Thoughts on Bates Creek Camp

Some of you all know that I am working with a team of people to administrate this year's camps for the Jefferson Baptist Association. Below you will find an article that is going out in this month's newsletter for the association. I ask you to pray for me, as well as others who are working on this.

To God Alone be the Glory!

I am writing this letter to you so that you might be challenged, along with those who are going to be attending this year’s Spring Student Conference. The theme this year is “Don’t Waste Your Life.” This is a message that I most desperately need to hear, and this is the message that needs to be the cry to our young people in our congregations, as well as the lost young person who lives next to you. Don’t Waste Your Life! Life is short, and it will soon be over! Are you ready to give an account for what you have done with your life that God has given you?

This year’s spring conference along with our summer camp will closely be related in theme. Both of those theme’s are related in the sense of it is our desire to urgently present before our young people the plea to follow Christ. Not just for the lost, but for those who are born again! Forsake this life, and you will save it for eternal life! Don’t Waste Your Life in this world! Below you will find a quote (pages 12-13) from a book by Pastor/Teacher John Piper, of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The title of the book is “Don’t Waste Your Life.”

Another riveting force in my young life—small at first, but oh so

powerful over time—was a plaque that hung in our kitchen over

the sink. We moved into that house when I was six. So I suppose

I looked at the words on that plaque almost every day for twelve

years, till I went away to college at age eighteen. It was a simple

piece of glass painted black on the back with a gray link chain

snug around it for a border and for hanging. On the front, in old

English script, painted in white, were the words:

Only one life,

’Twill soon be past;

Only what’s done

for Christ will last.

To the left, beside these words, was a painted green hill with two

trees and a brown path that disappeared over the hill. How many

times, as a little boy, and then as a teenager with pimples and

longings and anxieties, I looked at that brown path (my life) and

wondered what would be over that hill. The message was clear.

You get one pass at life. That’s all. Only one. And the lasting measure

of that life is Jesus Christ. I am fifty-seven as I write, and that

very plaque hangs today on the wall by our front door. I see it

every time I leave home.

Let me encourage you to participate in this year’s Spring Conference and Summer Camp. That’s right; every single member of every single congregation in this association can participate. How? First, pray for the leaders and those who will be attending. Pray for your next door neighbor who doesn’t know Christ and consider discussing this very theme with them and invite them to the camp. Perhaps the Lord is leading you to help sponsor someone financially? Secondly, advocate that the young people of your church attend these events and that they come hungry, ready to receive the Word of the Christ that by believing in Him, will have life in His Name!

To God alone be the Glory!

Aaron