Tod Bolsinger

Sabbatical Blogging

Philip Melancthon turned to Martin Luther and announced, “Today, you and I shall discuss the governance of the universe.” Luther looked at Melancthon and said, “No. Today, you and I shall go fishing and leave the governance of the universe to God.”

With thanks to Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, p. 220.

Some of the best, most spiritual, faithful, creative, obedient, challenging, life-changing thoughts come to me when I am fishing. Or cycling. Or hiking. Or running. Or skiing. In an odd and wonderful way, when I leave the “governance of the universe” (or even of our church, or my family or my life) to God for a bit, somehow, in the middle of it, I get these moments that are like manna dropped into my soul. They are little morsels of insight, sustenance for my calling.

In many ways, I am looking forward to my sabbatical as a kind of long “fishing trip”, a long run, a long ride, a journey where I leave “governance” to God and allow my soul to open to God for direction and refreshment.

One of my intentions for my sabbatical is to treat it like an extended sabbath where I am able to temporarily set aside my obligations so that I can instead attend to things that I want to do, need to do and will ultimately enable me to fulfill my pastoral obligations from a place of increased peace, centeredness and fullness.

So to that end, my blogging will be changing in the weeks ahead, also. Ironically, I began blogging as a strategy for communicating with my congregation during my sabbatical. My friend, Mark and I were hiking in Idaho along the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River after I had finished a morning of fishing.

He encouraged me to start blogging as a way of letting my congregation in on my process and thinking during the sabbatical. In order to pave the way, I started a blog nine months before I was scheduled to leave. But the blog began to take on a life of its own, and I became even more fascinated by its potential. My sabbatical got postponed but the blogging continued.

And the blog has been good, stimulating, but demanding work.  (Mark Roberts has called it a "demanding mistress")

Only recently have I begun to realize that writing my blog has been more difficult, the well of thoughts and resources has grown dry and the subjects that I feel called/capable of addressing well has grown thin. So, in a sense, I am in need of a sabbatical from my blogging also.

I need to let God and the other bloggers take up the governance of the universe and instead go fishing.

Now, this is not to say that I will stop blogging for the next three months. It’s just that I am going to be changing the way I blog (indeed, I have been already) during this sabbatical season. In short, the blog will be on a sabbatical and my sabbatical will be reflected in my blog.

1. I will soon be turning off the comments section. While my responses to comments don’t always show it, I feel a sense of responsibility to those who comment. I find it hard to NOT respond to questions, challenges and critiques. During my sabbatical I need to spend time responding to God and the questions that he is raising in me. So, if you read something that raises a response in you, please feel free to email it. I’ll read it in September.
2. My posts will be random, more personal and more about process. Kind of the public section of my journal that I want to share with my congregation (and anyone else who may be interested, I guess.) Don’t hold your breath for the next post (I know I have already been heading this way for awhile--see next post), but I’ll post whenever I can.
3. I am changing the Lists to be specifically about the sabbatical. In addition, I won't be adding any links for awhile.  I think linking is an important way of building conversational communtity, but I’ll reestablish that practice in earnest when I return.
4. I will not discuss anything current. No “Da Vinci Code,” no “Gospel of Judas” ,no “One Campaign,” nothing “emergent” or “revolutionary”, nothing even remotely relevant. (Not even Angels baseball.) Instead I am going to be traveling to another world both literarily and—at times—physically.
5. I will post pictures.  I like pictures.  I like taking them and sharing them with others. 

My intention is not so much to go on “vacation” as it is to “remember”. Not so much “vacating” my call, as “re-membering” to whom and to what my call is supposed to be as a faithful response to God and his Kingdom mission.

Feel free to follow along. Or not.  (Or you can always just come back to look at the pictures.)

Sabbatical

Days pass
Years vanish
And we walk sightless among the miracles
Jewish Sabbath Prayer.

Less than a month from today, I will begin a 3 ½ month sabbatical from my position as Senior Pastor at San Clemente Presbyterian Church.  Now that Easter Sunday has come and gone in glorious fashion, I am turning my attention to the final preparation for that small but significant transition in my life.

