Sunday, July 20, 2008

Warrior Camp Update: 5-15-08

Hey Warrior Camp Team!

This is Derek.

(If you’re not officially a member of the Warrior Camp Team, you’re either a good friend or family member, and I thought you might like to be in the loop on what’s happening with Warrior Camp).

It's now time for the bi-monthly run-down. Here's the update for the most recent developments in Warrior Camp!

1. Since the last update, the grant writer from Spokane , WA has contacted me with details on the grant writing process as well as how to pursue this option with him. Even though we may not chase this just yet, it's a good resource to have for future use when we're ready to upgrade to the next larger phase of Warrior Camp.

2. I've recently started targeting a different demographic for Warrior Camp, specifically, summer camp directors. You know how traditional, week long camps will sometimes offer special, extra, optional events or excursions like white water rafting, or a ropes course expedition? Well, I think (for many good reasons) that would be a perfect way to join Warrior Camp with other area camps this summer in a dual camp partnership. In the middle of the camp week, we would come in and take on 20-26 youth, pull them aside for the 1 day Warrior Camp blitz, and host our Warrior Camp right there. The director of the Master's Inn Youth Camp (who "ironically" was the first camp genius we discussed Warrior Camp with approximately a year and a half ago!) likes the idea alot, and I'll keep you posted. If you have any feedback or other ideas, hit us with them.

3. The starter Warrior Camp website has been updated with an in-your-face snapshot of what goes on at Warrior Camp. The address is http://warriorcamp1.googlepages.com. Check it out. As always, if you have cool and creative ideas, hit us with them.

4. At the Liberty Seminary Prom last Thursday, there was an awards ceremony for exceptional students. I was a little surprised and very grateful to receive the award that recognizes the distinguished Masters thesis. Dr. Provenzola also asked me to share a little about the ministry I'm involved in, so, to make a long story short, much of the seminary body and many professors now know about Warrior Camp! At the After Party, Dr. Caner (the President of the Seminary) said he wanted to know more and gave me his phone number = big honor!

5. One of our Warrior Camp team members was recently in a camping ministry class at Liberty University and profiled Warrior Camp for his camp project. Way to go man! Can’t wait to see it.

6. Want to encourage you all to guard and nurture your character, integrity, growth and passion for our awesome God, not just because we’re on the Warrior Camp team and will lead by example, but because it’s what we were made for, it’s God’s call for us as men, and our lives are intended for a strong and beautiful relationship with Him.

7. That's it for this week! Keep praying, spreading the word, and thinking creatively. We've got a great ministry blue-print that fills an unmet niche for young men in a creative, God-honoring and high-energy way.

Gotta end with our good friend Johnny...hard to one-up the man’s man who encourages us in our vision:

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Can Our Lives Be Green Again?
05/03/2008

"Can it really happen? Can things in our lives be green again? No matter what our creeds may tell us, our hearts have settled into another belief. We have accepted the winter of this world as the final word and tried to get on without the hope of spring. It will never come, we have assumed, and so I must find whatever life here I can. We have been so committed to arranging for our happiness that we have missed the signs of spring. We haven’t given any serious thought to what might be around the corner. Were eternity to appear tomorrow, we would be as shocked as I have been with the return of spring this week, only more so. Our practical agnosticism would be revealed. Pascal declared, Our imagination so powerfully magnifies time, by continual reflections upon it, and so diminishes eternity . . . for want of reflection, that we make a nothing of eternity and an eternity of nothing.But of course we aspire to happiness we can enjoy now. Our hearts have no place else to go. We have made a nothing of eternity. If I told you that your income would triple next year, and that European vacation you’ve wanted is just around the corner, you’d be excited, hopeful. The future would look promising. It seems possible, desirable. But our ideas of heaven, while possible, aren’t all that desirable. Whatever it is we think is coming in the next season of our existence, we don’t think it is worth getting all that excited about. We make a nothing of eternity by enlarging the significance of this life and by diminishing the reality of what the next life is all about."

- (The Journey of Desire , 110–11)

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