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The
Prospector
IN THIS ISSUE:
Ethos: Live
What You Believe
The Camp
Vision Continues into the 21st Century
Camp
Meetings: A Special Time of Renewal, Revival and
Commitment
Camp Helps
the Lost Find "True North"
rom church doors
and town criers to electronic bulletin boards, chat rooms
and e-mail, common folks have always found ways to post
popular messages to their peers. One of the most
prominent methods in our day is the T-shirt.
Here at camp, we are constantly solicited by T-shirt
companies offering the latest fad message on cotton wares
for our camp store. Some slogans and designs passing as
"Christian" messages, make us cringe, frankly.
Still, we often enjoy watching the parade of T-shirt
messages on the backs and chests of campers coming
through the chow line. One of our favorites during a
recent teen camp was this one: "Chicks dig scrawny
pale guys." It was worn, you guessed it, by a
scrawny pale guy, but, alas for the poor fellow, some of
the "chicks" didn't seem to agree.
At that same camp, the leaders had created a special T-shirt
reflecting the theme of the retreat. On the front was the
word: ETHOS. On the back, was the slogan: "Live
what you believe - Eph. 5:1-2"
The instructional program used that weekend was a
curriculum employing the popular "WWJD" (What
Would Jesus Do?) slogan. You've no doubt seen the
WWJD slogan somewhere — on a hat, a bracelet, a
necklace, a poster, a bumper sticker, a pen or pencil, a
lapel pin ... or on any and all of the usual
paraphernalia and devices one finds in Christian
bookstores these days. It's a provocative question which
is supposed to make us think twice about anticipated
behavior.
One young camper at that retreat seemed to see things
in a deeper perspective. He had created his own T-shirt
which said, "Let's stop asking the question and just
start doing what He says."
A critic of the WWJD fad recently made the same
observation. According to him, Christians need not ask
that question because the answer has been around for a
very long time. It is found in God's Word. What Would
Jesus Do? He'd do exactly what His eternal Word has
always commanded.
And it is from that Word that Christians are supposed
to get their "ethos." The T-shirt citation of
Ephesians 5:1-2 put it about as simply as it could be put:
"Be imitators of God, therefore, dearly loved
children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved
us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and
sacrifice to God."
"Ethos" is a fascinating and powerful 
word. It is a direct adaptation
from the Greek word of the same spelling and meaning. In
English, it means "character or moral nature"
— "the guiding beliefs, standards, or ideals
that characterize or pervade a group, a community, a
people or an ideology; the spirit that motivates the
ideas, customs, or practices of a people, an epoch, or a
region."
Life magazine once noted that "every age
or epoch is inspired by what may be called its inevitable
idea — the ethos of the century." The poet/essayist
T.S. Eliot, perhaps unwittingly foreshadowing and
explaining the sordidness which has characterized some of
our political leaders for the past several years, once
wrote that "the general ethos of the people they
have to govern ... determines the behavior of politicians."
From this word ethos we also get the word "ethics."
Ethics, of course, is the discipline dealing with what is
good and bad, right and wrong. It is the system of moral
duties and obligations we have, our standards of behavior,
our system of moral principles, our set of values.
When we codify our ethics, we call the result "law."
Once codified by the state, these laws are enforceable
through the state's police power, a comforting notion
when our laws come from a righteous ethos, but a
frightening prospect when they come from an evil ethos.
When codified by God, His laws are called "divine
scripture" and are enforced by whatever means God
chooses to work His will in our world. It has been said,
vainly, that you can't legislate morality. But that is
nonsense. All law is morality legislated — ethics (our
system of right and wrong) codified.
"Ethos," then, is exactly what the T-shirt
says: "Living what we believe." To not live
what we believe is called "hypocrisy," the one
sin which virtually no one will tolerate these days. In
one sense, however, it is unnecessary to call people to
live what they believe. People do live what they
believe. Their behaviors reflect their system of morality,
i.e., their ethics. The question is not so much
whether we will act out what we believe, but what,
indeed, will we believe?
Someone once said, "Ideas have consequences,"
and that is precisely the point. Our ideas, our beliefs,
will always work out in the real world as consequences,
as behaviors.
How then can we be sure that our behaviors will be
right and pure, in line with the perfect will of God.
Again, Ephesians 5, verse 1 has the simple answer: "Be
imitators of God." That is to say, live according to
the standards of His Word, our perfect law.
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The Camp
Vision Continues
More than thirty years ago, a deed for the
property now occupied by Murphys Camp was registered in
the name of the Peniel Mission. Max Strohl, missionary at
the Stockton Peniel Chapel, with support from the Garvic
sisters, began the difficult work of developing a camp in
the wilds of the Sierra Nevada foothills, a backbreaking
work which eventually took his life and that of two of
his hardworking successors.