In one sense this sabbatical has been a long time coming.  This summer marks 20 years of full time Christian ministry for me.  What began when I was taken on the full time staff of Youth For Christ to lead a local high school campus evangelism ministry in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood later led to ten years as the College Minister and Associate Pastor of Christian Discipleship at Hollywood Presbyterian Church and then the past nine years here at SCPC. 

When I started my pastorate at SCPC they wrote into my terms of call at sabbatical after seven years.  But in our seventh year we were finishing a building project, so we postponed it a year, and then last year (my eighth) one of my associate pastors was diagnosed with cancer and things felt too uncertain for me to take the sabbatical.  Now, a year later, my lay leaders and staff team are as strong as ever.  Our church is in a wonderful, even quite surprising, season of growth.  And all of goals that I was brought here to accomplish seem, well, accomplished. 

So, now what?

 

For many pastors, these kinds of milestones are either marked by tiredness or restlessness.  They are either burned out or bored.  I am neither.  Not even close.  As I told a search committee for another church that was gently inquiring if I was interested in their position, “I am pleasantly, passionately and permanently called to San Clemente Presbyterian Church.”  Indeed, I have never been more energized or excited about ministry than I am right now. 

But, I have had a growing sense that it is time for a holy pause, for a lingering moment for the church and for me to catch our breaths and reflect upon all that God has been doing in our congregation and (for me, anyway) my life. 

In many, many ways, the days have indeed past and the years have vanished far more quickly than I can fathom.  (Was it really 20 years ago now that I began my career in ministry by leading a mission trip to the Yucatan Peninsula?  Has it really been 14 years since I was ordained a pastor?  Has it really been nine years since I walked into SCPC on that bright Sunday morning to give my candidating sermon and submit to a vote on my calling to be pastor of the church?  Note: to the two people who voted “no” that day.  I don’t know who you are, but I think it turned out ok.) And sometimes I get so immersed in the days and years that I miss the “miracles”.  To see then, embrace them and base the next season of my ministry on God’s “doings” rather than my own is what my sabbatical is about for me.

Yes, I have a few structured goals for the time.  And thank God for the Lily Foundation Clergy renewal grant that has funded my sabbatical and some great opportunities for my church during this season.  But mostly, the sabbatical is time for that holy pause.  A time to look back and open my eyes to the little miracles that God has done all around me and allowed me to part of in some small way, take a deep breath and say “thank you”.  Oh, it will be much more than that also, but for today, that is enough.

For the next few weeks I will be posting pre-sabbatical preparatory thoughts and inviting anyone who would like to, to travel along with me. 

Next Post: Sabbatical Blogging. 

Showtime Review

The following was posted at Amazon.com about my book Showtime.  Frankly, it is all that one would hope for as an author.  I am truly grateful for the privilege to write and speak about our Lord, and I m used by God in anyway that moves others toward him.

THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE:
Very few books can hold this acclaim for me. As soon as I finished this book - I "re"-read it with a highlighter in my hand. It was THAT inspirational.
Of course nothing rivals the writings of THE NEW TESTAMENT in regards to introducing a non-believer into a new way of thinking. Tod Bolsingers SHOWTIME took me beyond "thinking" as a new Christian - and into LIVING OUT THE FAITH.
I highly recommend this book to ANYONE who finds it difficult in their "new" walk with the Lord.

Ricky Ray Taylor, New York City.

The All-or-Nothingness of Easter

I'll repost a quote from the good Doctor N. T. Wright on Easter as food for thought for this Resurrection Sunday. "He is risen, indeed!"

