Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

What Kept You in the Church

Jennifer Landis

01 What Kept You in the Church

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in Heaven, we're so grateful that we get to be here with you.

And as we talk about the things that could impact a young person staying in the church, Lord, This is your will.

You want young people to be on fire for you.

You want young people to have a relationship with you, to grow up loving you.

And so I pray that as we talk about these things, that you would come in and impress our hearts with the truths for our lives, for our families, and for our friends.

All right, now I have to preface this with, though I think my family is pretty great, there is no family that's perfect.

Most certainly not mine, though my mom is pretty close.

But I know the things that brought me back to Jesus.

I know the things, because I haven't, my whole life has not been following Jesus.

I went away for a while, But I know the things that brought me back to Jesus.

I know the things, because my whole life has not been following Jesus.

I went away for a while, but I know the things that brought me back.

I think the Bible verse, train them up in the way they should go when they're old, they will not depart from it, is especially true in my case and in the cases of my siblings.

Uh-oh, the sign says, do not open this door.

This is an example where you have a rule and you wonder who should follow it.

So I'm just going to talk about kind of what we'll be doing throughout the week so you know what days would especially be ones that you want to be here for.

The first 2 days are kind of just be the highlights.

There's a lot of miscellaneous like, you know, oh, we did this and we did this and this and this and this.

The third day, we're going to be diving a little bit more into teaching tools, into education, whether you're homeschooling your kids or whether you just have them in the school system but you want to work with them on special things outside of school, or even if you're a Pathfinder leader or if you really have kids in any sense, Sabbath school.

We're going to be talking about tools that are really great.

I'm going to be pulling some from the things that my family did but also from what I've learned from the past 4 years of teaching.

The fourth day, that would be Thursday, is titled the wilderness years.

So let's say your kids are already outside of the church, are already not really caring about what's going on inside the church, or maybe you just know that those moments of rebellion, what to do in that point.

And especially here, I'm going to be sharing the things that people did for me, that helped bring me back to Jesus.

I'm going to even be sharing, I've been talking to my friends for the past couple months, like, hey, Did you ever have a moment where you walked away from God?

And so there's a lot of input for this day coming back in.

And I'm going to be taking a special moment to talk about the message that I didn't hear until I was in college, that if I would have heard it earlier, I don't think I ever would have walked away.

And then on Friday, we're going to be having a guest speaker, Miss Carrie, actually.

She's going to be sharing a little bit with us.

She has a wonderful family, 1 that, you know, my family greatly respects.

So she'll be sharing with us and then a little bit more from me on that day as well.

At the beginning, as you notice, how many signed your name on a lined piece of paper?

You now are just signed up to be my best friends for life.

So, didn't know you signed that dotted line.

But really, what your name is on there for is because at the beginning of every day, we're gonna have a little giveaway because everyone loves free stuff, if you're anything like me.

And this giveaway is something I'm very excited about because as I'll be going into, I think actually on Wednesday, I'll share more about this, but I'm gonna give you a little snippet.

When we were younger, my mom wanted us to read books and wanted us to read good books, right?

All of our friends were bringing these, you know, babysitters club and you know, and I'm sure that they're good books too and I've read a couple of them, but you know, from the library and she noticed a little bit of attitude coming in from us after reading these books and so mom was like, oof, we need to get a little reset over here.

And so she developed this little program where she said, all right, if you guys read 100 books, they have to be Adventist books or missionary books, because there's like, you know, a couple that are not Adventist books but also, but fantastic.

If you read a hundred of them, have to be over a hundred pages, I'm gonna give you a hundred dollars.

And it was fantastic because I think, you know, we heard $100, that's all we heard.

Not realizing, what is that, a dollar a book?

But it got us reading these books, and first of all, I mean, come on, That's like prime babysitting, first of all.

If I have my nose in A Thousand Shall Fall, I'm not over here making arguments with my sister, which I was very prone to do.

And so It was great babysitting for us, and it was amazing for our education.

You know, because we were reading all the time, we, I mean, in fifth grade, we had like 12 grade reading levels according to the state's testing, right?

It was such a life-building thing for us.

