Family Camp 2009 - This weekend (May 1-3) will be the Deep River Friends Family Camp at Quaker Lake. (www.quakerlakecamp.org) It's a time for us to gather as a church family and enjoy the fellowship as well as grow spiritually. It all starts on Friday evening. There is nothing scheduled for Friday evening but you can come and enjoy hanging out as folks arrive. On Saturday, there will be a couple times in the morning in which we gather as a group to worship and study the Scriptures together in keeping with our theme on "grace". Saturday afternoon is free time with a BBQ chicken dinner on Saturday evening and a Talent Show after dinner. Sunday morning we will have our Sunday School time with our Meeting for Worship at 11AM. We are encouraging everyone to come to the worship at Quaker Lake. You can dress extremely casual as we gather to worship together in the beautiful surroundings.
Our theme for the weekend is "grace" and we seek to understand how we can "grow in grace" so that we can better live in God's grace as well as be grace-full towards each other. One of the themes Ministry and Counsel has been promoting in our meeting is that of "hospitality". This term, "hospitality", is one of the five spiritual practices we are seeking to root ourselves in as a congregation so that we can become an increasingly fruitful congregation. Here is what one writer has to say about "hospitality":
"The hospitality of the church is not simply a matter of being nice or being really friendly. Not is hospitality accomplished by better signs, name tags, or a really great coffee hour. Hospitality is about grace. It is about welcoming others, whoever they are, wherever they are on life's journey, because that's the way God welcomed us. It is about loving others because God has loved us."
As we gather for Family Camp, I pray that we can better understand how God has welcomed each of us and how God has created a hospitable place for each of us to live and exist. In that way, we can be people who gladly welcome each other regardless of where we are on our spiritual journey.
Thoughts on Current Events - It seems as if we can't pick up the paper or watch the news without another "crisis" looming on the horizon. If it's not an economic crisis it's a climate crisis or a health crisis -as in the present warnings about Swine Flu. No doubt, we certainly need to be aware of what is going on around use but we need not be consumed by the events. As we do what we need to do to take precautions and be prudent, we also live with the awareness that our God is a much bigger God then any crisis that exists today. God is not thrown off by events of our world and neither shall we.
Blessings,
Scott
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