The roof is a little skewed
but so is everything else.
It doesn’t matter, really;
just a shelter for a phone
for teens on a mission.
They call home, excitedly
ablaze with God and new friends
in the overwrought drama of youth.
But smoldering beneath the flame
are embers
whose heat will remain
long after the flickering dance.
God watches over this wooden box
and all the lands around it
and He smiles at the calluses.

After a quick stop by my parents’ home to feed the cat, I’m headed to Cumberland Pines for Mountain T.O.P.’s annual closing celebration. This event honors the college-age kids who have worked for us all summer (they leave for home tomorrow) and features a great slide show of all of the summer camps and activity. The programming isn’t until this evening, but they’ve encouraged everyone to come up early and spend the day in the county.

Yum.

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

This was the menu for our meal at Cumberland Pines, before we went to the commissioning. I will forgive the incorrect apostrophes on the plurals, because the food was just so good.

The newly-expanded kitchen at Pines is fabulous, by the way. Andy Piper showed me around.

HPIM1491A

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

Well, staff training worship was a great success tonight. It certainly seems like we have a great group of staffers, and it was a moving service. This is from the traditional singing of the “Mountain T.O.P.” song at the end of the evening, when we formed a big circle around Altamont Baptist Church.

When Brown Bannister wrote “The Mountain Top Song,” he didn’t have our ministry in mind. But, back in the 1980s (long before I had gotten involved), the ministry asked him for permission to use it as our official theme song. It’s perfect!

To quote the chorus:

I’d love to live on a mountain top
Fellowshipping with the Lord
I’d love to stand on a mountain top
‘Cause I’d love to feel my spirit soar
But I’ve got to come down from that mountain top
To the people in the valley below
Or they’ll never know that they can go
To the mountain of the Lord

More photos are here.

I’ll be leaving in a little bit for Mountain T.O.P. summer opening, which is a dinner and commissioning service for the college-aged summer staff who will run our camps. Hopefully, I’ll post some photos late tonight when I get home.

Until recent years, opening was held Memorial Day weekend, when the staff members were arriving for their training. I like holding it at the end of training much better.

Unfortunately, a scheduling fluke meant that today is also the 50th anniversary celebration for George and Rene Bass, Mountain T.O.P.’s founders, in Nashville. I’m sorry I’m not there to give George and Rene my love and regards.

Here’s a great idea: start a daily devotional blog, and then when you have written 365 devotions, publish them as a book. What a terrific use of blog technology!

Wish I’d thought of it first.

I will, however, have an opportunity to write a devotion which could have a large audience this summer. Ed Simmons, executive director of Mountain T.O.P., e-mailed me and one of our other board members to say that the ministry is going to revise its camper devotionals this year and would like us to contribute if we were willing.

I might rewrite and adapt what I call the “skillet devotion,” which I did a couple of times at AIM in 2002 and then on my first foreign mission trip in Nicaragua in 2003. It ties in nicely with Mountain T.O.P. because it has to do with Lodge Manufacturing in South Pittsburg and the cast-iron cookware they make there. I use the metaphor that a well-seasoned cast iron skillet becomes more useful the more it’s used, as opposed to, for example, most cars, which become less valuable as you put more miles on them. I then apply this to the fact that God uses our struggles and trials to strengthen us.

I’m not sure if these new devotions will be just for the youth ministry or for AIM as well. If they plan to use them at AIM, maybe I shouldn’t do the skillet devotion because some of the AIM crew has already heard it. Then again, it’s been five years and they’ve probably long since forgotten it.

Ed is going to get back to me with more specifics about what they are looking for, and that may answer the question for me.

During late 2005, when Mountain T.O.P. was going through a time of transition, the “Support The Ministry” web site was created as a way for friends of the program to discuss the situation and their visions for the future. Now, the site has been re-launched as a place where friends of the ministry can network and converse. Check it out, won’t you?