Love Builds Up - Spring Camp and Island Visits

At the start of 1 Corinthians 8, Paul writes "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge, but anyone who loves God is known by him." (1 Cor. 8:1-3)

This idea of "love building up" was the theme for us at Scripture Camp.

On April 28th, myself, Brad and our good friend Jonah, took a group of students down to Thetis Island. We left PG, where it had just snowed a week before down to island to find Spring and the ocean!

It was a joyful trip, yet I went down anxiously knowing all of my responsibilities that were waiting for me on the island. I was in charge of leading three different manuscript studies in the book of 1 Corinthians as well as a short talk on the Lord's supper. It was also the first time I would meet the BC staff team that I had known, laughed and prayed with over zoom for two years! Yet, never in person because of the pandemic.

Brad and I had just finished a very difficult season for us in ministry. We were well worn down driving down South. And I wasn't the only one going into Spring Camp tired. Many in our staff team were exhausted by a variety of life's troubles. The week before, we hanged on tightly to Paul's words, "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength." 1 Cor.1:25

From left to right, [Derek, Alan L, Kim, Moses, Pastor Ryan, James, Raphi, Madi, Janice, Austin, Waison, Trica, Charissa, Alan T, John-John, Dave, Nyssa, Charis, Cristyn]

And praise the Lord for his strength! Over the week, we learned well the beauty of leaning on one another, embracing our weaknesses, leaning on our different strengths and trusting in the work of the Holy Spirit. The cool thing was, as soon as we were honest about our weakness and tired hearts with the students, God began opening up doors.

The students were able to take hold of a number of truths from 1 Corthianans throughout the week.

One of the biggest changes I saw in the PG crew was the simple truth on how God could use them no matter how weak or unqualified they felt. It was a joy to see students step out in faith, pray for one another and come up with ideas on how to create community at UNBC for the fall semester!

Our Maniscript Study group in the chapel

For others, they learned about how God cares about their relationships as Paul teaches in 1 Cor. 7-8. We did a manuscript passage in these passages that talk about difficult issues such as sex, and Paul's thoughts on singleness. During our study, students where awereble to see how God loves marriage, that sex is a good gift from the Lord and Paul challenge to think about our relationships in light of Christ's second coming. Students left knowing that they could navigate through their difficulties in their relationships through "Remaining in Him!"(1 Cor.7:24)

One of the challenges they left with was the question, how can you use your relationship to build up the community?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg about what happened during our manuscript studies! But, what was becoming clear to us as we taught was that thread and question the students were left to pounder, "How can I build my community? How can I live well in the Body of Christ?"

The main theme of 1st Corinthians is love and unity within the church. I learned about the struggles and rewards of unity, as well as concrete steps to create unity. God was teaching me about strength in diversity, and how every person brings something to the Kingdom. - Madi, UNBC Student

During one of the evenings, my friend Tricia led through one of the best chats on the Spiritual Gifts I have heard in a long time! If you ever go through 1 Corthianians, you'll notice that as Paul is talking about the Spiritual Gifts, he stops and begins writing the famous 1 Corinthians 13 chapter many of us know well.

Tricia spoke about how all of these spiritual gifts are meaningless unless we are building up the body in love. She did an amazing job of explaining each gift and laying the foundation of the basis for each is to serve one another.

During one of Tricia's seminars, we were talking about the Spiritual Gift of healing. In the middle of her discussion, Tricia invited students to pray for any physical pains that were present in the group. It was a simple prayer she invited the students to try. I choose to remain quiet even as I was struggling with neck pain and the start of a migraine during that seminar.

However, one of the staff members Alan T mentioned that he had been feeling a pain in his neck that he felt the Lord was telling him was meant for someone else that day. So, myself and a student prayed for Alan and as the student was praying for Alan, the Lord had healed the pain in my neck!

I let the student know and she walked away feeling a little overwhelmed as that was for both of us the first time something like that had happened.

Later on, the student pulled me aside and told me, "You know, I remember you were talking about your migraines at supper last night and I had been thinking it all evening. It's really weird, this afternoon was the first time I've prayed for healing. But, I think the Lord still wants me to pray that your migraines would be healed."

I smiled and we prayed together. Again, it was a simple prayer, and as soon as she prayed, "In the name of Jesus, I ask these migraines to be healed." They were gone!

Both of us praised the Lord and we shared it with the camp as an example with how Jesus can use the spiritual gifts to build the body up in love.

And, after a few weeks have passed, I am still migrane-free! I really believe that this was an answer to prayer from many people who have been praying for me and it blows me away how God used a student in such a natural and simple way to show me his love that day.