The bodily resurrection of Jesus isn't a take-it-or-leave-it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it and others are welcome not to believe it. Take it away, and the whole picture is totally different. Take it away, and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world. Take it away, and Sigmund Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish-fulfillment religion. Take it away, and Friedrich Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity is a religion for wimps. Put it back, and you have a faith that can take on the postmodern world that looks to Marx, Freud and Nietzsche as its prophets; you can beat them at their own game with the Easter news that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Those who celebrate the mighty resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, have an awesome and nonnegotiable responsibility. When we say "Alleluia! Christ is risen!" we are saying that Jesus is Lord of the world, and that the present would-be lords of the world are not. When we sing, in the old hymn, that "Judah's Lion burst his chains and crushed the serpent's head," are we ready to put that victory into practice? Are we ready to speak up for, and to take action on behalf of, those even in our own local community, let alone farther afield, who are quietly being crushed by uncaring and unjust systems?
Are we ready to speak up for the truth of the gospel over the
dinner table and in the coffee bar and in the council chamber?

-N. T. Wright, "Grave matters," Christianity Today, April 6, 1998.

Holy Saturday: The Christian Life in Miniature

Something strange is happening on earth today, a great silence, and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captive Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: "My Lord be with you all." Christ answered him: "And with your spirit." He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: "Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

—The reading for Holy Saturday in the Liturgy of the Hours

Some years ago I read this essay on Holy Saturday by Eugene Peterson. It made a deep impression on me and led me to start a Holy Saturday service at our church when I became the pastor here. 

We spend an hour on Saturday Evening (7 PM, in the sanctuary, if you are nearby and want to drop in), sitting, as it were, in front of the tomb.  The disciples are gone.  Only some women will show up this day.  (It is not an "early Easter" as some may celebrate it.)

By the time we run into the disciples again, they have either been locked away in fear of the Jews, as it says in some places or they’ve been gathering together trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Most of them are downcast, few have gone back to their old trades, none of them expected a resurrection.

It’s worth pausing to think about that, as we who are so quick to run to Easter, that oftentimes we miss even Good Friday. Or oftentimes, even slower to recognize what it must have been like to have been disciples, who having given their lives to follow this one, who they believed would change the world, now had to recognize, at least in their own lives that their following had been failure. None of them understood what Paul would later describe on that cross that the sins of the world had been taken away. None of them at that point expected anything except to pick up the pieces of their lives and go back to work.

Through out the history of the church, Holy Saturday has been a day in which very few congregations have celebrated it together, but the people of God used to be encouraged to use it as a day of reflection. A day where you set aside ordinary tasks and instead consider again the great promises of God.

In times of God’s absence, what we have is the promise. Many scholars who’ve looked at this and other spiritual writers have recognized that Holy Saturday is a wonderful metaphor if you will, for the Christian life. The time in between, the work of Christ that secures our salvation and the coming back, the second coming of Christ, that gives us the fulfillment of the promise.

Where do we live in this in between time? Rest on the promises.

But, for this Holy Saturday, let me offer this prayer:

And so Lord God let today prepare our hearts for tomorrow. We are most fortunate for we know what tomorrow brings. We are most blessed because we know what we will celebrate. But our everyday experience is closer to those disciples. Though we have been told that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his righteousness. And even though we have been told that what you have started in us that you will complete on the day of Christ Jesus. And even though we have been told that nothing will every separate us from the will of God, very often in the middle of the in between times, we forget. So like those disciples who were told so many times that you would be raised from the dead, and yet didn’t hear, we come to you today.  We humbly ask you to open our hearts and our ears, so that we might again hear the promises and that this time believing them, we might begin to live tomorrow as truly Easter people. Amen

Something strange is happening on earth today, a great silence, and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captive Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: "My Lord be with you all." Christ answered him: "And with your spirit." He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: "Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

—The reading for Holy Saturday in the Liturgy of the Hours

Some years ago I read this essay on Holy Saturday by Eugene Peterson. It made a deep impression on me and led me to start a Holy Saturday service at our church when I became the pastor here. 

We spend an hour on Saturday Evening (7 PM, in the sanctuary, if you are nearby and want to drop in), sitting, as it were, in front of the tomb.  The disciples are gone.  Only some women will show up this day.  (It is not an "early Easter" as some may celebrate it.)