So for our giveaway every day I have some of our favorite books that we read.

And so what we're gonna do is every day we're gonna have 2 people that can get a book.

I have 4 just in case 1 of these you have already and you can pick.

I'm gonna be kind of like showcasing the books as we go through.

And then on Wednesday I also have a list of my favorite 100 books on a piece of paper and I'll be passing that out.

This is an example of a book that's not printed by an avid avidist publishing but it is unbelievable.

It's an amazing story about a man who, and I'm not going to give too much of the story away, a man who grew up in a communist country, but stayed faithful to God.

The smuggling part is him smuggling Bibles into the country and just how many amazing miracles God worked in his life.

You read this book and at the end you close the cover and first of all you're depressed because it's over.

And then second of all, you are just amazed because you realize how blessed you are, but how much God wants to use you past what he...

Past what you were being used at that moment, if that makes sense.

This 1 is written by Desmond Doss' wife about the life of Desmond Doss.

If you've read, there's a couple books about Desmond Doss, but this 1 is more of like the story format And something really cool about this 1 is it's actually signed by Desmond Doss and his wife.

Fantastic book about a soldier who stayed faithful to God in the army and the miracles even on like on Hacksaw Ridge and all the places that God saved his life and helped him to save the lives of other individuals and then how because he was so faithful to God went on to inspire the whole world with his faith.

Next we have what I hope most of you have read, and if you have not, this is the 1 to pick.

This 1 is the book about Doug Batchelor's life.

This is the book that if you pick it up, you will not put it down till it's done.

So don't start reading at 8 o'clock at night.

But this 1 is a fantastic book about Doug Batchelor's life and he just goes in and he talks about, you know, really what God brought him out of, which I think is really important for us to take moments to see how powerful the influence of Jesus in a life can be.

You know, I say that I stepped away from God for a few years.

He brought me back and you say, oh that's a small miracle.

In my opinion, it's a big miracle because I know how much he's done for my life, but you look at a story like this and you see just What God brought him out of and you say wow God is powerful unbelievably powerful All right, and last but not least we have 1 miracle after another This 1 is written by Pavel Goya.

He did a weekend seminar at the village church just a couple months ago and let me tell you it was so beautiful, so powerful.

If you're ever looking for a really good sermon to listen to as you're washing the dishes or driving, Look up Pavel Goya's name.

In this book, he was also raised in a communist country where he had to stay faithful to God through many, many different experiences.

And as you read this book, you are especially impacted by how God answers prayers, and in such a miraculous way.

02 What Kept You in the Church

Father in Heaven, we're so grateful that we have this special time to talk about life and how we can help young people and help kids get to know you because this is what you want.

You want to spend eternity with all of us, with us as families, as family units.

So I pray that as we share today and as we talk, as we share ideas, that your spirit would be with us to guide us and to lead us and teach us.

All right, so if you missed yesterday, yesterday I told you about this amazing book club.

Tomorrow we're gonna be talking about education and teaching tools, things that are really helpful if you're homeschooling your kids or even if you're not homeschooling your kids but you want to do some stuff outside of your schooling whether Adventist or public that can be a real blessing to them.

And so I'm going to tell you more about it then but just a little snippet.

My mom when we were younger and I know if you're here yesterday you heard this before my mom when we were younger wanted us to read really good Avenis mission story books.

Because if that's what your nose is in, that's where your heart is, right?

I loved missions growing up because I was reading amazing books all the time.

So she started this fantastic program where she said if you read 100 Avenis books, have to be more than 100 pages, and I think it started when I was like 8 or 10, you'll get $100.

So I was very excited and not really realizing that was a dollar a book.

And so that's a lot of books that I read.

But really what it did for me was it instilled in me a love for first our Adventist publication, which is a wonderful thing.

It also instilled in me a love for missions and it gave me amazing role models because as we talked about yesterday, we talked about the fact that you know I grew up in churches that had no young people around me.

And sometimes we worry that that might stunt, you know, our kids' growth in spirituality, or their growth in the church, or their desire to stay in the church.

I found my best friends in the older individuals of our church, they became my mentors, they became my best friends and still are today.

