The craziness continues

First, I'd like to apologize for not updating you in the past few weeks. That is our fault. Leah and I had a slight miscommunication. I thought Leah was updating the blog and she thought I was, but in reality, no one was updating the blog. We are so blessed to have you along for the ride and hope you will continue following the blessings God continually brings our way. Since we last talked we were able to attend the IBJM missionary enrichment conference at our mission board. This was the week after Mike and Lauren's wedding, so we were dead tired. Honestly, we wanted to pull the shades and curl up in bed for a few days, but we woke up early to drive to Chattanooga instead. Our hearts were not in it. When we arrived, the first session was on brokenness in revival. Wow! The Lord had been working in my heart about those very same issues for the past few weeks. My emphasis on myself in my walk with God was only leading to frustration. It is not until we give up our self reliance that we will truly be able to live a fulfilled victorious Christian life. And that was just the beginning. The week turned out to be a week of recharging spiritually (as for physically, we can sleep some other time). We did in fact get to rest after our Sunday meeting in Northern Wisconsin the next day after returning home. As for ministry, the past month has been one of the most eclectic months in our schedule. We have been to small towns and huge cities, in big churches and small churches, with old pastors and young pastors. Every church in July presented a new dynamic. What a wonderful bond Christ produces between all these different situations! The one thing we all had in common was Christ. God challenged us with new ideas and old truths. We were blessed to meet a pastor that had some fresh insights that I needed at that time. We were also blessed by an assistant pastor whose dad just passed away. Pastor Matt's dad was the head of a ministry that educated churches about Jewish culture and evangelism. His dad had a huge library of literature by and about Jewish people. When we arrived, Pastor Matt had already picked out three boxes of books specifically for our ministry. We were honored that we could be a small part of continuing this man's love and desire to see Jewish people introduced to their Messiah. God has a way of using different avenues to bless his servants. If you do pray for us regularly, thank you. I would ask you to pray for a few new requests. I have spent the last few weeks developing a few sermons for North Love Christian School's spiritual emphasis week at Camp Chetek next week. Since this is the school I graduated from, and also taught at, I have a strong desire to see these students figure out how to live the Christian life successfully. In my own life and many of my friends, it seemed that our Christian walk was only skin deep. We put on a good show for our teachers and parents, but when it came to living it for ourselves after high school, many fell quickly because they possessed no depth to their walk with God. I have prayed these past few weeks that my opportunities to speak would in a small way develop a deeper walk with God and that God would help the decisions that the students make to be more than your typical camp decisions. Anyone who has been to camp has observed this phenomenon. On the last night of camp everyone cries and professes that they are going to sell out for God and never ______________ (fill in the blank with your favorite sin) again. Then you see that same kid two, maybe three weeks later, even deeper into the sin that they professed they would never do again. I have prayed and tried to develop sermons that would go a little deeper than the skin deep, "try harder" Christianity that many Christian school kids display. Please pray with me about this important week for the students at North Love Christian School. Thanks again for your interest in our ministry. Again, I would like to apologize for our absence on our blog. If you don't receive our prayer letters and would like to, please let me know. They go out every other month and are a little more formal than our blog updates. We also send out an email update on the off months just to keep you informed of what is going on. If you would like to join either or both of these lists, please email me at joeyclapp@yahoo.com. Thanks again for your interest in our ministry.