North Cincy MVP Camp 2013

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Todd D. Nystrom

It was another great year for MVP Camp at North Cincinnati Community Church! This despite the MAJOR road construction project limiting access to the church (the normally busy, two-way, paved road is currently a rutted, gravel path only open to the church driveway from one direction),

and MAJOR thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday.

By God’s provision, the storms caused only a short delay on Monday evening, allowing the sports activities to go ahead as planned. Tuesday the rain ended before camp started but returned later, resulting in a very soggy end to the evening. Quite incredibly, though, we were blessed both evenings with double rainbows, great displays of God’s promise and handiwork!

Even though the rain ended in time on Monday and Tuesday, we still decided to run some of the outdoor adventure camp activities inside to avoid having the children spend 90 minutes sitting on the completely saturated ground! The outdoor safety, first aid, and surprisingly the setting up camp, portions were easily adapted to the indoor setting. Every year things get a little smoother, and this year was no exception, even with the weather issues. Experience is certainly a good teacher.

Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be the two nicest evenings in the history of MVP camp with low humidity and temperatures in 70s, which is rather unusual for late July here in southwestern Ohio! As usual, we ended our outdoor adventure camp activities on Thursday night with the most popular and anticipated event of the week, the campfire and s’mores, enjoyed while we watched an amazing display of God’s handiwork unfold across the western sky.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky
above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1 (ESV)

The week wrapped up on Friday evening with the closing rally. This was a chance for the children and their parents to watch a video presentation of the week’s activities and performances by the children in the music and ballet tracks, hear a testimony from one of the track leaders, and closing remarks from our youth pastor. The evening concluded with a gallery of artwork from the children in the art track and lively time of fellowship and refreshments.

Attendance was down a bit this year, around 120 children. But, this is not too surprising given the road construction that quite likely limited the number of last-minute, walk-in registrants, which in past years has been fairly significant. Based on the numbers in the outdoor adventure camp, I suspect we drew good attendance from outside our church again this year. We had 18 children in outdoor adventure camp, with eight of them coming from outside our church.

But, even with the lower attendance, it was a great week, and the children had a wonderful time learning new skills in their chosen pursuits and about the Most Valuable Pursuit of all, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

The Most Valuable Pursuit of All

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Todd D. Nystrom

Most of us have heard the term most valuable player, or MVP, in the context of the secular, sports world, and understand it as an honor bestowed upon individual athletes who excel in their chosen sport. In 2011 the youth pastor at our church (North Cincinnati Community Church in Mason, Ohio) decided to take a different approach to summertime youth ministry. Rather than offering one of the traditional Vacation Bible School (VBS) programs found in many churches across America, he chose to design a new program. The name chosen for this program was MVP, which in this case stands for Most Valuable Pursuit.

The idea behind MVP Camp is to expose children to the gospel message through the arts (art, music, & ballet), athletics (baseball, basketball, football, soccer, & golf), and outdoor adventure (cool stuff like hiking, camping, orienteering, & roasting marshmallows over a campfire), activities pursued passionately by many in today’s society, Christian and non-Christian alike. We teach the children skills in their chosen pursuit, and that these activities are wonderful gifts from God that should always be pursued with honor and excellence; but, ultimately, the Most Valuable Pursuit of all is a personal and life-long relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

At the start of each evening the children gather in the church sanctuary to hear an opening speaker who is a leader in one of the offered pursuits, and who is also a devoted follower of Christ, demonstrating that the pursuit of these activities can indeed be God honoring, and that Jesus is our Most Valuable Pursuit of all. The children then disperse into smaller groups for instruction in their chosen activity for the remainder of the evening. On Friday evening, the final night of the week long MVP Camp, we hold one large gathering where parents are invited to attend, along with their children, to learn about the week’s activities and hear a closing speaker’s testimony.

From the beginning of the MVP program I have been blessed to lead the camp’s outdoor adventure track. I frequently tell others that I have just as much fun as (maybe even more than) the kids in my camp, and that serving Christ in this manner is a tremendous growth opportunity and blessing for me personally. In the interest of keeping this post from getting too long I will save a more detailed description of my outdoor adventure camp activities for a future post.

In the first two years MVP Camp has been well received by those within our church and by those in the community around us. We started big the first year, with around 150 children, and had nice growth in participation the second year, with nearly half of the children coming from outside our church both years. We are now preparing for our third year and praying that the growth trend continues, despite a major road construction project limiting access to our church driveway.

By taking advantage of society’s fascination with sports and other extracurricular activities the hope is to attract a more diverse cross section of the community, particularly those who are un-churched and may shy away from the more traditional VBS offerings. I believe this mission is being accomplished and that the gospel message is being proclaimed quite effectively through this ministry.

To God be the glory!!!

Yours in Christ,
Todd the Hiker

An Interesting Read

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Todd D. Nystrom

“Principles for Churchmen” by J. C. Ryle

Internet Archive download: http://archive.org/details/principlesforchu00ryleuoft

One of the more useful secular resources that I have found in my perusal of the internet is the Internet Archive digital library. This website has millions of old books that are no longer under copyright restrictions and which they have now made available for free download in electronic format (pdf, e-reader, etc.). I have personally downloaded pdf versions of dozens of books, including Christian classics by the likes of Calvin, Luther, Hodge, and many, many others.

