the goals might be something like these:

  1. 80-100% of the total membership of the church will be actively involved in mission activities, including local outreach of every kind, short-term missions, youth missions, internships, and co-mission groups that support missionaries with prayer, oversight, and financial support.
  2. All future missionaries will be raised up from among our members.
  3. Current missionaries will transition to support from a Comission* group over the next three years.
  4. More members will contribute more funds to support more missionaries than ever before.
  5. The church’s Mission Committee will be transformed into a group whose sole mandate is to achieve the mission goals of the church as stated above.

Step Three: Begin to educate and to implement!  Start by reconstituting the Missions committee—perhaps with new people, but not necessarily. The most critical factor in reconstitution is that the new Mission team is 100% on board with the new model.

This is the team who is now responsible for educating members, for instance, about Comission groups. These are the people who will need to work with the preacher and ministers, and especially with the youth and adult education program to encourage a vision and a desire for missions of all kinds from all members.

It might be that those on the earlier Mission committee who are closest to the established missionaries would be enlisted to help them understand the change and to assist them in developing a plan/strategy for building their Comission group.

Yes, there is a process of deconstruction that is occurring; the old engine has to come off. The biggest fear, I suspect, is that in the process of attaching the new engine, the plane crashes, that is, the current missions efforts disintegrate.

Here are some of the bad scenarios that could occur:

  1. The people with power won’t give it up! It could be an elder or elders, it could be a missions committee chair or person, or it could be the missionary the church has supported for thirty years!  If they cannot be persuaded, then either they have to be removed from their position of power or the plan to change has to be abandoned.  There is no workaround here!
  2. Supported foreign nationals are virtually unknown to the local members.  National evangelists on American support have to be put in a different category from American missionaries on church support. We cannot lightly abandon people who have no other obvious means of support. The American church has a moral obligation to help their national worker find a new means of support and to continue helping them until they do. (This is one reason I’m almost always opposed to national preachers getting American support.)
  3. Members are not willing to support a current American missionary.  Since we are talking about moving to a relational model of support/oversight, an American missionary that has no relationship with Christians in the U.S. is going to have great difficulty building a Comission group.  Since relationships were not originally a prerequisite, I do believe a church would have to provide a missionary ample time and opportunity to establish new relationships before moving them out of the budget.

I’ll close with some lines from Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll that seem somehow appropriate here:  How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle! 

Next, I want to address one of the strongest criticisms addressed to me in the course of these latest posts: “Mark, you have a very low opinion of the church!”  What do you think?

Posted in Christian Missions | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

Summer Movies for Kids

July 9, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Just got back from taking four of the gkids to the Friday children’s matinee where we saw Despicable Me (2010, PG), which was a surprisingly good film. Somehow we had heard a bad report on it when it first came out, so had avoided it. I loved the little minions, but especially the transformation of one of the villains. Did everyone else think that Vector was supposed to look like Bill Gates??

Anyway, it reminded me of how helpful recommendations for kid films are, and since we have been doing grandkids now for a week and have seen several, I thought I’d give you a short review of several current movies playing.

Cars 2 (G) was entertaining for all of the grandkids, but the younger ones (4-6) lost interest several times.  This sequel brings back characters like Lightening McQueen (Owen Wilson) and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) from the first movie, but introduces new British car-characters Finn McMissle (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) for the James Bond – like plot.  In the spirit of Wall-E (2008), this film has an eco-message about oil and alternative fuel, but don’t worry because this message is totally lost on all the children.  It does open good conversations about the need to adapt to different cultures and about the value of every person’s culture—even if it doesn’t seem like culture at all.

Super 8 (PG-13) As you probably have heard, this is a nostalgic piece by J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg, so it is everything you hoped it would be.  I have described it to friends as a mix of Stand by Me (one of my favorite films ever!), Goonies (one of our kids’ favorite films ever), and E.T. (one of everyone’s favorites ever!), so how could it go wrong.  The children are the stars, the government men are the bad guys, and the alien is the victim.  I’m sure the PG-13 rating is for bad language (just like Stand By Me and Goonies) and for some pretty heavy emotions (just like ET).  I would pay attention to the age recommendations on this one, but for teens and you adult kids, you’ll love it.