“The table trains us to discern Christ's presence which helps us to recognize it during every other meal in the week” (John Mark Comer)

After I had been healed, I was able to give my talk on the Lord's supper myself, Janice and Alan T had been planning.

This was such a joy to do pain-free! We wanted to give students a chance to step into the redemption story of Communion. The camp's cook Kim created a meal that reflected that story arc of Christ's death and resurrection. the

For the starter, Kim made a greek salad. It was a reflection of the brokenness from the tradition of breaking a plate and yelling "Oppa!". A cheerful tradition now but one that used to be used as a sign of mourning for brokenness. During the starter, we invited students to talk about stories where they had felt disunity and brokenness over the last two years.

I was really proud of the PG students who shared openly and vulnerable about the struggles they had been through. While the stories were difficult, we were able to show Christ's love in the middle of their grief and sit together in one another's burdens. Next, we had communion together.

Freshly made bread for Communion!

Then, we ate a meal with Lamb, as a reminder of Christ who was the sacrificial lamb that redeems. During that meal, we talked about stories of redemption and rejoiced with one another.

Derek and Madi leading worship during Communion

It was a special meal that brings me to tears still thinking of how we served one another and the stories that were shared. Jesus has taught me a lot about the importance of feasting and sharing stories together during this season. And there was much feasting that week.

During Communion, Dave read a liturgy in the book Every Moment Holy that has a line that stood out to me how feasting joyfully is a step towards declaring the Kingdom to come.

"May this our feast fall like a great hammer blow against the brittle night, shattering the floom, reawakening our hearts, stirring our imaginations, focusing our vision on the Kingdom of heave that is to come." - Douglas McKelvey

Kim and the amazing volunteers who made Spring Camp possible

Derek rockin it for worship

Our last evening, Alan L led through a talk on 1 Cor.15 and spoke about the hope we have in the resurrection even as we struggle with the sting of death. It was a beautiful talk that tied the book together with a thread of love and especially Christ's love that we will see triumphant over every evil at his Second Coming.

Derek lead worship through the week and at the end he lead the group in a melody of praising God for the resurrection. Even as he finished, the group still wanted to worship so we ended up worshiping well passed when we were supposed to end for the night.

I'll end about Spring Camp with this. I had asked the students to write a testimony about what God had done that week and this is what one student had sent to me.

"One of the lessons I appreciated about the past 1 Corinthians Camp is the power in weakness. When we discussed spiritual gifts, Alan reassured Oshen that it’s okay to not feel receiving anything. There is no need to try and dress it up with ‘lofty words or wisdom’ (2:1). The first spiritual gift listed on Tricia’s table is knowledge. Although knowledge is a good thing, if not used wisely, it has inherent dangers. It can lead to pride and a ‘know-it-all’ superiority. ‘Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up’ (8:1).

I always had the urge to show that I know “something”. However, if not articulated well, the “showing off” only added to more confusion during a conversation. So the last day at the camp, I silenced myself. However, silence does not equate to negligence; if we rearrange the letters, it becomes listen.

I am currently on Nicky Gumbel’s Bible In One Year plan. When Nicky introduced the 1 Corinthians, he mentioned, “Love is more important than knowledge. When God measures a person, he puts the tape round the heart, not the head. It is no good just knowing lots about God; get to know him and let him fill us with love for him and for others. In other words, it’s not what we know, it’s who we know.” That is exactly what I feel during the Scripture Camp.

“On my way” [a song from Brother Bear that we listened to on our way to Thetis] makes me think of a beautiful, glass-dome train, sitting inside waiting for it to stop at our next life destination. “On my way” in such circumstances would not be at all experiencing rapid mood swings when a sunny day suddenly turns rainy. Whatever situations we encounter, be it surprising or unexpected, “the sun will come out”; God has a better plan ahead. “...Not the snow, not the rain Can change my mind The sun will come out, wait and see ... I'm on my way And nothing but good times to show.”

Group Photo Time!

After we came back, I was in PG for a short week but then flew right back to Vancouver Island for the weekend! We had community meetings scheduled to talk about changes to IVCF BC's vision and chatted about the future of our ministry. It was a chance to meet supporters of IVCF BC, old and new. We even had IVCF's Canada's president Nigel come up. It was a good weekend of spending time in person with the staff.

Now that things have winded down and I'll admit these last two weeks have been a whirlwind! But, while I am tired and seem to have slept through my alarm and someone throwing up in our bed this week *Cough cough Olive Cough*. I am glad to be home and excited to see how God is bringing these truths from 1 Corthianiths into my ministry here in Prince George.