Mercy Not Sacrifice
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the way that the middle-class church is being undermined by social pressures that cause parents to overprogram their kids and check out of church. I flippantly mentioned soccer games and Boy Scout campouts as the competition we face for Sunday morning worship. In doing this, I hadn’t really stopped to consider how God could work in an environment like a Boy Scout campout. One of my readers Greg Nelson, the Scoutmaster of Troop 754 in St. Charles, Missouri, wrote a very beautiful and compelling letter about how he seen Scouting used to the glory of God’s kingdom. It was too good for me to keep to myself, so I got his permission to reprint it here.
Dear Morgan,
Thank you for your continuing series of blogs. You must know that I am a daily reader and sometimes commenter. I am writing about a recent comment you made in an April 22 piece on Capitalism. It’s a very good piece.
I wanted to talk about your comment in it about Boy Scout campouts. I know you will appreciate my thinking and I am really honored to be able to talk to you about this.
About six years ago Christ found me in a Methodist Church in rural Louisiana. I was there for only one reason, to honor that church’s willingness to allow my son’s Cub Scout pack to meet in its fellowship hall once a month. I went to fulfill an obligation, and the preacher brought me to tears in her sermon. That was the day Christ turned my heart of stone to a heart of flesh. I was wearing a Scout uniform when it happened. I am His now because of that experience.
I had not been in any church in 30 years, and since that epiphany I have not failed to honor the Sabbath in joyful worship, either within the walls of a Methodist church, or within the walls of God’s great outdoors.
In the years since then, I have become a very humble Methodist and a very active Methodist, too. At age 56, I agreed to pursue ministry as a Licensed Local Pastor. That process was so valuable for me, even though it ended in a local BOM meeting where I was told that the local board did not think I was a fit for the job they had in mind. My point here is only that my spiritual life in the Methodist church is the greatest dance I have ever been invited to, and I am dancing every chance I get.
I have also been allowed to play a role in developing the relationship between the United Methodist Church and the Boy Scouts of America. You might not know this, but UMC churches voluntarily charter more Scouting Units than any other church in the world, even more than Roman Catholic Churches. In other words, we are talking about a very large number of people, and half of the participants are currently unchurched! It is literally the chance of a lifetime!
I have been given the opportunity to participate with the national United Methodist Men’s discussions about just what kind of ministry it is that we are called to through these organizations. This has led us to great progress in seeing Scouting as vital ministry, ministry at the very center of our faith journeys. It is anything but a parental obligation done as “responsible” parents, trying to live up to some false image of what society expects.
I only have one son, and he is 17. Like most of us who do this as ministry, the boys we help develop are not our sons. They are somebody else’s sons. In fact, in Boy Scouts, which is the organization that actually does campouts, most parents almost never participate. The norm is that you have maybe 20 boys and three or four adults. The adults do the driving and stuff. But the boys lead the Troop. And we are called, consciously called, to be ministers to these boys as sons and daughters of God.
About four years ago I agreed to be the test-pilot for a program for the national UMM called the Scouting Ministry Specialist program; the idea being, to offer Methodist men and women in Scouting who were motivated by their faith to view Scouting as ministry, a way of formalizing that view and learning from each other. Since that test we have recruited more than 100 Scouting Ministry Specialists around the country. I can’t keep track of how many there are, now.
Why did we do this? We wanted the ministry to focus on our local congregations. Each SMS agrees to try to relate to no more than 3 Scouting units at churches where that SMS is a part of the local congregations. We wanted to bring out the things about Scouting that we most identified with the life of a follower of Jesus the Galilean. We wanted to use the valuable Scouting traditions, sense of adventure and love of nature that have always been central to Scouting to help us reveal to our boys and ourselves the relationship between ourselves and our God.
Let me share with you some wonderful examples. In my troop I like to talk about a particular line in the Scout oath that I think represents what Christ is about. Every week our boys promise to “help other people at all times.” And I have expounded on the meaning of this phrase, both to my boys and from the pulpit. It means to be a servant to all of humanity all the time. I tell the boys, “”It doesn’t say to help other people when I am not busy helping myself. It doesn’t say to help other people when they are nice to me, or people I know. It says to help them always.” Then I tell them, Jesus did exactly that.
I also have, through this ministry gift been able to focus on the many other parallels between the Scouting program and the life of a Christ follower. For Scouts, there are a number of sacred moments that are indigenous to the program. We don’t refer to them as sacred moments. But they are. You know the best sacred moments are the ones you don’t need to talk about. One of the most sacred is the campfire. Everyone has a place at the campfire. None is better than another. And stories that make you think about the meaning of life itself are the common elements of all campfires.
Jesus loved a campfire. Scripture tells us of the one time we know Christ cooked for his followers, it was outdoors, over a charcoal fire when he roasted some fish. I bet it was delicious. And Scouting almost guarantees that a group of young men will gather under the stars once a month to burn some logs in the woods, and sit around, and begin to chat about what is most deeply on their hearts. I feel sorry for people who don’t get to do this. It is absolutely holy ground.
I like to tell people that camping is like practicing for “The Kingdom Come.” When you are camping in the woods there are no such things as strangers anymore. If someone you don’t know comes near, you don’t run to hide in your tent. You greet them warmly. You invite them to eat. If you don’t have much you make sure the stranger gets seconds. You give them the best place by your campfire and you offer them the best of your food and dessert. You invite them to camp the night if they care to. And you tell stories to each other. What is that but the open heart?
Contrast this to the way we Christians treat strangers back in the city! We check our door locks and if they come close, we call men with guns to chase them away!!!
And this not a fabrication in any way shape or form. I have been a camper for more than 50 years now, and it is in the woods where men and women are most generous, most willing to help, to go out of their way to help any stranger who is in God’s wonderland with them.
And that’s to Scouting’s credit, too. It is wilderness oriented. You can’t be a Boy Scout and not go into the wilderness. See any parallel there? Jesus was a nature lover. My son says it is like time changes it nature when you are camping. Camping time is Kairos.
These are just a few of the things among dozens that have made my life in Scouting a calling from Christ to me, and to literally hundreds of other members of this congregation. We are winning people to Christ through Scouting. It is the only reason to do it. Were this not the case I would not waste my time.
You may not realize it, but Scouting isn’t cool, anymore, if it ever was. My boys are ridiculed in their schools for being Boy Scouts. Not so, Soccer players. So, my point here is that Scouting campouts are not diversions from Christian discipleship, but an amplification of a life following the Despised One, at least for me and the hundreds of other men and women who I am working with, and for hundreds of thousands of boys around the world.
I love you for your strong heart and devotion and your consistent willingness to lead and learn. What a joy it would be to camp with you!
Greg Nelson
Scoutmaster of Troop 754
First United Methodist Church of St. Charles, Missouri
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