NAC - Sunday

North American Convention has wall-to-wall activities for the entire week. Tomorrow I have to be at sound check (I'm on the worship team for the morning service) at 8:45 a.m. and Ben and Will's youth activities won't be over until around midnight. That makes for a long day. We make up for the glut of activity by taking part of a day every year to go to one of our favorite places on the planet: Turkey Run State Park. Turkey Run is near the Illinois border about two hours from Anderson. Janelle and I were introduced to the park in our college days, and have enjoyed it ever since. Now it's a family tradition to hike it during NAC. We always take the same loop trail (#3), and in the same direction (clockwise).

I took my camera phone with us today so we could share Turkey Run with you. It all starts by crossing Sugar Creek on a suspension foot bridge that leads to the trail head. Some of the trails are boardwalk type affairs to protect the park. It's about an hour and a half of ups and downs on stairs or even ladders (over the roughest terrain), or wading through the creek (we learned a long time ago to wear shorts and pool shoes). The creek cuts right into the bedrock forming the most beautiful narrow canyons you'd ever want to see. Enough talking.



These ladders are much easier to climb up than to climb down. At least that's the way it seems to me.


This is the Ice Box. It's 10-15 degrees cooler in the ice box than on the rest of the trail.



This narrow foot path is worn right into the sandstone. Once we cross the trail, we come down the carved steps in the next picture.




We've never seen anything but birds back on the trails, but the fox was working the parking lot crowd when we came out of the forest. Definitely the closest I've ever been to a wild fox. Unfortunately it's probably not as wild as it should be.

We got back to campus in time for the evening service. Ken Love, a church planter from Orlando, spoke about the stories that define our lives. Our story may say that life is hard, or unfair, or that we are unloved. If that's our story, we see everything around us through that lens. He taught us that we should find a new script for our life story... specifically Scripture. The stories that most of us listen to are lies; Scripture is the true story of our lives.

As an illustration, Ken read through parts of Psalm 136. Psalm 136 was written to be read responsively. The leader would read a declaration about God's faithfulness, and the congregation would follow with, "His love endures forever!" Ken made an adjustment. He would read the declaration, and asked the audience to respond, "That's MY story, and I'm stickin' to it!" Since Psalm 136 obviously stops before the ministry of Jesus, Ken continued with some declarations from Ephesians, like, "He chose us in him before the creation of the world," to which we responded, "That's MY story, and I'm stickin' to it!"

After the service closed it was time for Ben and Will to head to their youth activity, where they got reacquainted with some friends they met last year. They played some games, including one called Shuffle Your Buns, which Will renamed The Butt Shuffle. Then they enjoyed ice cream.