X-Men: First Class (PG-13) The whole X-Men series has been especially good for a superpower series. For the most part, it has avoided silliness and has maintained some level of real human emotions to carry the characters. Hugh Jackman, the best of the X-men, only has a cameo in this prequel, but even that is done well.  Those of you who have seen the others will enjoy learning the backstory of Professor X and Magneto.  For those who need a redemptive message to enjoy this kind of fantasy, the ongoing conversation about “others” is more significant in this film than in previous four X-men films, i.e., how the society treats people it deems to be different. If you can’t generate a meaningful conversation with your teens from this film, then you weren’t paying attention!

I have given up completely on the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I really like Johnny Depp, but these films deep sixed about two sequels ago! We won’t be seeing Mr. Popper’s Penguins either because Jim Carrey’s films of this genre are the same exaggerated gags over and over again.

Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows 2 comes out this week. Sherrylee doesn’t like the Potter films, so I’ll probably go with someone else, but I have intentionally avoided seeing Deathly Hallows 1, so I could see the whole finale at once. I’d love to see it at an IMAX.  We certainly will take the kids to see The Smurfs and I hear good things about Green Lantern.

Just for you adults out there, I think Midnight in Paris looks like it could be the movie that brings people back to Woody Allen. Many of us who were fans of his earlier films have yearned for something truly interesting and intelligent instead of what he has offered over the last couple of decades: quirky and off-color.

Any word on Captain America: The First Avenger?  I usually don’t care much for revenge films, but I have not really seen what the storyline is yet.

Our grandkids loved Hansel and Gretel which we downstreamed on Netflix, and they loved the Yul Brenner – Deborah Kerr version of The King and I (1956). Anna designated it her now most favorite movie! But she prefers the original name Anna and the King of Siam. That’s a pretty big award for a classic film from an eight-year-old!

Hope that helps you in your summer film watching. I’ll try to update as we see more.

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Talking To Kids About Movies, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Is Roger Clemens Lying? Are You?

July 6, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Roger Clemens, first round draft pick in 1983 by the Boston Red Sox, Cy Young Award Winner seven times for being the best pitcher in baseball that season, Most Valuable Player in the American League in 1986, winner of 354 games in twenty-four seasons, and one of the greatest pitchers of the modern era, this same Roger Clemens is going to trial next week for lying to Congress—committing perjury is the formal term for it, but it is still just lying!

Pitchers are paid big bucks to be deceptive. They hide their hands in their delivery to keep the batter from discovering how they hold the ball. They hide their mouths when they talk to the catcher. The throw one pitch to make the batter think they are getting ready to throw another. With only talent and no deception, would Clemens have been as successful as he was?

Of course, in a game where both sides know that deception is part of the strategy, we don’t feel any moral dilemma, but when one swears before a court to tell the truth and then lies, the consequences are more dire.

Psychologists say that most people lie multiple times every day, from the simple “what a nice dress!” to  lies that seem only for convenience: “I got caught in traffic, that’s why I’m late.” Then, of course, other lies grow in seriousness: “no, I was working late at the office” or your signature on your tax form that says you have told the truth.

We know what God thinks about lying.  “The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy,” says the writer of Proverbs (12:22). Liars are included in the same list with the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, and idolaters, who all will receive final punishment.

If that isn’t enough, here are some other reasons to avoid lying:

  1. Lying hurts people. Just lie to someone you love about anything important and see if they aren’t hurt! See if the relationship doesn’t suffer! Sometimes even jokingly lying will produce the same effect–which is sometimes a cover-up anyway!
  2. Lying makes you distrust other people. You think they lie too.
  3. Lying keeps you on edge for fear of being caught.
  4. Lying successfully is very difficult to do. It is easy to mess up and get caught in one’s own web.
  5. Lying shows a lack of courage to face the truth, so the liar feels like a coward.
  6. People don’t like liars when they are found out, so you can lose lots of friends.
  7. One lie can destroy a whole career of achievement!

Telling the truth sets you free!  Sure it is uncomfortable, inconvenient, and sometimes even incriminating because we are all sinners, but isn’t that the First Truth that we have to confess before God can do His work of Grace on us.  My name is Mark Woodward and I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Until we can tell the truth, God may let us believe our own lies and suffer the consequences in our own bodies (Romans 1).  Perversion of truth leads to perversion everything good.

Once we learn to tell the truth, then we learn to love the truth!  ! Speaking the truth in love!  The truth proceeds from love, is motivated by love, and is framed by love.  Truth and Love seem to be indivisible, don’t they! Both are the same core attribute of God.

