I was once told that loving God was simple: Just love God with all that you are.

I think this is a way people try to sum up the meaning of  Matthew 22:37 where Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” But is this clarification of the verse (“just love God with all that you are”) really helpful to anyone?

How can you love something or someone with all that you are if you haven’t really figured out who you are yet? Or who you want to be. And doesn’t that change?

For the longest time I tried to figure out who I was, so that I could love God fully, with all of my being, but my approach turned out to be completely backwards. The truth is, I couldn’t understand who I really was until I fully loved the Lord.

Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to love God “correctly.” Think about your relationships with your parents or your friends- anyone you love. How often do you analyze how to love those people. We don’t think about love we just do it. We do it by investing our time and our hearts in those relationships. We just show up and care.

So here’s what I do. I show up for God and I care about what He has to say. Talk to Him, read what He has to say to you in the Bible, and care enough to respond to it by the way you live your life.

I was surprised when I recently found out that June is Madison’s rainiest month (according to weather.com). I always thought that “April showers bring May flowers” meaning April should always be the rainiest month. In the Kenosha/Milwaukee area (where I lived for the past 6 years) we got about 1/2 the amount of rain that Madison gets and it came in April like its supposed to!

Even though there is excess rain in Madison, I’m still loving living here! Madison is such a fun city with all kinds of people. Like when it downpoured this week – people were literally able to kayak down the street, AND THEY DID! (See below)

I wish I owned a kayak (and were brave enough) to kayak down the streets of Madison! I was driving home from Kohl’s when the crazy downpour hit last Monday. Going downhill felt like driving down a waterfall!

Even though all this is quiet exciting to see, I miss the sunshine.  Sunshine always makes both the sky and my emotions brighter. Rain and gloomy weather make me feel gloomy and very unmotivated.

Rain, rain – go away. Or at least buy me a new kayak.

Hey everybody in blogger land! This is actually the first blog post I’ve written in my entire life… so that’s my excuse if you think its bad. Anywhoo…

I just wanted to share some thoughts and a little personal testimony about the talk I gave last Tuesday at CAM about loving others.

First of all, God never lets me give a challenge to people from His word without giving me an opportunity to practice what I preach. So knowing that I figured somewhere along the line I would be challenged with the task of loving someone just as I love myself. A simple enough task you may think… until you really think about how much time you spend on yourself.

Ok so here it is. I’m working away on my talk for Tuesday when I get interrupted by a friend needing to chat. That’s fine, but it better not take long I’m thinking. Come to find out my friend was really struggling with some things and just needed someone to talk it through with.

I had two options: 1. Tell him that I couldn’t talk because he was distracting me from learning about loving others and I really needed to focus. (yeah I know, makes a lot of sense)
Or 2. Exercise my love muscles and take some time to listen to what he needed help with and offer some encouragement.

I tend to catch on to things slowly, so it was a good thing I had been studying about loving others for awhile. God basically thumped me over the head with all these verses I had been reviewing and said, “Are ya serious Brett? Why is there even a question in your mind about what you should do?”

So I sat and listened to my friend and gave whatever encouragement I could to him. And I tell ya… I learned more about loving others that night than all my other study times combined.

To be honest it wasn’t very difficult to love in this situation, but it got me thinking about if this wasn’t a friend or if I had something more pressing I needed to do. That’s the challenge for me. Can I put me aside and lift others up even when it hurts? Jesus did.

If you want to read more about what God says about love I would check out the book of 1st John. (especially chapter 4)

-Brett

It’s hard to believe that it’s already the midle of June. I’m sitting downtown on a beautiful, sunny day and just finished a meeting with another ministry leader about our downtown campus which we are planning to launch this coming mid September. In case you haven’t heard, Blackhawk Church is going to be launching a campus of Blackhawk at the Majestic Theater this Fall. We are really excited about this new venture to see what God has in store for us! This is going to be a full multigenerational church.

This coming Sunday, June 20 at Blackhawk, we are going to be having meetings after every service to talk with people about the new launch in order to find people who would like to be a part of this. I’m simply writing this as a head’s up to say that if you are planning on making Blackhawk Church downtownyour home next year, we’d love to see you at one of these meetings. Obviously, if you aren’t in Madison this summer, that will be a little hard for you to make. But, if you are here for the summer, let us know you are interested to come and be a part of Blackhawk at the Majestic.

I hope that everyone enjoyed last nights talk…I know it was a good reminder for myself even! I was so glad to hear all the stories about how God’s Spirit moved many of us back towards Himself.

If any of you are curious, here are a few books I would recommend on the subject:

The Gospel For Real Life by Jerry Bridges

A Contrarian’s Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality For the Rest of Us by Larry Osborne

Enjoy!

As some of you have remarked…it looks like rain this weekend…but as of now we are still a go! The campground will allow us to transfer our reservation fee should we decide to stay only one night…so we’re good to go!

Regent West parking lot…6:30!!!

Going on the CAM-ping trip? We’re excited to have you!

We’re planning on meeting at the Regent lot at 6:30 and leaving shortly after. If you are not scheduled to bring a car/people then try and get a ride to the Regent. If not, meet us there and we’ll take care of it then (don’t worry…we have a plan!). What happens if it Rains? Good question…not sure. We’re gonna have to play that one by ear…or rather by radar (http://www.weather.com/weather/weekend/53913). Should the weather seem unbearable we may just have to postpone to another date ☹ But we’ve got our fingers crossed and we’re praying for good weather! Be checking your email and the blog for weather updates.

You will need to eat your own meal Friday night…other than that, food will be provided.
If you have any questions email Seth at sdunham@blackhawkchurch.org or call him at 402-631-7586.

Items you should bring:

1. Sleeping Bag
2. Pillow
3. Sleeping Pad
4. Tent (if you have one)
5. Toothbrush, Shampoo, etc (there are showers)
6. Towel
7. Breathable clothing (non-cotton)
8. Bathing suit
9. Hiking shoes
10. Rain jacket/rain gear
11. Rock climbing shoes (if you have them)
12. Sandals
13. Sweatshirt/long pants
14. Bible/journal
15. Games, Frisbee, cards, vball, etc
16. Sunscreen
17. Car chargers for phones
18. Ipod (will have free time to listen to music)

Things taken care of:

1. Camping stoves
2. Weber
3. Cooler
4. Food (add)

Summer is finally here! I love this season of the year. It’s fairly warm and sunny during most days. You can often catch the scent of fresh cut grass or grilled meat in the air. Life tends to be a little more laid back. It’s a beautiful season.

For us at CAM, we took a couple of weeks off right after finals in order to plan out what next semester will look like. We had great times getting to know new team members and praying together that God would continue to lead us in the directions He wants us to go.

Now, as June is upon us, we are back in full swing with CAM for the summer….and we’d love to have you on board with us. We know that during the summer months, many different types of people find themselves here in Madison.

So….
whether you are a college student here to take a class or 2 over the summer…
If you you grew up in Madison and go to college somewhere else but find yourself back here for the summer…
If you are a student else where only here for the summer to take classes or work an internship…
If you are working in the area and looking for some people to get to know and spend time with…
If you are a graduating high school senior who is more than ready to take the plunge into the next stage of life….

…we are hoping that CAM can be a place for you to land, feel comfortable in and have a chance to take a look at what role God might desire to play in your life in this season.

We are looking forward to getting to know you this summer! Come hang out with us.

Matt