There’s no doubt my wife and I’s summer has been riddled with the word “extreme.” It started six weeks ago when I left for The Christian Retreat Center to serve as the camp youth pastor during their summer camp week, and their theme this year…Extreme Faith.

Who would have thought a simple backyard picnic game of croquet could become an extreme sport. I certainly never thought so. To be honest, I’ve never really played the game the right way and according to the rules. When I was younger and we gathered every year for family picnics at my grandparent’s house my brother and I would just whack the colored balls around with no real purpose other than to see how far we could hit it.

Last night my wife and I went to the home of our good friends Eric, Jen, Leah and Zach for a cookout on their back deck. I never expected we’d be playing croquet in their front yard at 8:30 in the evening with the sun going down. I soon realized our game of croquet was becoming an extreme sport worthy of the X-Games. It all depends on the competitive attitude of the players (Eric), the setting of the game, and oh yeah…darkness. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to hit a dark colored ball through a croquet wicket when it’s dark? Let’s not mention having difficulty finding it first in the some what tall, rough grass. Secondly, there are some (my wife & Leah) who felt they needed to take the Tiger Woods approach to croquet. Get a good stance, bend at the knees, take a good hard swing (FORE!!!), and hope for the best. As for the rest of us we took cover.

Now if you know anything about croquet you know one goal is to become the “killer.” This allows you to eliminate your opponent by hitting their ball with your ball. Sound easy? Think again. Remember we were playing in the dark with cut throat competition, and every player on the field was a killer. Everyone was out to do away with someone. There was no mercy! The first to be eliminated was my wife by none other than…me. But it wasn’t long before I was eliminated by Leah (she decided to take out her former youth pastor).

The only light that offered any real help was a small Mag-lite flashlight. The headlights from our trucks helped to some extent, but it mostly blinded us as everyone awkwardly looked for their ball. There was no doubt Eric had his eyes set on retaining his croquet championship I heard about, but it was Zach that stole the glory from his dad to become the new extreme croquet champion.

There is another kind of light that shines brighter than a Mag-lite. This light will expose the hidden things of our life, the secret things. This light comes from God. 1 John 1:5 tells us that God is light and it means he is perfectly holy and that he alone can direct you and I from the darkness of sin. If we want to have a relationship with Jesus we need to put aside any sin we are living. We cannot claim to know Jesus and yet continue to live knowing and choosing to sin.

This is the message we heard from Jesus
and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. – 1 John 1:5-10

Here is the good news. God tells us in these verses that “if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” Jesus died on the cross a horrible excruciating death and then rose three days later. Why? To save you and I from the punishment we deserve, disobedience to God. You and I deserve hell not heaven, but because of God’s great love for us he sent his Son to take our place of punish. It is through Jesus Christ that we can be exposed to the light of God and heaven. But you must put your faith in Christ alone. Right now you can pray and be exposed to the light of Jesus by confessing your sins to him because he is faithful to forgive you. Have you put your faith in Christ alone because that IS extreme!

One final thought…if you find yourself playing croquet in the dark you might want some protective padding. You never know if your opponent will be an extreme croquet champion out to retain his or title.

One of the most memorable moments from this summer at CRC. Way to go Rick!

Well, it’s been an awesome five weeks this summer. Camp for this year has come to a close with over 90 campers between the ages of 8 and 17 putting their faith in Christ. Now that’s extreme!

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your
life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death (dump the garbage), therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. - Colossians 3:1-5 (emphasis added)

Extreme Faith has been the theme for the summer and we concluded with Teen Week. All summer my job or call was to serve as the spiritual leader (youth pastor) to the counselors. This week I filled a dual roll, youth pastor to the staff and speaker for Bible study and things kicked off Monday night with a little garbage dumping. No I’m not saying there was trash talking going around, but there certainly was a load of trash being dumped all week. This heavy, burdensome, retched trash I’m referring to is “sin.” This past week we focused on dumping the garbage of sin in our lives to “set our hearts and minds on things above.” Throughout the week the teens, staff and counselors were challenged to write down any trash they had on the large 6 foot by 6 foot paper sitting on the floor of the meeting hall. By Thursday evening the paper was filled with multi color marker ink expressing the garbage these teen campers wanted so desperately to dump. Sitting around the campfire that evening we took a moment to acknowledge Jesus and in a symbolic gesture tossed the large paper filled with writings of garbage into the fire. Just moments before though, they took the time to share how Jesus worked on their hearts and lives during the week.

They talked about their garbage, sharing their faith and growing deep. They shared exactly what we were hoping and praying for all week. So I’m issuing a challenge to all those who attended camp this past week. You see, I’m always sharing and writing. But now it’s your turn. I know the readers of my blog would love to hear directly from you. I look forward to hearing from you. So post your story and let everyone know how your life was impacted while attending CRC this summer. Also, I’d love to know if you’ve shared your faith with someone since returning home. How did it go? How did they respond? Remember, if I can stumble over my words and sound like a complete idiot while sharing my faith, then so can you.