Messages spoken at the Kentucky Lake Camps Farthest Out
Kentucky Lake CFO:
127 messages from 27 gatherings, 1963 to 1996.
Kentucky campers first gathered at Berea College in 1953, for a single year, and Glenn Clark blamed a lack of continuity for its closing. In 1960 campers gathered at Kentucky Lake, with Mary Virginia Parrish as the prime mover and Bob Coleman as the first chairman of the Council Ring. Seventy campers came for the full week, and Glenn Harding and Louise Eggleston were the speaking leaders.
Year after year campers returned in October to the Kenlake Hotel in Kentucky Lake State Park, near Hardin, missing only one year while the hotel was being remodeled. In 1998 the name changed to Kentucky Family. The recordings run from 1963 to 1996 and include Bert Kerley, Al Durrance, Norman Elliott, Mary Virginia Parrish, Thelma Lee, Mary Webster and Jim Christian, among many others.
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The American Who Got Me Confused
Love that is disciplined, spoken aloud and extended to everyone, offered as the only workable answer to an era of hatred, and Thomas Carruth insists it starts at home. A guide in Leningrad who kept a small cross in memory of an American, and a mother who turned away her son's wounded friend, are what he puts to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1963.
Assigned the topic of meditation for the 1963 Kentucky Lake CFO, Bernie Warfield tells the campers about moonlight he once found lighting the bottom of a dark well. He also tells about three sons who climbed a mountain, only one of whom refused to turn back before reaching the top.
There is a surrender to God and then a second one, to people, and Thomas Carruth tells the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1963 that the second is the costly one. He names the two figures who block it, the man who must dominate and the man with no spine. He also tells of a doctor who kept a three-legged teddy bear in a glass box as the greatest fee he ever received.
It Had Nothing To Do With Me
It Is the Tenant That Matters, Not the House
The Violet at the Center of the Sun
A Toy Soldier From the Cereal Box
Thelma Lee uses a set of ordinary clay pots to teach Jeremiah's vision of the potter and the marred vessel, admitting a recent burst of temper as proof that even seasoned believers can still be marred in the potter's hand. A toy soldier found in a cereal box recalls raising her sons. She teaches that God gives good gifts only as we grow ready for them, in this talk to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1964.
Forty Miles the Wrong Direction
Surveying Job, Joseph, Peter, and Paul, Thelma Lee tells campers at the 1964 Kentucky Lake CFO that God has faith in ordinary, wavering people because "his seed remaineth in us." She recalls her own story of driving confidently forty miles in the wrong direction, a picture of sincerity without guidance.
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The Gateway To Humility Is Humiliation
At a Chicago rescue mission Starr Daily heard a prosperous man tell the crowd he was "16 years old today." The man was counting from the night he was born again at that altar. Daily brings the story to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1965 along with his own visits to skid row, taken for the humiliation that he says opens the gate to humility.
[Read the "The Gateway To Humility Is Humiliation" Transcript]
At the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1965, Starr Daily describes a prison guard called Peters, who ignored him. An old cellmate taught him to picture the man as he really was inside and to hold steady goodwill toward him. Loving that guard, and then everyone in the prison, is what finally gave him the moral courage to stand up and witness.
A Bucket of Sand Already Full
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She Read The Bible In Ten Days
Mary Webster tells of a woman who shut herself away to read the whole Bible in ten days. The woman came out saying, "I saw what I saw and I knew what I knew." Mary Webster then turns to small things, an acorn, a burning bush, a child's bedtime prayer, as places to meet God, in this talk to the 1966 Kentucky Lake CFO.
The Carpenter Who Built His Own House
Mary Webster tells the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1966 of a carpenter who quietly cut corners while building a rich man's house. At the end he learned that the house was being built for himself all along. She applies the same warning to the character believers build day by day.
[Read the "The Carpenter Who Built His Own House" Transcript]
Mary Webster tells of a lonely man in an institution who fed a wild cat from his hand, since the people around him would not show him love. She then turns the same question on her own church and on a neighbor everyone avoided. She was speaking at the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1966.
Three Excuses At The Great Supper
Mary Webster opens with Jesus' parable of three men who make excuses to skip a great supper. She ties their excuses about land, oxen, and marriage to whatever keeps believers from the kingdom. Preaching to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1966, she then describes giving away her own testimony, money, and time rather than holding onto them. She closes with the example of Moses.