And, but even outside of that, I found more mentors and I found them in these books.

And so every day I'm sharing 4 different books, we're gonna choose 2 names and 2 people get to take a book home.

So we have the 2 that left over from yesterday.

We have a book about Desmond Doss written by his wife.

And it's basically, it's like The Unlikeliest Hero.

And this is a plus, it's also signed by Desmond Doss and his wife.

Then we have The Richest Caveman, and if you have not read this book, then I feel like I should require you to choose this book because it's so good.

If you start reading this book, you cannot put it down.

You see how God has taken a life from where Doug Batchelor was to where he is today.

It just gives you an amazing realization of the power of God.

Our 2 new books I'm gonna be sharing with you today, this 1 is called Project Sunlight.

And for avidness book lovers down the ages, this has just been a classic that has, you know, been on everyone's bookshelf.

It goes through a based on a true story event of, you know, someone that goes from not knowing Jesus at all to coming to Jesus.

And then it uses what we know about the future to kind of give an ending where Jesus comes again.

It's a beautiful story, and it gives, I think, a really real picture to young people How to get to know Jesus as a friend.

Beautiful book, really great for young people to read.

And this 1, friends, not a lot of people talk about this book, but it is so good.

I read it for the first time 2 years ago.

If you know anything about his books, excellent author.

He wrote Strangers in the Land, John Seeger's going to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's another excellent book.

I read it to my students in my classrooms every single year.

This 1 is entitled Brave Men to the Battle.

Raise your hand, have you read this book?

It's kind of story form, a little bit more history form, but it is all about the Waldensians and Huguenots.

And you will read things that you've never heard of before.

And you, when I read this book, every time I would finish a chapter, I felt like my heart was just melting because I was like, what they went through, first of all, I've never even close to experience, but like the persecution and everything, but I was so inspired to stand like they did.

And really, that's what you want for your kids.

You know, you want them to read these books of people that stood for Christ and be like, whoa, I want that.

Because what they do is they see how people were persecuted, and you know, they're probably not thinking, I want that.

But then they see how God delivered them.

And then these young people are like, wow, could this happen in my life?

All right, so I think we have names for everybody.

We need more numbers, because we have more people.

Anyway, as she's doing that, I'll just talk a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today.

We talked about how churches can be the nucleus of your life.

It was especially for me as a pastor's kid, but even if you're not a pastor's kid, it can be and it's really a beautiful thing.

But we talked about how the church can be the nucleus.

There's a lot of really great stuff there.

Today we're going to be talking about missions, and the importance of missions in a young person's life.

He's gonna be standing up and sharing with us a little bit as well.

I've been going on mission trips with him to Mexico and to Cuba for the last 9 years.

So he's gonna talk a little bit about that.

But I think we're ready now, we'll do this.

03 What Kept You in the Church

Father in heaven, we are so grateful to get to spend this special time learning and fellowshipping with each other.

We ask that as we speak, as we talk, as we listen, and as we share, that you would come and you would bless our hearts, that you would open our hearts, and that we would see new glimpses of you today.

All right, now to start, when we started on Monday, It really feels like it was like 5 days ago, but ironically that was like what 2 days ago So on Monday when we started we specifically started talked about the church and how the church can be the nucleus of the home How it was for us in our family and how it was such a blessing And the one-liner to take away from it was give them a reason to be there.

Give them jobs in the church, give them activities in the church, make church an exciting place to be, a place that they want to be, and it's a place they'll stay forever.

And so day 1 we talked about the church, day 2 we talked about missions and how impactful that is in the life of a young person.

When you experience missions and when you see God work miracles out in the mission field, again I ask the question I asked yesterday, how could you not serve him?

You see him work, you see these miracles, and you're like, wow, this is the kind of God I want to serve.

And So Missions is so impactful, so powerful.

They get to see answers to prayer, they get to see miracles, and it changes their lives.

It changed my life, it's changed the lives of all of my siblings.

It's been 1 of the key, most important factors in that change, in that long-lasting change, I should say.

Today we're gonna be talking a little bit about education, teaching tools.

