In a post from a few days ago I mentioned courage. I got to thinking more about that and I remembered this experience.

Four years ago I went to Church Camp at Gulf Shores, Mississippi. On the third day they had us do this excersize.

We all met in the worship center and the camp pastor gave us these instructions. We would have 30 minutes to find the underground church. All of the youth leaders and sponsors would be outside. Some of them knew the location of the church, and others were spies. Some didn't know anything. The camp staff were to be the police. If they suspected you were a christian, you could be thrown in jail and then executed for your beliefs.

He told us that and then kicked us out of the building.

I remember that when we started, it seemed like more of a cheesy game. I was a freshman and thought I knew what everything was and how everything worked. I was sure I'd find the church.

So me and some of my youth group kind of teamed up. We went around asking sponsors if they knew where the "fish market" was, or if they could help us be "fishers of men".

We finally found someone who told us to look for a place to serve. Me in all my infinite wisdom decided the best place was where we checked in. Because we helped serve eachother by bringing in eachother's luggage. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

As we were walking up there, one of the guards brought out a prisoner. He made the prisoner kneel down. Then he asked the prisoner if he believed in God. The prisoner said yes. The guard "killed" him with his broom-stick gun.

That's when it became more real for me.

So I got my group to hurry up to the front.

When we got there, there was a man standing in the back of a truck quoting scriptures. I just knew I had found the church. We were all given a little mark (a black dot) on our hands and told that the police could no longer catch us. I was pumped. I led my group to go out and get as many people as we could to come join our church.

After awhile, the horn blew and we all went back to the sanctuary.

When we got in, the pastor asked if everyone who had a black dot on their hand to stand up. Out of about 1,000 people 600 people stood up. He looked at us and told us that we were all fools and had joined a cult church.

The guy in the back of that truck was quoting scripture, but out of context and he had changed it. I felt stupid. I had been in church my whole life, yet here I was joining a cult church at church camp.

Then he asked all of those who had found the real church to stand up. About 40 people stood up. He told us all that the real church was at the tennis courts. A good place to serve.

Then he asked all of those who had left the church to go tell others where the real church was to remain standing. No one sat down.

Then he asked how many were executed for trying to tell everyone about the church. Half of them remained standing.

Next he had a kid come on stage, the kid told us about how he was arrested first. He was brought out on the hill at broom-stick gun point. He was mad to kneel down in the grass. The camp councilor put the broom stick to his head and asked if he believed in christ.

The kid said no.

There were some people there at church camp who were afriad to admit they knew christ when a broomstick was pointed at their head.

It was a real wake-up call to me. I needed to know the scripture better. I wanted to be able to leave the safety of the church and face persecution to bring others to christ. I wanted to have the faith it took to look down the barrel of a gun and say, "I am a Christian."