Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. –Romans 12:10 (ESV)
I have experienced various forms of hospitality all over the world, folks, and I’ve got to say that the Christian hospitality practiced by Pinehaven Christian Assembly on Long Lake near Park Rapids, Minnesota, is at the top of that hospitality heap.
They really do outdo themselves in honoring their guests and showing brotherly affection at MANCAMP, which I attended last weekend. (Yes, MANCAMP is properly spelled with all caps.)
Supper on Friday night was smashburgers. And they weren’t just regular smashburgers, they were double smashburgers. With double cheese. And baked beans and a salad. And, if you were still hungry after all that, you could have a second one!
This is the kind of hospitality that would drive the Stewardship Committee in a normal church into fits of apoplexy. This is Christian love that leaves the ninety-nine and goes looking for that one lost sheep. This is love that’s not afraid to climb up mountains, to kick down walls, to light up the darkest shadows.
I am absolutely willing to admit that the preceding paragraphs could be construed to focus a little too heavily on the carnal pleasure of the food I was served, but what I am getting at is the attitude – the spirit with which that food was served and provided.
I once attended a church that put on a beautiful Easter sunrise service, followed by breakfast in the church basement. They had eggbake and donuts and the dear, dear church ladies took those sweet, gorgeous, donuts and cut every single one of them in half!
Fear and worry overcame those precious old ladies, and in the end, the message they sent was that although we tell the story of a Messiah who could feed thousands and thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish, we didn’t trust Him to provide enough donuts for under a hundred people on the day we celebrate Him rising from the grave alive and victorious!
And that’s where we come to the theme of the weekend: Character and Integrity. The message at MANCAMP was clear: We serve a God who is absolutely able and willing to do infinitely more than we can think or imagine. (See Ephesians 3:20)
Our speaker for the weekend was John Taplin, recently retired Senior Minister at New Life Christian Church in Alexandria.
Pastor John knew most of the thirty-five or so men at the event and, in many cases, their parents. He had spent much of his life in northern Minnesota and truly knew the people around him -- and he did not hesitate to remind those present of the character and integrity he had seen from those people over all those decades.
Of course, since it is MANCAMP after all, we also engaged in manly activities such as canoeing, shooting, hiking, and fishing all day Saturday.
I’m sure no one will be surprised to find that I chose to participate in fishing on beautiful Long Lake. As usual, I brought my boat. A guy named Ricky volunteered to join me for the day’s fishing.
We caught many fish together and had an excellent time of fellowship. Ricky currently resides in Minneapolis, but is originally from Seattle. When I asked about his testimony, Ricky said that he had been an outlaw - a bank robber, in fact. When he learned that he was going to be a father, Jesus changed his life. He turned himself in and spent time in prison for his crimes because he didn’t want his child growing up thinking that her father was a coward who didn’t have the courage to face the consequences of his actions.
I thought to myself, “And THAT is the difference between condemnation and conviction.” Ricky’s character and integrity resulted in a life of over forty years utterly dedicated to the LORD. He has written three novels, numerous songs, and lived a life devoted to God ever since. Today, he battles cancer, but he does so with joy and a deep, deep trust and faith in Jesus Christ. It was an honor to spend the day fishing with this man and to be able to call him “friend.”
Supper on Saturday night was all MAN: Prime rib, potatoes, sweet corn, corn bread, and a salad. And it was served with love.
Oh, and there was ice cream with our choice of five or six toppings before bed time.
We ended our time at MANCAMP with praise and worship in the Lodge, a log structure which has been standing at Pinehaven longer than I’ve been alive. We shared Communion, we sang, we prayed, and Pastor Brett Miller summed up the weekend by saying, “We’ve been talking about character and integrity all weekend. You guys know what that looks like. You don’t need some preacher standing up here telling you how to do that. Go live it.”
And then, we shook hands, shared a few manly hugs, and sat down to a breakfast of cinnamon rolls as big as our faces.
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