Great Time at Living Waters

Some of the pastors and wives who attended the conference at Living Waters.

When I started my final message at Living Waters this morning, I commented that it seemed like I had just arrived. Which, of course, was true given my travel problems on Monday. During the 30 hours or so I spent at the camp, I preached four times and enjoyed meeting old friends and making many new ones. 

Camp Director Roger Black said this was the largest pastors conference ever. Most of the pastors came from Maine with a few crossing the border from New Brunswick. Quite a few had heard me speak at New Brunswick Bible Institute either in 2007 or at the Men for God Rally in January. 

I told the folks that this is my third time to preach in Maine and I keep coming back because I enjoy it so much. When I commented that Maine is a “state of mind,” they chuckled. It’s totally true–and you have experience it for yourself. Mainers (or Maine-iacs, as they sometimes call themselves) are a hardy bunch. You have to be to survive the winters. Without a doubt, Maine is one of the most beautiful states in the nation. If you’ve never visited, I highly recommend that you take a vacation here. I would add that if you only visit the coast (the most famous part), you’re missing a lot of what this state has to offer. 

Churches here tend to be small compared to other parts of the country, and growth is often slow. It takes a certain kind of resourceful perseverance to stick it out and build the church one living stone at a time. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Pastor Kevin Grant talk about the importance of understanding your weaknesses and not fighting against the way God made you. Talk about resourceful perseverance. Listen to this. He started preaching on the gospel of Luke in 1996 and so far he’s up to chapter 9! And his church loves him and is growing and reaching new people. He may be a grandfather before he finishes the book.

We talked a lot about dealing with discontentment and how the Lord puts us where he wants us so we can grow. I preached about loving your enemies last night and reminded them that our enemies are sent by God because we need them. And when we don’t need our enemies any longer, God will remove them. And then he will send us some more. That last line drew a laugh, as it always does. Kevin graciously filled in for me on Monday night so he ended up preaching three times in a row, I did the same thing yesterday, and we both preached this AM. So despite my arriving late, we got all the scheduled messages in. 

I want to say a word of thanks to Roger and Karen Black who have served as leaders of this ministry for many years. We called them forward this morning and prayed over them that God would strengthen them and that the Lord would continue to bless Living Waters. 

It was that sort of conference. Very warm and personal and uplifting. I’m very glad I came and very glad I could be with my friends from Maine once again.