We have some excellent opportunities this summer for our youth! We will return to Lake Junaluska for M28 Mountain Week 2. We will leave Sunday morning, June 29, and we will return the evening of Wednesday, July 2. This is a great time of worship, small groups, and fun. The cost is $250 for lodging and meals. We have limited space for this trip, so sign up soon. Sign up is open to students who have completed grades 6 -12. The second opportunity is Camp JAM – June 11 -14 . You will find a brochure with more information about Camp JAM in this newsletter. We are so excited about this time to encourage passionate worship and excellence in worship. We will have the fun camp activities you would expect like hiking, swimming, and canoeing, but there will also be excellent instruction from our youth and children’s clinicians as well as classes in art, rhythm & percussion, men’s & women’s ensemble (for youth), and other subjects. We will also worship together and have a closing worship service where family and friends can hear what the choirs have worked on while at camp. Sign up will close May 7.
Gene Hackman was one of my favorite actors because of one movie. He stared in “Hoosiers.” It is a movie about a small school in Indiana that he coached to a state championship in basketball. A couple of weeks ago I read that he and his wife had died. Apparently, he had advanced Alzheimer’s disease and after his wife died, he lived for about a week, all alone without even being able to report her death. They lived in isolation. That sad story reminds me of an old song that comes from a poem written by John Donne in 1624. The poem is “No Man Is an Island.” Harry Secombe sang a song by that same name and in the song, he has the line – “No man walks alone.” As I think about that, I wonder if it is true. No one walks alone. Is that true? You can be a part of a large crowd and still feel all alone. “It is not good for the man to be alone.” God spoke those words about Adam in Genesis 2:18. God made a partner for him. Adam and Eve lived in perfect conditions for a while, and after Satan tempted them, and sin entered their hearts, they were cut off from their creator. Through their actions, loneliness entered the world. There is good news for each of us today. Loneliness needs to be accepted and understood for what it is. It can be solved. God did something about our loneliness and sent Jesus to be our best friend. With Jesus, we will never be alone in a crowd. God has also given each of us the church. We need each other. In “The Wounded Healer,” Henry Nan says, “A man can keep his sanity and stay alive as long as there is at least one person who was waiting for him.” He said “a dying mom can stay alive to see her son before she gives up the struggle. But when nothing and nobody is waiting, there is no chance to survive in the struggle for life.” Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” For His Glory, Pastor Mike