As you have seen from Nick’s article on this past summer, our theme (The Stand) was based on the gospel.  Did you know that really every summer the gospel is the core of our theme?  It is central to all we do and teach here at camp.

Take a look with me at 1 Corinthians 4:1-6.  Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.  But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.  We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.  And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.  In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,“ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Wow I feel like I don’t really need to write anymore after that.  This is what we do!  By God’s mercy we have this ministry and in obedience we share, we proclaim, we declare the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Did you know that we commit, every year, to sharing the gospel with every camper that comes through our doors?  We ask each of our speakers to share the truth clearly during their time with us.  During staff training we work with our counseling staff so they are ready to commend themselves to all their camper’s consciences in the sight of God knowing that in some the gospel will be veiled.

So the real question is why…why do we commit to sharing this gospel with every camper?  Certainly, you see that in the not-yet-believer the good news must be heard so they may believe.  But what about those who have already believed?  Why do we believe it is just as vital to share with them the message of the gospel?

Simply put, it is vital for the believer for life and godliness.  In the life of the believer the gospel is more than a reminder of the grace of God to us.  It allows us to ‘with confidence approach the throne of grace’ through prayer.  It gives us the ability in our new nature to ‘throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles’.  It enables us to ‘forgive as the Lord forgave’ us through the work of the cross.  And on and on and on.  The gospel is for us all.

I found out a few things about pressure on my recent Arrowhead adventure trip to Colorado. At the end of July, two other leaders and I took a group of seven students on a weeklong adventure to the mountains. One would think that the higher you go into the mountains, the pressure would be lower. You know, the higher you go, the less gravity and all? But that isn’t the case.

I discovered that three cups of coffee before bed in the mountains, or anywhere for that matter, puts a lot of pressure on the bladder when you’re trying to sleep.

I also know that three campers jumping out of a raft into a swirling mass of white-water puts a lot of pressure on the leader as he watches them drift down river. Although they had specific instructions from our guide, and they planned their leap from the raft, a few minor hitches in the procedure made me glad to get them back into the raft.

When a camper decided to take a different hiking trail than the other campers, there was a lot of pressure to find that camper. My lungs could hardly take the pressure of running various trails looking for her and my blood pressure was likely pretty high. When she was found, I may or may not have mildly blown a gasket when I lectured the campers about sticking together from then on. As I write this, I feel pressure to convince you that our trips really are safe and we’d be delighted to bring your student with us next year.

I was privileged to serve with a great team. Jim McDowell put in many volunteer hours organizing most of the trip, planning the menus, and serving as chief cook on the trip. Jim did most of our group devotions on the trip as well. Ella Bruihler did a great job as our female leader and the girls especially appreciated her leading and discipling them.

Kids face a ton of pressure these days with peers, school, internet and society. It’s great to be part of an adventure trip when we get them away from that pressure, and get them into God’s Word in the midst of God’s great creation. It was cool to see kids who weren’t excited to be on the trip at first tell us later how much they really want to go again next year. I’m proud of them for keeping a great attitude even through not-so-great weather conditions. The boys had to dig a moat around their tent and we weathered a hailstorm where hail piled up like a layer of snow. Even though these kids were vastly different from one another, they bonded together and treated one another with respect.

Oh yes, one other thing I learned about pressure. When you’re in the mountains, and when one of your campers asks you to smell the best smelling shampoo and body wash around, be careful. Those bottles build a lot of pressure at high altitudes. I was blowing shampoo bubbles out of my nose the rest of the day. Thanks Nick C. for that.

I love the church! I love my current church, past churches I have been a part of and the body of Christ as a whole.  But sometimes we get these weird ideas that are pretty dumb.  Example: I feel like there is this unspoken notion within Christianity that when you go to church, you have to act like you have it all together, that you have no problems.  Think about when we walk into church and someone comes up to us with a hand shake and a “How are you doing?”  How do we respond?  “Fine, thank you.  The Lord is good!”  Rarely do we break rank.  Oh sure, we are eager to share about our son’s baseball tournament or our daughter’s honor roll recognition but not very often does the conversation turn to  marital strife or struggles with sin.  Indeed, everyone seems to have life on a leash, like a cute, fluffy, white puppy that never poops on the floor.

The problem is that this cute, non-pooping puppy doesn’t exist.  No one has it all together.  There is no perfect person without any problems or struggles or sin.  1 John 1:8 says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”   But for some reason we feel like we can’t show weakness around other Christians because we are supposed to be great all the time.

As weird as this sounds, we need to kill the imaginary white puppy.  We need to put to death this notion that if we are struggling, we can’t show it.  In fact, church (and camp, for that matter) should be the one place where we can openly and honestly share where we are at in life, and feel safe.  Church should be the one place where it is okay to not be okay so we can get help and support and prayer for our struggles.  We need to create in our churches a “culture of confession” where people feel free to be open about their failures so they can move forward.  To do this, we need to do at least three things.