By the time we run into the disciples again, they have either been locked away in fear of the Jews, as it says in some places or they’ve been gathering together trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Most of them are downcast, few have gone back to their old trades, none of them expected a resurrection.

It’s worth pausing to think about that, as we who are so quick to run to Easter, that oftentimes we miss even Good Friday. Or oftentimes, even slower to recognize what it must have been like to have been disciples, who having given their lives to follow this one, who they believed would change the world, now had to recognize, at least in their own lives that their following had been failure. None of them understood what Paul would later describe on that cross that the sins of the world had been taken away. None of them at that point expected anything except to pick up the pieces of their lives and go back to work.

Through out the history of the church, Holy Saturday has been a day in which very few congregations have celebrated it together, but the people of God used to be encouraged to use it as a day of reflection. A day where you set aside ordinary tasks and instead consider again the great promises of God.

In times of God’s absence, what we have is the promise. Many scholars who’ve looked at this and other spiritual writers have recognized that Holy Saturday is a wonderful metaphor if you will, for the Christian life. The time in between, the work of Christ that secures our salvation and the coming back, the second coming of Christ, that gives us the fulfillment of the promise.

Where do we live in this in between time? Rest on the promises.

But, for this Holy Saturday, let me offer this prayer:

And so Lord God let today prepare our hearts for tomorrow. We are most fortunate for we know what tomorrow brings. We are most blessed because we know what we will celebrate. But our everyday experience is closer to those disciples. Though we have been told that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his righteousness. And even though we have been told that what you have started in us that you will complete on the day of Christ Jesus. And even though we have been told that nothing will every separate us from the will of God, very often in the middle of the in between times, we forget. So like those disciples who were told so many times that you would be raised from the dead, and yet didn’t hear, we come to you today.  We humbly ask you to open our hearts and our ears, so that we might again hear the promises and that this time believing them, we might begin to live tomorrow as truly Easter people. Amen

The Last Command

“(The Lord’s Supper) held such a strong place in Paul’s own thinking that he could speak of the very action of the meal as ‘proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes.’ Doing it said it. Touch this symbol, then, and you touch a nerve centre.”  N. T. Wright, The Meal Jesus Gave Us, p. 39

If you ask a Christian the essence of the faith, it’s likely that you’ll hear a simple text offered as sound bite.  Usually its John 3:16 and that of course is not a bad place to start at all.  In other places, I have suggested that 1 Peter 2:9-10 is equally as pithy and even more powerful.  And of course many of us would immediately go to the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:19-20.

But consider this question: What did Jesus emphasize in his last gathering with his disciples? 

What did he command his disciples to do with nearly his last words before death?  So, what is the essence of the Christian faith, the great “So what?” of our discipleship.

I believe it is none other than the “New Commandment” of John 13:34-35.  (The name “Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin words “Mandatum Novarum”: New Commandment.)

But let’s set the scene again.

Most scholars would say John’s gospel account is a highly edited, deeply symbolic account meant to communicate the lasting theological significance of Jesus’ actions. It’s not that John “made this up”, it’s just that when his account was written a good 50 years after Jesus’ death, they had had plenty of time to reflect on what Jesus said and did and choose to emphasize what was most important.

In John’s account, the disciples have gathered to celebrate the Passover, the great saving act of God for his people.  The dinner was and is highly ritualized and they expected nothing different than for Jesus to lead them in the ancient rite that would celebrate what God did in saving his people from Egypt.

And Jesus keeps “messing with” the tradition and gets them all confused. 

First he acts like a simple slave and washes their feet (v. 1-9).  They haven’t even started the meal yet and Jesus is teaching his disciples about their vocation.  They are to do what he does.  They are to act like he acts.  Whatever happens to him will happen to them.

Then on the heels (pardon the pun) of that odd action, he declares that one in the room is about to betray him.  He doesn’t reveal the betrayer to stop the betrayal, but instead to assure the disciples “I tell you this now, so that when it happens you will believe I am the Messiah.”

