So, did anything happen at Adventureland this year?

Earlier today I said goodbye to Jack and Karen Gregory. Then I went to Cross Pointe Church where Terry and Joan Wilkinson, who lead worship for our Adventureland Congregation, are Pastor. Bob and Karen Johnson were there too. As we met the members of that congregation, and explained who we were, I realized that, here we were saying goodbye at the end of another season, and I haven’t written a single thing about what has been going on at Adventureland this summer!

Yes, in fact God is at work at Adventureland. I guess I haven’t written about this as much this year as I have been preoccupied with finishing the book (see previous posts: August 26; May 18; March 17). In fact, we have had about sixty-five people involved in Bible study this year with six separate groups, and some being involved in more than one group.

We didn’t have the kind of wide-spread controversy that we had last year (see June, 2007 archive: "A line was crossed"; and "Part 2, You say will-worship like it’s a bad thing!"), but we did have a small controversy going in one of the small groups with a "Messianic" person. This controversy was pretty much confined to that particular group, and I was not directly involved myself, so I don’t want to talk too much about that with which I am not familiar. I do know that it caused a bit of frustration to some of the members of that group. I also know that it drove them to their Bibles. Like the Berean believers in the book of Acts, they "searched the scriptures . . . to find out whether these things were so." (Acts, 17:11, NKJV). I like that kind of controversy. In the process of investigating these issues, we learned that our "Messianic" friend’s ideas were not typical of those of Messianic believers in general. We also got a chance to go a bit more in-depth into the things we looked at in the "Why Israel" study in 2006.

I’m not really able to go into this in any depth at this time, but for those who are scratching their heads, wondering what I am talking about, "Messianic" practice has it’s roots in congregations (and apparently there are many) who were started by Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but who, along with their Christian beliefs, still maintain most of the Jewish practices, and observe the Jewish holy days and seasons. This is an oversimplification, but you get the idea. Oddly, in the present day, anywhere from sixty to eighty percent of adherents of Messianic congregations are, in fact Gentiles, as was our friend.

Anyway, that was our excitement for the year, as was a more consistently high attendance at Chapel, and the noticeable growth among our group members. We also had a very successful Women’s Retreat (led by Lynn Johnson and Becky Linn of Follow Hard Ministries); another successful Men’s Retreat at the Bethany Farm Retreat Center, in Exira, Iowa; and our first annual Couple’s Retreat. When we open God’s word, and we open our hearts to His Spirit, He is faithful to bless us and draw us closer to Him. We also had a "movie night" at which we showed the movie "Left Behind". This was attended by several folks who neither attended Chapel, or Bible study.

And once again, the season has come to an end and (almost) everyone has moved on, myself being one of the last out, with three days of work to go, then I too will move on to the See’s Candy assignment in Arkansas, then we are off to Texas, where I think I may have already started a men’s small group Bible study.

Yet another exciting thing! Many of the Workampers from here are moving on to work for Amazon.com in Coffeyville, Kansas. Enough of our Christian group from here is going there, that Christian Resort Ministries International (the group with whom Jack and Karen are affiliated) has a strong nucleus with which to start a ministry within that large Workamper community, as well as to the local employees.

We serve an awesome God, and I am continually awestruck by what He’s doing in the Workamper community!

Well, I have to go and get my rig ready to travel.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.