I always liked Roger Clemens and I hope he wasn’t lying. If he was, I hope he’ll tell the truth now. But I pray even harder that I will love the truth and tell the truth—all the time.

Posted in Christian Culture | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

We Survived Gkids Camp 2011

July 4, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Gkids Camp 2011 is history–and a big success–at least everyone survived! These pictures will tell the story with just a few comments to let you know what we will try to improve on next year!

Seven of the nine gkids came at 2:00pm. The babies came at bedtime! That was a good idea!

We decorated T-shirts which worked OK except for the perfectionists among the kids!

 

We took everyone to see “Cars 2”. The hardest part was getting the popcorn, candy, and drinks distributed correctly!! Oh, and Carter did hide Caroline’s shoe from her, for which we looked for ten minutes!!  That’s all part of the fun!

 

 

 

We came back to the house and jumped in the pool. That’s always lots of fun for the cousins.

 

It’s nice to see them connect with the California cousins!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We roasted hotdogs, marshmallows , and made smores. Then we sang around the fire and told ghost stories!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off to bed. They were so tired they all fell asleep before the movies really even got going. Just as well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boys serenaded the girls awake at 7am the next morning. Then we went out and played Capture the Flag while the sprinklers were on! They loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids poured and flipped pancakes for themselves and their parents who joined us for breakfast.

If children are a blessing from the Lord, then Grandkids are a double blessing! Loving them, singing devo songs around a campfire, doing something for others, getting along with one another–Gkids Camps are just great times for being a blessing to the gkids!

My last task is to make a photo album on Snapfish and send one to each family, so that they remember!  And so they look forward to next year–like we do!

 

 

 

 

 

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A Great Mission: Grandkids Camp 2011

June 30, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Sugar them up! Super-chlorinate them! Wear them out! Then send them home to their parents!! That’s what we tell our kids we are going to do at Grandkids Camp every year.  (I love the sign in the stores that say,  if you let your kids run wild, we are going to give them donuts and a free puppy!)

We borrowed the idea of Grandkids Camp from some friends of ours in Oklahoma who did it for many years, until all their grandkids grew up!!  We have nine gkids now–the oldest is 12 and the rest are all under 8 years old—so we have a few years to develop Gkids Camp before they outgrow it.

Our OK friends did camp for several days, but a 24-hour version seems to work better for us!  This year, our California gkids are coming in TONIGHT, but Aimee and her children are leaving Saturday for a three-week LST project in Natal, Brazil, so we literally only have twenty-four hours when all of the cousins will be here together!  It was important enough that Aimee has packed early, and Ben and Amber delayed their 4th of July trip one day, so that we could have Gkids Camp with all of the Gkids!

Here’s the rough outline for Gkids Camp 2011

Friday, 2:00         Arrive after naps and after lunch!

Decorate their official Gkids Camp pillowcase. When finished, play UNO

3:30        Leave for movie  (Cars 2)

6:30        Swim

7:30        Roast hotdogs and marshmallows over the fire by the pool, followed by smores!!

8:30        Sing  songs around the fire, tell scary stories,  close with devotional

9:30        Back in the house, pajamas on, spread out sleeping bags and put Camp pillowcases on, then pop popcorn,  talk, watch old movies until everyone is asleep!

Saturday, 7:00am             Wake up, put swimsuits on and go in backyard to play Steal the Flag while the sprinklers are running!

8:00        Make pancakes for themselves and parents. Everybody gets to pour and flip!!

9:00        Parents join us for breakfast and swimming

Cleanup and go home!  Pretty simple, but it will be lots of fun. We will take pictures and put them into a little photo book for all the kids as well.

Maybe you have read Josh Hamilton’s book Beyond Belief, the story of an extraordinary athlete, raised very religiously and with lots of parental guidance, but who went into such severe drug addiction that he lost everything.  He shows up one day on his grandmother’s porch, destitute and with literally nowhere else to go. He goes there because his grandmother’s house has always been a loving and safe place for him—and she takes him in and helps him get on the road to recovery as no one else had been able to do.

I hope we never have to do that with any of our grandchildren—but I pray every day that today, while everything is good and sweet, we will build relationships with our grandkids that help them know who God is and that He loves them and that if they need us, we will be there for them in a day of trouble!

Watch for pictures from Gkids Camp 2011—as soon as Mimi and Grandad recover!!

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