In John’s account, he doesn’t give us the actual “words of institution.”  But we know from the other accounts that Jesus changed the expected Passover rite so that from now on every one of their meals together would be a reminder of the “new covenant” that he made with them in that upper room.  In John, Jesus just feeds Judas the bread of honor.  He loves and honors his betrayer.  In essence “offering himself up” in that one act. 

The sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.  The one whose body will be given, blood shed.  In telling of Jesus offering the bread to Judas, John reminds his readers of what they know so well from the words they practice at every meal:  Jesus is the one offered up in this new covenant that will free us all from the oppression of slavery and death.

And then he gives them their commandment:
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (NLT)

Jesus is preparing to die, predicts that Judas will betray him, that Peter will fall away and that he is going to die. He offers himself to his betrayer and what does he tell them with his last words?

NOT teach each other.  Not encourage each other. Not rebuke each other. Not correct each other.  But...“Love each other. There are lots of people following lots of teachers in the world, lots of “disciples” following lots of Rabbis.  If you want to prove to the world that you belong to me: Love each other.” 

This is the New Commandment; the response to what Jesus offers as the New Covenant.

John then gives us three chapters (14-17) of Jesus’ teaching to equip them for that task.  To love each other for the rest of their lives no matter what, by the power of the Spirit that will be given to them in obedience to the teachings that he has given them, loyal and connected to Jesus like branches on a vine, in the face of whatever opposition the world throws at them.  He then prays for them and asks God to protect them and in their loving each other, help them to fulfill his ministry to the world.

That’s the essence of Christian faithfulness: 

All that we do is to demonstrate to the world that we belong to Jesus, by the way we love each other, by the power of the Spirit, in obedience to Jesus words, rooted in Jesus’ presence, in the face of the world’s opposition, until Jesus returns. 

And tonight, we'll witness once again, the "full extent of God's love" for his world.  The love we proclaim with our lips and demonstrate with our lives, first to each other and then to God's world.

“(The Lord’s Supper) held such a strong place in Paul’s own thinking that he could speak of the very action of the meal as ‘proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes.’ Doing it said it. Touch this symbol, then, and you touch a nerve centre.”  N. T. Wright, The Meal Jesus Gave Us, p. 39

If you ask a Christian the essence of the faith, it’s likely that you’ll hear a simple text offered as sound bite.  Usually its John 3:16 and that of course is not a bad place to start at all.  In other places, I have suggested that 1 Peter 2:9-10 is equally as pithy and even more powerful.  And of course many of us would immediately go to the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:19-20.

But consider this question: What did Jesus emphasize in his last gathering with his disciples? 

What did he command his disciples to do with nearly his last words before death?  So, what is the essence of the Christian faith, the great “So what?” of our discipleship.

I believe it is none other than the “New Commandment” of John 13:34-35.  (The name “Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin words “Mandatum Novarum”: New Commandment.)

But let’s set the scene again.

Most scholars would say John’s gospel account is a highly edited, deeply symbolic account meant to communicate the lasting theological significance of Jesus’ actions. It’s not that John “made this up”, it’s just that when his account was written a good 50 years after Jesus’ death, they had had plenty of time to reflect on what Jesus said and did and choose to emphasize what was most important.

In John’s account, the disciples have gathered to celebrate the Passover, the great saving act of God for his people.  The dinner was and is highly ritualized and they expected nothing different than for Jesus to lead them in the ancient rite that would celebrate what God did in saving his people from Egypt.

And Jesus keeps “messing with” the tradition and gets them all confused. 

First he acts like a simple slave and washes their feet (v. 1-9).  They haven’t even started the meal yet and Jesus is teaching his disciples about their vocation.  They are to do what he does.  They are to act like he acts.  Whatever happens to him will happen to them.

Then on the heels (pardon the pun) of that odd action, he declares that one in the room is about to betray him.  He doesn’t reveal the betrayer to stop the betrayal, but instead to assure the disciples “I tell you this now, so that when it happens you will believe I am the Messiah.”