Believing a Person Into Being
Lake Erie At Niagara Falls
The Old Cow Knows the Way
The Room That Glowed In St. Louis
The Upper Ranch and the Lower Ranch
Three Minutes For a Dying Man
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A Well-Fed Donkey In a Paddock
At the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1967, Estelle Carver confesses that she sold her car and sent the savings abroad as food parcels to war-stricken families. She called herself "a well-fed donkey in a paddock" while others went hungry. She then works through three movements of daily spiritual discipline.
Estelle Carver mourns the collapse of family devotion. She recalls how her own mother eased a childhood terror of hellfire by sitting up with her through the night, and she asks why so many campers say no parent ever spoke to them of Jesus. The talk was given at the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1967.
Beyond Every Human Category
Shoot Them With Biscuits, Not Bullets
Jesus healed the ear of the soldier who came to arrest him. Tommy Tyson tells campers at the 1968 Kentucky Lake CFO that it is better to "shoot them with biscuits" than with bullets. From there he moves to the resurrection, and to a baptism in the Holy Spirit that turns out to be a love affair with Jesus.
[Read the "Shoot Them With Biscuits, Not Bullets" Transcript]
Filled While Praying For Her Sister
Tommy Tyson describes a woman who protested that she could not pray for her sister to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, when she had not received it herself. She laid hands on her anyway, and she was filled first. Whatever you want from God, he tells the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1968, start moving in that direction.
The Luncheon She Was Too Scared To Give
Ruth Carter Stapleton recalls being pushed to speak to a hostile ladies club luncheon of neighbors who knew every one of her faults, though she had been in tears the night before. She uses the story to teach that becoming a full son of God means daily choosing to decrease so Christ can increase. She brought that lesson to the 1968 Kentucky Lake CFO.
[Read the "The Luncheon She Was Too Scared To Give" Transcript]
The Orange Card That Said "Wow"
A friend mailed Tommy Tyson a bright orange card printed only with "WOW," and he took it as the Lord saying, "I want you to live in my wow." He reads to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1968 of the father who begged Jesus, "if you can do anything." Faith, he answers, is the trust we already use every day, turned toward him.
The Pencil Sharpener Three Little Boys Returned
Ruth Carter Stapleton teaches on prayer that lets go instead of demanding. She tells the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1968 how a friend's stolen pencil sharpener was returned by three neighborhood boys, once she prayed Luke's words and stopped trying to get it back. She adds her own story of preaching through an abscessed tooth that healed overnight once the ordeal was over.
[Read the "The Pencil Sharpener Three Little Boys Returned" Transcript]
The X-Ray That Showed Nothing There
At the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1968, Ruth Carter Stapleton opens with a camper's report that her doctor found nothing left to operate on after prayer. She then traces how surrendering her own marriage to Christ transformed her husband. He came home from his conversion saying "Ruth, I know Jesus," and then "Ruth, I know you."
They Beamed Love After Don Bates
A Michigan pastor got mad, drove away from camp, and could not get home for the love the campers beamed after him. Tommy Tyson opens the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1968 with that story. He teaches that the Holy Spirit quickens body and mind, but first surfaces what we have refused to face.
Christianity is friendship with Jesus and not a creed to sign, Cliff Richmond tells the 1969 Kentucky Lake CFO. He points to what three years at Jesus' side did to the disciples. It turned a hot-tempered son of thunder into the beloved disciple, and a wavering fisherman into the rock.
He Knew the Shepherd, Not the Psalm
Cliff Richmond retells an old preacher's line about a visiting professor who knew the twenty-third Psalm while the plain country pastor knew the shepherd. Let some part of the gospel become truly your own rather than borrowed, he urges at the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1969.
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I Know Sawdust When I Hear It
Throw It To the Center of the Wheel
Evelyn Carter Spencer leads campers through a breathing exercise built on the confession "Christ in me, the hope of glory." She then describes coming to know Jesus not only as Savior and healer but as sovereign Lord. She had, she says, "never seen a king" beg his subjects to obey him. The talk comes from the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1974.
