The good ol' days

As one who is on the cusp of turning 40 (I'm holding off for as long as I can), I seem to remember the 1970's and 1980's as being decades that were simpler and seemingly more innocent (yeah, that's me on the right sporting the hair feathered and parted down the middle at Calvary Baptist Church's Jr. High Camp early 1980's). Maybe it was because we weren't inundated with so much technology that would allow us to know who was doing what at every second of every day. Or maybe it was because, as a child and youth, I was still so naive to the "ways of the world" that I was living in.

Recently some friends of mine started a group on Facebook called the Calvary Baptist Church Youth Group Alumni and on this page are all sorts of pictures and stories from past and current students from that youth ministry. Floods of memories come to me as I read their accounts of summer youth camp and look at all of the old pictures. The highlight of every summer for me was Calvary's youth camp at Laurel Ridge Camp, Conference, and Retreat Center and it was at summer camp in 1986 that I answered God's call on my life for ministry. It seem that the most trouble we ever got into in those days was sneaking out of the cabin at night to raid the cafeteria of Bob Evan's banana pudding or taking off to the top of the mountain during free time to indulge in a forbidden chew of tobacco or a dip of Skoal.

In the summer of 2004 I was able to go back to Laurel Ridge as the camp pastor for Calvary's senior high camp. While there that week I walked on all of the old trails that I used to as a kid and took in the same sights and sounds that I grew up with. The students didn't look all that different that I did growing up yet and as I interacted with them I became keenly aware of the struggles and challenges that they were facing every day. I couldn't help but wonder if they were as idealistic in their view of life as I was when I was their age or if they, too, were more aware of their world just as I am now. For their sakes I hope that they were so busy enjoying being students that the "cares of the world" weren't weighing them down yet.

No one can go back and recapture the past in hopes that it will still apply today. I am grateful for the opportunities that I had growing up in an environment that equipped and challenged me spiritually. I want my own children to be wary of what goes on in our world today but at the same time I desire them to be protected against it by giving them some of the same opportunities that I had as a child. So for me the 1970's and 80's were the good ol' days, not because they were truly more innocent but because they served to impact me for Christ in way that I've never been able to get over.