Number one, we need to kill our pride.  We don’t want people to know we’re struggling because if they find out, they might view us differently.  This is our sin of pride to be repented of.  We must be willing to show our weakness to others so we can get help.  James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”  Hidden issues lose power when they are brought into the light.

Number two, we must live in community with other Christians.  Simon and Garfunkel were wrong…you are not a rock, you are not an island.  You were created by God to do life with other people, to receive support and encouragement and accountability from other believers.  If we try to walk the Christian life alone, we will fail and be frustrated.

Number three, we must cling to the gospel as our focus. When we focus on the gospel we realize that it is only through the grace of God that we are saved and sanctified, thereby eliminating any thoughts of superiority.  We are not inherently better than anyone else, and we can’t earn right standing with God; rather, we are all in desperate need of God’s grace daily.  This should cause us to be the most loving, humble people in the world who minister like Jesus.

-Take advantage here to see how the team is doing.  Also feel free to leave your own feedback.

The pictures below go from the beginning to the end of August!

By Cody Kargus – An Article from the Camp Connection Volume 2, Issue I

The first phase of the discipleship programs at Arrowhead Bible Camp is called b.a.s.i.c. discipleship, which stands for Believing And Serving In Christ.  As the residential week-long camps are one week long, b.a.s.i.c. discipleship is a two week program.  Each day we concentrate on 3 areas with the students; building relationships, teaching, and modeling the Christian life.  Here is what a day would look like.

As breakfast begins each morning for camp the students then gather for morning devotions.  Here the staff will begin with a Bible passage that focuses on the theme of the day and then lead into what we call the “family documents”.  These written documents are from the saints of old, men and women who have wrestled with the same issues we look at in b.a.s.i.c.  It is a very encouraging time to see how God used these people in their times to bring people near to Himself.  These times in the mornings can be very stretching and hopeful.  Each student has some good time to be alone and digest some of the deep things we’ve covered.  Then we head out to the sports field and play games.  Many of our games are high energy and also highly relational.  Our goal is to spend about a third of our time in the day building relationships with the students.  In this aspect we are able to come alongside each student and see where they are at in their journey with God and then push them deeper.  Building relationships is a core aspect to our program, and it is an easy thing to do when you are playing active games.

Next we go into our teaching time.  In a day of b.a.s.i.c. we have three main note taking times in a classroom setting.  The topics we cover are; Servant-hood, Discipleship, and Spiritual Disciplines.  Each day we have a topic that builds upon the past day’s theme.  Much of the teaching is looking at the way in which Jesus lived out his life in His relationship with His Father and with His disciples.  These are some of the greatest moments in our time together for students begin to see how the Christian life is to be lived in our world today.

At times after a teaching period we break off into small groups and the counselors are able to go deeper with the students.  Each year we are blessed with counselors who model these teachings to the students.  We truly get the highest caliber counselors for the students.

After lunch we give the students time to study or rest, we call this time, “book reading”.  During the day we spend much energy physically, emotionally and cognitively thus a rest time is always appreciated by the students and staff.

The afternoon is filled with a group game, teaching and free time.  Again the staff is using even the free time to build relationships and look for ways to strengthen and encourage the students to go deeper.

After supper we usually head outside to enjoy the great outdoors here in Wisconsin offered to us by the Lord.  Worshiping out on the lake in the canoes is one of my favorite times.  There is nothing like having our voices joining together and echoing off the lake with our hearts before God.  It is worship at full volume.

By Nick Roen – An article from The Camp Connection Volume I, Issue 3

I was out in Breckenridge, Colorado last March as a leader for my churches youth ski trip.  While we were there, we decided to grab a video camera and ask some people on the mountain about God and then show some of the answers to our students.  One guy in particular stands out in my mind.  We asked him, “Do you believe in God?”  He said, “Absolutely!  The mountain is my God and I go to worship everyday.”  At first we just chuckled to ourselves and dismissed him as sort of freaky.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this guy had hit onto something big!

So often we associate worship with something that only Christians do when we sing to God.  But every person on this planet worships, including non-Christians.  The truth is that whatever takes our time, our affection, our devotion, whatever has the most important place in our lives…that is what we are worshiping.  There are so many people that are worshiping money, fame, friends, pleasure, entertainment without even realizing it. 

There are even people who claim to worship God but in reality He is nothing more than an afterthought. My favorite quote of all time is from C.S. Lewis, who has this to say:

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far to easily pleased.”

How often do we put things in front of Christ in our lives?  How often are we far to easily pleased? Our priorities can get out of whack so easily and sometimes we don’t even realize it.  So we need to continually ask our selves this question; “Is Christ more valuable to me than ______?”  Insert whatever; sports, money, status, popularity, friends, family, whatever is competing for your affections.  Is Christ more valuable to you than that?  Because everyone worships, and sometimes we don’t even fully realize what it is we are worshiping.

By Jeremiah Harder – An article from The Camp Connection Volume I, Issue 3

John 15:12 “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.”