Nothing Between Me and the Man
At the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1974, Evelyn Carter Spencer tells campers she once threw her Bible on the ground and jumped on it in frustration. Then God showed her that everything she would ever need is already given in Jesus Christ.
Evelyn Carter Spencer preaches that the fullness of God dwells fully in every believer. She points to the Roman centurion who tells Jesus he need only "speak the word," recognizing the authority standing behind him. She was speaking to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1974.
Evelyn Carter Spencer retells how Peter and John told a lame beggar at the temple gate, "look on us," before healing him in the name of Jesus. She presses campers with the question that gives the talk its urgency, can God depend on you. She preached this at the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1974.
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A God Who Hides Himself
The Law of Opposites
I Gave Up My Name For Ten Weeks
Ruth Carter Stapleton preaches on Paul's image of a treasure carried in a common clay pot. She then tells how ten weeks spent campaigning for her brother taught her that she had lost her own name and identity in his. At the 1976 Kentucky Lake CFO she asks listeners whether they too have lost themselves in Jesus.
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A Blind Man Seeking a Black Cat
Brother Huss and the Candle Flame
Isms That Ought To Be Wasms
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A Canceled Lunch and an Open Door
Kept Back For Fifteen Minutes
Redeemed From the Slums of London
Secrets Learned From a Lifer
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The Tea Kettle That Boiled Over
He Is Able
The Boy Who Opened the Car Door
Send Out the Word
Face the East
Whole Armor of God
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God's Calling Card
Carrying the Chair All Day
Two Feet And Two Lips
Jesus Lives In You
Free To Fail In the Eyes of the World
Green Sticks For an Eagle's Nest
The Same Flowers Twice
The Stick Is Yours Now
The Two Chairs of Forgiveness
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Five Minutes Longer Than the French
The Bread Baking Class As Communion
The Card Index In the Sky
The Diamond In the Sweeper Bag
The Keys Locked In the Trunk
The Oasis That Grew Into a Forest
The Roadrunner and the Rabbit Playing Tag
Think Before You Quack
Three Burdens On the Heart of God
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The Freedom of Not Trying To Be Good
Turkeys Unite: Safe To Be a Sinner
Righteousness By Faith, Not By Works
Confession, Forgiveness, and True Authority
Spiritual Hernias
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Not a Project But a Friend
An Inconvenience and an Opportunity
Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates
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The Orange On Her Head
The Rocking Chair Rest Lesson
The Water Looks Awfully Cold Down There
The Plane Is Built To Fly
The Song From a Sydney Hotel Radio
The Cataract That Grew Slowly
The Diver and the Nearly Empty Tank
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Homer Martin reads 1 John as the business of introducing Jesus, and jokes about a maid who over-introduced her chauffeur suitor. He then presses believers to correct one another on the spot rather than let a discord stand, in this talk to the Kentucky Lake CFO in 1988.
You Are God's Go Between
The Kudzu That Looked Like Grapes
The Last of Human Freedoms
The Virus In the Program
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The Handbag That Held a Harmonium
Barbara Deal insists to the 1989 Kentucky Lake CFO that the kingdom admits no barriers, from monkeys keeping time in Sri Lanka to the airline counter where she called a harmonium her handbag.
A New Look At Our CFO Heritage
The Building Is On Fire
The Pig On the Curve
Muhammad Is Helping Me
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A Good God Image, Not a Good Self Image
Last One Into the Tub
Here I Am, Lord, Start Me Off Again
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I Abandon Myself Into Your Hands
Receive, Receive, Receive
I Am Not Homesick, I Am At Home
Full of Sap and Green
Where Did You Get That Peace?
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Preparation of Moses
Dan Christ Underscored
The Holy "But"
The Maple Tree and the Squirrels
Circumference and Center
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Spiritual Breathing At Camp
I Saw the Letter 708
Spilled, Filled, Thrilled
Let the Feelings Flow
The Table That Covered the Bills
De-Vine and De-Branches
You Con-Du-It
Huh? Me, Lord?
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I Do Not Know What It Is, But I Want It
We Thought the Preparation Was for Daddy's Death
Just My Boy, a Gift of God
Held With Open Hands
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Two Births and One Death
Three Places You Must Go
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A Church at Prayer
Take Out the Cause of the Headache