Descision Time.

So we are moving, you all have probably read several times about this. It is time for changes for everyone. It will be time for me to change here in a few days. I eagerly wait for some of them and others I am unsure of. The chapel will be within walking distance again so that is the biggest thing that I look forward to. The living accomodations here will be very tight at first and that is something that will be more difficult for me to deal with.


No I have always wrote about small group and small community, Discipleship and the opportunity that these all bring you to pour into the lives of those around you. I have found the experience here wonderful in that regard. So many of the Blogs that I have written have delt with this subject and how I have seen such blessing by being so close to so many people.


The thing is that things are changing here, in the camp, in the people and in me a bit. We are growing, fast. With this growth we are losing the sense of small community. When I arrived maybe there were a little over 250 people here and now we are over 400. There are many people that I don't know, with more arriving daily. The days are busy and hectic for most people when before the pace was slow and easy. The tents were a plce of peace and rest and now they are constant activity, and selfishness. The changes that are necessary have made this Camp different.



This is similar, I believe, to the church. It may start of as twenty or thirty people and grow from there. The families are comfortable and find it rewarding to have closness with their Church family. It is nice that people find it appealing and more people come to the church. Then it becomes full, capacity stretched with all the influx of new faces. People want to expand and change things. The old style is different and just doesn't feel the same. There is no longer any closeness just hecticness and such. The church body has become fat and unhealthy.

So here is where I am. I am feeling as if the small community that I once had is changing. I still see the same faces that I did before but not as often. Other commitments and activities, new friends take us away from one another. When I am in my tent, I struggle with the individuals that have begun to take away from what we once had. My small community as gotten fat.

I of course can adapt and change. I can even, as a previous post showed, slip a bit. Some things will never be the same and I have to get used to that. Others I can control, myself, my Discipleship and prayer, my devotions. I can remain in the space that I have, not always comfortable and sometime annoyed, I can continue to be a light as much as I can. Or, as the time will come, I can choose to be in a CHU again, and by my self.

This as easy as it may seem is not for me. I truly believe in Small Community and the fact that one of the things that I am to learn here is how to make this work when I return home. To experience people at their most intimate point and interact with them there. To share my life with them, every minute, as hard as that may be. If I go to a CHU I satisfy my personal needs, but I will give up parcilaly on what I find so important.

In the CHU I could have my time with the Lord. Turn on and off the loght when I wanted to. Have the heat set at any temperature that was comfortable to me. I could read and write in peace and quite. I would be alone. Alone, in my box, in my comfort zone, in my ways, in my time and not have to worry about anyone else. Things would remain exactly as I wanted them and only change when I wanted them to. I could even stop being a light to the world for a while if I wanted. All this, if I wanted.

So, I am experiencing growth pains of sorts. Like the church, like many small communities do. I have interanl and external struggles. I have my personal feelings and my feelings associated with my faith in Jesus Christ and what He has called me, us, to do. I will have to make a descision when the time comes but right now I am stilling trying to hear from God on this. I am still trying to place it into His hands.

Lord, speak to me and guide my path. Amen