Believe it or not my family and I were able to squeeze in a weekend to go camping away from camp this summer in the middle of the busy month of July. And I must say it was one of my favorite weekends of the entire summer.  We tent camped for two nights at a county park in central Wisconsin.  What a joy to spend time with my wife and three boys enjoying swimming, s’mores, pudgy pies, stars, and campfires.  Boy do I love my family!

And yet when you look at the verse at the top I know I don’t possibly love them enough.  Jesus Christ has called me to love others in the same way He has loved me, with a perfect love.  I of course must continue to strive for this while knowing I will never love my family as much as Jesus Christ loves them.  So what does one do to grow in this area? 

I believe one way to grow in this is to glean from others who have families where the love of Christ is pouring out from the relationships within the family.  One of my favorite places to do this is Labor Day Family Weekend at Arrowhead Bible Camp. I count it a privilege to be around so many exceptional families each and every Labor Day.  This summer was no exception.  At Arrowhead we seek to make Labor Day Weekend a time where families can be built up and given opportunities to grow in their love for Christ and each other. Our programs, chapel times, even meals all strive to that end.  With the two ingredients above, exceptional families and purposeful programming, it’s a beautiful thing to watch over the weekend as families love, serve, honor, and care for one another.

As you can see, for me Labor Day Weekend holds so much more than just a fun last weekend of summer. It’s a place to see Christ at work in families and in me.  I invite you to come next summer for family camp and join in as we seek to build families up in Christ.

By Jeremiah Harder – An Article from the Camp Connection Volume I, Issue I 

You’ve just finished up in the registration line for summer camp and now know you will be staying in cabin Lydda for the week.  As you make your way to the cabin to meet your counselor you can’t help but notice the lake right out your front doorstep.  What a view!  Your counselor, who introduces herself as Sierra, comes out to greet you and helps carry one of your bags inside.  “Wow this cabin has three different rooms to choose from.  Which one should I take?  Hey, it even has a bathroom.”  You set your stuff down on one of the bunks and know you’re in for a  great week here in cabin Lydda. 

One night during the week right before bed Sierra shares an evening devotion with the cabin about knowing for sure whether or not you will go to heaven when your time here on earth is done.  It raises a lot questions in your head. The next day during flat on bunk time Sierra lets you know its time for your one on one with her.  You and Sierra sit down just outside Lydda on the front stoop.  Sierra begins by asking how your week is going.  You, of course, are having the time of your life and share many of the things you have done this week with Sierra, especially the bulls-eye you hit in your archery skills class this morning.  Before you know it the conversation has arrived at the evening devotion from last night and Sierra asks what you thought about it.  As she     answers your questions it all starts making sense.  You get this overwhelming feeling of surrender and next thing you know you are praying to the creator of the universe who has also created you!  Who loves you!  Who has always wanted to have a relationship with you and with whom you have just discovered you want too!

Many campers have had memories like this at cabin Lydda or Emmaus over the past 31 years and maybe you are one of them.  Praise God for how he has used these two little cabins.  Literally thousands of campers have made one of these two cabins home for a week of summer camp during the last 31 years.  If you are one of them we would love to hear your story.

The time has now come to replace these two cabins with something that can be used year round to better fit the needs of Arrowhead today.  As we plan for these new buildings we remember how God has been faithful to so many that have stayed in Lydda and   Emmaus and thank Him for that.  Also as we plan for these new buildings we invite you to be a part of making them happen.  You will be receiving a letter in the next few months with more details about what we are doing and how you can be involved.  Let the memories continue!

By Michelle Rayburn – An article from the Camp Connection Volume I, Issue I

One of the main attractions at Arrowhead is the lakefront, especially in the summer. Many an afternoon, the beach is filled with campers who splash in the refreshing water, or build sand castles and bask in the sun. However, the beach has some uninvited guests who enjoy it each day as well. Every morning a flock of Canadian geese leaves unwelcome evidence of their goose gatherings and every morning Phil or one of his maintenance helpers has to shoo off the geese and clean the beach with a rake and a shovel. Imagine how the beach would look if someone didn’t clean it every day!
Sin and attitudes in our lives can sometimes be like the goose droppings on the beach. Every day, a new clean-up challenge faces us.  Some days, it’s a negative attitude and others it’s jealousy.  Sometimes we struggle with bitterness and anger, and other times our minds are consumed with impure thoughts and greed.  Imagine what our hearts and minds would be like if we never took care of the sin that creeps back into our lives every day. Like the beach, the build-up would quickly become unbearable.
One of the challenges we gave to young people at Arrowhead last summer was to live out their faith; and part of living out our faith is learning how to clean up the sin in our lives on a daily basis.  In Ephesians 4:22-24 Paul tells us to put off our old self and to be made new in the attitudes of our minds. It’s like God giving us a clean set of clothes that Paul goes on to explain has been created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. If we are to live in righteousness and holiness, then we must ask ourselves every day, “What sin do I need to clean up today?”
What “geese” do you need to chase away?  What sins keep coming back that you need to confess to God every day?  God is faithful to forgive us when we ask (1 John 1:9).