Peniel Mission, later called Peniel Compassionate
Ministries, became a part of a larger international
missionary sending organization, World Gospel Mission (WGM).
In 1998, most of the missionaries affiliated with Peniel
Compassionate Ministries changed their affiliation to
another inner-city ministry, CityTeam Ministries, leaving
the Stockton Peniel Neighborhood Center, successor to Max's
mission, the sole remaining program within Peniel. World
Gospel Mission concluded that, due to international
missions focus, Murphys Camp no longer fit within its
calling and vision. WGM sought to find a buyer who would honor the long-standing vision of Murphys Camp and
the many volunteers who committed so much of their time
and resources into its development. In August of 2005, such a buyer was
found. Follow Up
Ministries, Inc., an international prison ministry based in Castro
Valley, California, assumed ownership of the camp. In addition to our
regular camp and retreat ministry, our facilities are also used by
FUMI as a Ministry Outreach and Training Center for the development of
prison chaplains and volunteer workers.
Today, after years of dedicated service by scores of
others who acquired Max's vision, the Hidden Treasure
Retreat at Murphys Camp is a growing and vibrant ministry
still committed to giving inner-city kids a
place to confront the Creator in the beauty of His great handiwork as
well as ministering to the broader needs of Christians seeking the same.
Your support and that of others have helped to keep
this vision alive and to provide the foundation for an
expanding camping and retreat ministry which undoubtedly
will bless many lives in the 21st century.
Inner-city ministry groups often face financial
constraints and depend on our "campership"
fund. Your tax-free gift to "Murphys Camp"
can help keep this ministry alive. Send your
contribution to: Campership Fund, Murphys Camp, P.O. Box
1422, Murphys, CA 95247.
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Camp
Meetings: A Special Time of Renewal, Revival and
Commitment
President Calvin Coolidge once said, "America was
born in a revival of religion." The preaching of
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield changed the
spiritual landscape of America before the Revolution.
By the close of the 1700's, the nation it seemed was
headed again for disaster. Thousands of colonial
Americans began to pull up roots and head West through
the Cumberland Gap.
Conditions at that time did not exactly produce a
territory of churchgoers. Once out into the frontier,
many left their churches behind. Life became tough and
rough. Morals declined.
One writer describes the scene aptly: "Corn
liquor flowed freely ... gun and rope settled far too
many legal disputes. The West was crowded with thieves
and murderers, with neither courts of law nor public
opinion to raise a rebuke." Sexual sin abounded.
Christians who cared about the souls of men and the
future of the country saw the peril. If such a spiritual
drift should continue, it could bring down the judgment
of God upon the entire young nation. Humanly speaking, it
seemed impossible for godly men to change the course of
events.
But God intervened in a mighty movement now known as
the Second Great Awakening. The event surely helped
reverse the spiritual skid and saved America from
calamity
Camp-Meetings
Most historians pinpoint Kentucky's Logan County about
1799, when several Methodist and Presbyterian preachers
joined efforts. Soon word of a mini-revival spread.
Kentuckians came from miles around. The crowd grew, and
soon visitors had to camp out for one, two or three
nights. Men chopped down trees to accommodate the crowds,
and arranged split-log benches to create a church-in-the-wilderness.
A great meeting at Bourbon County's Cane Ridge in
August 1801 climaxed the fervor. It extended over several
days and drew crowds estimated as high as 15,000, an
incredible figure in view of the scanty population at
that time.
One historian describes this vivid scene of an early
camp meeting:
"The governor of our State was with us and
encouraging the work. They are commonly collected in
small circles of ten or twelve, closely adjoining another
circle and all engaged in singing Watt's and Hart's hymns;
then a minister steps upon a stump or log, and begins an
exhortation or sermon, when as many can hear collect
around him."
Another describes the impressive scene at night:
"The glare of campfires, ... earnest prayers, ...
sobs, shrieks, shouts."
It was a time that many families, and especially
children, never forgot.
Despite admitted emotional excesses, the revival
movement spread and had a profound effect in transforming
the lives and morals of western society. Thousands were
swept into churches.
The revival and its impact eventually spread beyond
the Kentucky borders, but camp meetings took on more
dignity. They became well organized, and the camp meeting
established itself as a legitimate Protestant innovation
that helped bring the gospel to the masses. Its format,
in fact, laid the foundations for the later campaigns of
mass evangelism that still typify 20th century
evangelicalism. (From 'The Awakening of
America' in The Rebirth of America, Nancy DeMoss,
ed.)
The Tradition Continues at Murphys
Christian Camp
As in the days prior to the Second Great Awakening,
America today finds itself confronted with deteriorating
moral conditions. Substance abuse, shootings, thievery,
and murder abound in our inner cities. Courts seem
ineffective, and public opinion often fails to "raise
a rebuke." Sex sin is rampant.