I had the privilege of, as I've mentioned, I'm a pastor's kid, and so we kind of have this thing in the conference where if you move to a district that has a school, It's like an unexpected rule that you send your kids there, right?

Because that makes sense, you know, if a pastor doesn't send his kids to the church school, everybody's like, well, what's wrong with the church school?

But then if there's no church school, you can do whatever you want.

So it really just depended as we grew up what district we were in, whether we were homeschooled or whether we were in Adventist school.

I went back and forth throughout my years.

There are things that I really loved and appreciated about both of them.

As an Adventist teacher now who teaches for the Michigan Conference, I have to give this disclaimer that if you're able to do homeschool well, it is the ideal.

And at least it has been in my life and in the life of my siblings.

If you're able to do it well, It's really an ideal situation.

But Adventist School can be such a blessing as well.

Wherever you go can be a blessing, but we really loved homeschool.

But if that's not possible, there are still some really amazing things that you can do outside of the classroom when the kids are back at your house that can really aid them not just in their academic journey but in their spiritual journey.

So we're going to be going through a couple of those tools.

Some of the things are going to be things that my mom did for us and some are going to be things that I've learned over the past 4 years of teaching.

So, you know, when I was considering what the focus would be each day, I really wanted to do a day like this where we talked about education, where we talked about teaching tools, because I kept thinking about the fact that the reason why I initially became a teacher, why I finally made that decision.

I was 17, I had just graduated high school and I was out canvassing again because you know you got to pay for that good old Adventist education for college.

So I'm out canvassing, and I meet this guy.

We're actually in a Walmart parking lot, and I come up to him.

Instead of junk food, we have something longer lasting.

I said that to Canvas so many times in my lifetime, I think even if I turn 89 years old, I'll still be able to tell you.

So I start handing him a cookbook, I hand him a spiritual book that we had, and he asked me point blank, what religion are you?

And I say, well actually I'm a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.

He starts telling me and he's like, you know I've actually heard of Seventh-day Adventists.

I've talked to a few and you know when it comes to the Sabbath, you guys really know what you're talking about.

I see what you're saying there." He's like, but the 1 I can't see is the state of the dead.

He's like, you know, you've got, I see some of the verses you take, but there's other ones that kind of contradict it.

And it's like, I'm just not sure if you guys are really seeing that right.

And I was like, oh, that's a really interesting perspective.

He's like, actually, I want to hear your thoughts on it.

Why do you think what you think on the state of the dead?

I was 17, just graduated Avenis High School.

Not only have I, 17, been in Avenis education for the last 12 years, been in Avenis for the last 17, I was also a pastor's kid who had been through probably 105 evangelistic series at this point.

I was floored as I stood there with a blank brain.

It's like I had this unbelievable moment of realizing I don't have anything to share right now.

Sure, there's a couple words floating through my brain, something about the dead don't know anything, something about, I don't know where it is.

I don't even have a memorized verse to say, oh, I forgot the reference, but this is what the verse says, da, da, da, da, da, let's look it up.

I sat there, and I'm like, give me a second, and I pulled Google because if in doubt, Google is out.

So I pull out Google, and I'm typing in, what do SDAs believe on the state of the red?

We shared some of the things that I found, and ended up with a really good experience.

He bought The Great Controversy, praise God.

I know God can use him through that book much more than he was able to use me in my lack of knowledge.

But as I walked away, I was stunned with this realization that I had been through this my whole life in this world of avidness education and I didn't know 1 of the most common things.

You know, if he had said something about, like, explain, like, Daniel 11 or something, I'd be like, listen, man, come on.

Makes sense that I can't really sit here and explain that for you right now but the state of the dead I didn't have 1 and it was at that moment that I knew something had to change.

And something I think, you know, and of course there's the element of learning at home, and you know, my parents did a great job of showing to us, but I just didn't actually have it in my mind cemented.

Of course I had heard it, I'd heard a million studies on this topic, but nothing that I had memorized or learned for myself to be there to share, you know.

So I knew, especially at the education level, something had to change.

Series

What Kept You in the Church

05 What Kept You in the Church

Transcript

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