In John’s account, he doesn’t give us the actual “words of institution.”  But we know from the other accounts that Jesus changed the expected Passover rite so that from now on every one of their meals together would be a reminder of the “new covenant” that he made with them in that upper room.  In John, Jesus just feeds Judas the bread of honor.  He loves and honors his betrayer.  In essence “offering himself up” in that one act. 

The sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.  The one whose body will be given, blood shed.  In telling of Jesus offering the bread to Judas, John reminds his readers of what they know so well from the words they practice at every meal:  Jesus is the one offered up in this new covenant that will free us all from the oppression of slavery and death.

And then he gives them their commandment:
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (NLT)

Jesus is preparing to die, predicts that Judas will betray him, that Peter will fall away and that he is going to die. He offers himself to his betrayer and what does he tell them with his last words?

NOT teach each other.  Not encourage each other. Not rebuke each other. Not correct each other.  But...“Love each other. There are lots of people following lots of teachers in the world, lots of “disciples” following lots of Rabbis.  If you want to prove to the world that you belong to me: Love each other.” 

This is the New Commandment; the response to what Jesus offers as the New Covenant.

John then gives us three chapters (14-17) of Jesus’ teaching to equip them for that task.  To love each other for the rest of their lives no matter what, by the power of the Spirit that will be given to them in obedience to the teachings that he has given them, loyal and connected to Jesus like branches on a vine, in the face of whatever opposition the world throws at them.  He then prays for them and asks God to protect them and in their loving each other, help them to fulfill his ministry to the world.

That’s the essence of Christian faithfulness: 

All that we do is to demonstrate to the world that we belong to Jesus, by the way we love each other, by the power of the Spirit, in obedience to Jesus words, rooted in Jesus’ presence, in the face of the world’s opposition, until Jesus returns. 

And tonight, we'll witness once again, the "full extent of God's love" for his world.  The love we proclaim with our lips and demonstrate with our lives, first to each other and then to God's world.

Just in Time for Holy Week...Sheesh

Once again, the media releases another ancient text that threatens to "debunk" historic Christianity..."The Gospel of Judas"...and just in time for Holy Week.  This pattern of finding new fuel for skeptics' fire is not only become tired, but is always, always overblown hype that would be ignored if it wasn't be presented when a great many faithful Christians are preparing for the most important time of the year. 

Fortunately for us, Mark D. Roberts has once again offered his keen intellect and academic skills for us.  Please tell anyone who is interested or concerned to check out Mark's series.

Let me also remind my readers that Mark is also offering a series on The Da Vinci Code that will be of help for sifting through the amazing amount of historical (not to mention theological) heresy that will be offered as entertainment when the Tom Hanks and Ron Howard Film comes to the big screen.  As a novelist, Dan Brown is quite skilled.  He can cook up a page-turner with the best of them. But as history or theology, The Da Vinci Code is no more realistic than National Treasure was suitable for a AP US History course. 

Most notable is Mark's tone.  Even as he shreds the arguments against historic Christianity, he equips us to use these kinds of films as an opportunity for presenting the truth. The kind of serious, thoughtful and respectful responses that Mark gives these topics are a gift to us all. May your mind and heart be strengthened and may you have a blessed Holy Week.

Confirmation Weekend

I spent the weekend on Catalina Island with the Junior Highers going through our Confirmation Class.  Over and over again, the same themes emerged:  To discover and know God we need Creation, the Word and the Community--all three. All three point us ultimately to our need for Christ and the call to be part of the body of Christ for the sake of the whole world and all of creation.  The teenagers were fun-loving, inquisitive and eager to experience everything we threw at them.  They did team building exercises, wrote statements of faith, asked the nagging questions they needed answered and danced around a fire ring until my sides hurt from laughing.

They are as interested in how the world was made and the wonders of it as they are in how they are made and the wonders of love and sex. They delight in both dolphins and dodge ball with equal vigor.  They laughed hard and talked a lot, but fell silent at seeing a sunrise with a pod of dolphins swimming by.  They are a joy and it is a privilege to be their pastor.

I'll be adding more pictures to my photo albums.   But for more on the weekend, see Bernie Wohlfarth's blog.