Again, Christian camp meetings are playing a vital
role in revival and renewal. As Murphys Camp supporters
"Swede" and Betty Widegren wrote us, "We
read where statistics show that a large percent of
pastors and missionaries made the decision because of a 'camping'
experience!!" Former Board Member Bob Donahue told
us of meeting a pastor's wife in a neighboring county who
related how she had come to know the Lord as a child at
Murphys Camp while attending a retreat sponsored by the
Peniel Neighborhood Center in Stockton, Calif., which
still brings kids to camp several times a year.
A group of teen-agers from Concord spent a weekend at
camp some time ago. It was so rewarding to see how the
camp setting seemed to open hearts to a special work of
the Holy Spirit. At a campfire gathering on one of the
nights of their back-to-school retreat, the teen-agers
began to open their hearts, pouring out confessions and
spiritual needs. Many were in tears as they agonized over
the evils in their schools, their family needs, or their
own struggles with sin. How precious it was to see other
teens put their arms around them, pray with them, and
support them with love and weeping.
A group of men from a rescue mission in Oakland were
here for a week-long camp as part of their substance-abuse
recovery program. Again, we saw wonderful spiritual
growth among the men. One man, who had recently committed
his salvation to Christ at a Billy Graham Crusade (a
legacy of camp meetings in itself), became convicted of
the need to have Christ as the Lord of his life as well
as the Savior of his soul. As part of this conviction, he
spent 24 hours here at camp in fasting and prayer to seek
the Lord's help in giving up 39 years of smoking. The
camp setting was especially conducive for this act of
surrender, and he told us of a sense of real deliverance.
Praise God for these experiences, which may not have
happened had Murphys Camp not existed!
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Camp Helps
the Lost Find "True North" Direction for Their
Lives
A recent article in the Christian
Camp and Conference Journal was titled "Finding
True North." It related an incident in which some
campers became lost on a hike and, instead of using their
compass, tried to rely on some natural or folklore
indicators to find their directions, such as moss growing
on the north side of trees, the sun setting in the west,
and following the sound of distant voices. But they only
became more lost, having been unaware that sometimes moss
grows on other sides of trees, the sun sometimes sets in
directions other than true west at certain times of the
year, and in some areas voices can echo off cliffs and
trees. When they returned, a leader offered this
spiritual object lesson:
"Reaching into his pack, Wayne pulled out his
Bible and opened it to Proverbs 3," the article
related. "He then set his compass down on the pages
for all to see. With roving eye contact he paraphrased a
popular passage: 'If you want to find your way through
the dense woods of life, trust only in Jesus. He alone is
your Compass. Don't think that other philosophies you've
heard will just as readily take you in the right
direction. If you put the Compass in your pocket and
depend on your own understanding, you'll wind up lost and
afraid to go on. Every step of the way, keep looking at
that Compass, and keep telling yourself the Compass is
life's absolute. Only then will you find your way to
security and contentment.'"
'True North' at Murphys Camp
Murphys Camp is committed to ensuring
that those who come here will meet the true God and find
reliable direction in the trustworthy absolutes of His
Word.
We do that by providing a warm, loving,
and conducive atmosphere for ministry to some who have
lost direction in life or have never found it.
The camp was created to serve such
groups as the men from a yearlong residency program for
those recovering from alcohol and drug abuse.
After the men from one such group held their annual
snow camp here, we received a note from a staff member
indicating what an important role the camp plays in their
recovery program. She wrote, in part, "Thanks again
for a great week. You all are making a great impact in
the lives of the men here. You are facilitating positive
memories for them to hold onto forever. Thanks for being
obedient."
The snow camp provided opportunity for both developing
a work ethic through projects on the camp grounds and for
fun on the ski slopes (courtesy of Bear Valley Ski Co.).
The camp also included times of discussion and teaching.
At this winter's camp, discussions dealt with the
problems associated with relapse. The chart on
page 1 indicates the outline of the teaching sessions.
The sessions continue during daily morning studies at the
mission in Oakland.
Pray for the men in the program and for those who are
seeking to give them new directions and opportunities in
life. Of special concern is the recurring pattern of some
men leaving the program shortly after trips to camp. The
difficulty may be in dealing with the harsh realities of
the "valleys" of real life after having been to
the "mountaintop" of experience with God at
camp. Most of us who have been to spiritual retreats can
relate to the feeling of let-down which often follows
these special times. Yet we cherish the opportunity to be
refreshed and renewed in a way that only retreats seem to
offer. May God grant "true north" direction and
renewal through His Word and Spirit to the discipleship
program men!
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PROSPECTOR" INDEX
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[ Camping Values ] [ For Young Men ] [ For Young Women ] [ Christian Maturity ]