One book that I discovered, thanks to a reference in one of Tim Challies’ blog posts, is “Principles for Churchmen” by J. C. Ryle, a late 19th century Anglican bishop. And, even though this book was published in 1900, much of what Ryle wrote is still highly relevant to today’s Christians. In a few places the book gets bogged down in the politics and squabbles of the late 19th century Anglican church; but, that said, the positives far outweigh the negatives, and I highly recommend this as a good read.

One of my favorite quotes (page 36): “A Church which is a mere boneless body, like a jelly-fish, a colourless, bloodless, creedless Pantheon, in which every one is right and nobody is wrong who is in earnest, and in which it does not matter a jot what is preached and taught, so long as the preachers are sincere,—such a Church is an unpractical absurdity, and the baseless fabric of a dream. The Church which abandons all “limits,” and will not proclaim to mankind what it believes, or would have its members believe, may do very well for Cloudland or Utopia; but it will never do for a world where there are tears and crosses, troubles and sorrows, sickness and death.”

A Few of My Favorite Internet Resources

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Todd D. Nystrom

With all of the frivolous material and garbage you find on the world-wide web these days, I thought it might be helpful to provide a list of some of the better internet resources I have discovered over time, and that I personally find useful in my Christian walk. I know there are other good, even great, websites that I have not included in this list; however, time and space constraints limit what I can reasonably present here. Many of these other resources will be found referenced in the websites listed below:

BibleGateway.com: http://www.biblegateway.com/

This is a great website with numerous online translations of the Bible in English as well as many of other languages. They have a helpful search capability that allows you to search scripture using keywords, phrases or specific passage references, and then compare the results between different translations. In addition, they have several translations available in audio format which allows you to listen to scripture passages read out loud…I find this feature particularly useful in learning how to pronounce some of the more difficult names of places and people found throughout the Bible.
If you are looking for ways to grow in your personal Bible study habits and dig deeper into God’s word, either on your own or through some of the daily devotionals and Bible reading plans they provide, you will not be disappointed. This is a wonderful resource!!!

e-Sword.net: http://www.e-sword.net/

This is a Bible study software package that you can download for free from the e-Sword.net website. I was skeptical at first—I usually am with “free” software downloads—but boy was I wrong! I have found this to be a very well designed, “user-friendly” software package that has more features than I could possibly enumerate here, although I will point out a few. I find this to be an indispensable tool for my own Bible study and research endeavors.
Some Bible translations, including the ESV, KJV, ASV, and several more, can be downloaded for free, but other popular translations, such as the NIV, NKJV, NASB, and RSV, must be purchased. Personally I do not find this limiting as the ESV is the primary translation I use.
There are also Bible commentaries, Bible dictionaries, devotions, graphics (maps, charts, etc.), and reference books that can be downloaded, many for free, some for purchase.
I know there are purchased software packages used by professional ministers that probably run circles around this, but for the layman who cannot afford to spend that kind of money this is a great way to go. I cannot say enough good things about this software!
To learn more about Rick Meyers, the creator of e-Sword, and the history of his “software” ministry go here: http://www.e-sword.net/history.html.

The Gospel Coalition (TGC): http://thegospelcoalition.org/

The Gospel Coalition was founded by D. A. Carson and Tim Keller, two big names in current reformed, evangelical circles. The TGC website contains a plethora of resources, videos, blogs, and book reviews that are helpful, thought-provoking, timely, and relevant, all firmly rooted in biblical truth.
Other names frequently found on the pages of TGC include Kevin DeYoung, Justin Taylor, Trevin Wax, and many more.
There is so much useful material here it is impossible to cover it all in a short description. If you want to learn more about TGC, you can find their confessional statement and theological vision of ministry at this link: http://thegospelcoalition.org/about/who.

Monergism.com: http://www.monergism.com/

This is another website, much like TGC, that contains an incredible wealth of materials, all rooted in sound reformed, evangelical theology. You will find many of the same names appearing here as you do on the TGC website.
To learn more about Monergism.com read their “About” page at this link: http://www.monergism.com/about_us.php

Challies.com (a blog by Tim Challies): http://www.challies.com/

The tagline for Tim’s blog is “…Informing the Reforming” which sums things up quite nicely. Again, this is a site well rooted in reformed, evangelical theology—perhaps you are seeing a trend here? Tim’s blog posts frequently challenge me to look at my own Christian walk and help me to see my own shortcomings. I find his book reviews very helpful when I am in the market for new reading material to add to my library. His writing style is quite witty and often humorous which makes reading this blog entertaining, as well as informative.
I think the focus of this blog is best summed up by Tim’s own description found on his About this Blog page: This is a blog (or weblog)–a kind of online journal…[it is] a compendium of articles, information and book reviews. If the blog has a primary focus, it may be best summarized as “commentary on the contemporary church and its interaction with the culture around us.”

http://www.desiringgod.org/

http://www.sportsmensdevotional.com/

From the Sportsmen’s Devotional website: “We provide the Christian outdoorsman a daily email Bible study that Sportsmen can relate to. Our study is short, to the point, and has a new photograph and outdoor tip each day. Our study is devoted to all that love the great outdoors.”
If you enjoy hunting, fishing, hiking, and the outdoors their daily e-mail Bible study is a quick, easy read that you can use to get you started in developing a daily devotional routine or add to an already existing routine, without being overwhelmed.

http://archive.org/

http://openlibrary.org/

Note: I plan to continue adding more resources and filling in more descriptions on this existing list over time.