by Steve | Mar 3, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: the camp meeting …
Where Two Centuries Meet
by Eddie Robb, Associate Editor Good News
In our country there exists a movement unknown to most people. Though it is widespread and thriving, no attention is given to it by the news media. You see, camp meetings are simply a part of forgotten America.
Camp meeting? the very words conjure vivid thoughts from our past. Screaming evangelists … spirited singing … seekers wailing at the mourners’ bench—and all these under a crowded tent on a hot summer night in the South.
Few people, even church folks, realize camp meetings are not dead. In fact, several hundred camps are still held each year.
This past summer I traveled to six camp meetings in four states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Georgia} to feel the pulse of this movement that won’t go away. Some of what I found I had expected; much I hadn’t.
At one camp in the eastern hills of Ohio, a sheriff stood guard at the entrance gate 24 hours per day. It reminded me of days gone by when ruffians took delight in breaking up camp meetings.
As I drove through the gate of that 138-year-old camp, it struck me that Peter Cartwright could have just as easily been there for all I knew. Time seemed stopped.
In many ways camp meetings today are like they always have been. Only they are more subdued.
Early American frontier camp meetings were characterized by emotional exhilaration. It was common for men and women to be suddenly swept up in various “exercises.”
Jerks, a spasmodic twitching of the entire body, became a regular occurrence. Sometimes the movement would be so quick and violent that the kerchiefs on women’s heads would fly off.
There were other “evidences ” of the Holy Spirit’s presence, too—the “laughing exercise, ” when uncontrollable guffaws exploded in the congregation; the “singing exercise, ” in which the worshipers chanted melodiously; and the “barking exercise, ” when the smitten gathered on their knees at the foot of trees, barking and snapping in order to “tree the Devil.”
Though today’s camp meetings don’t reflect frontier emotionalism, some characteristics continue. Schedules, for example, remain much like they were 50 years ago.
Regimentation: one, two, three, four! Up at 6:30 for morning prayer. Preaching services three times each day. Lights out at 10:30. Bells, bells, bells. And you’d better know what they mean!
I remember one day after lunch walking through Stoutsville Camp with my wife. Suddenly I got the eerie feeling that everyone was staring at us. I then realized everyone was quiet, except us! People were stopped in their tracks, sometimes in funny positions. It was as though they were instantly frozen.
I didn’t know what was happening, so I shut up and froze, too. After a couple of minutes people began moving again—and talking.
Later I found out that each day at one o’clock there are three minutes of silence for prayer. Alas, another bell!
The life of every camp meeting centers around the tabernacle. Here people gather for preaching services three times per day, youth included. Lively singing is followed by exuberant preaching.
Most camps have three guest evangelists, plus a music team. The evangelists rotate services.
To my delight, I found the preaching in the 20-plus services I attended remarkably good. Perhaps psychology was not a part of old-fashioned camp meeting preaching, but it is today. Preachers were seriously attempting to redefine the classical camp meeting message of holiness in a contemporary context, without losing its reality.
All my life I have heard of “shouting Methodists,” but I’ve never seen any. In fact, at most United Methodist churches I’ve attended, the only shouting is done by kids in the nursery.
But this summer I saw some real shouting Methodists! They got happy! Right in the middle of a sermon, at one of those places where I so much wanted to say, “right on,” but didn’t, a man jumped up from his seat and began hollering. I thought he must have fallen asleep and had a nightmare. I was terribly embarrassed for him and his poor wife … and for the preacher!
To my astonishment the evangelist kept right on preaching as though nothing were happening. And the congregation continued listening as though nothing were happening.
Suddenly I realized, this was a shouting Methodist in real life! ” Hallelujah! ” (I exclaimed under my breath).
Camp meetings are strangely alike. Most are interdenominational, have strong holiness ties, and are John Wesley-conscious. In fact, many camp meetings are attended mostly by United Methodists.
Missions is a central emphasis in the camp meeting tradition. Usually camps devote an entire day to it and have guest missionary speakers.
God has apparently honored America’s camp meetings. Over the years, hundreds of young people have gone forth from camp meeting grounds to mission fields and pulpits all over the world.
One such person was Dr. E. A. Seamands who served as a Methodist missionary in India for 40 years. ”
It all began 65 years ago,” he recently told me. “I was a student in the Engineering College of the University of Cincinnati, and ran out of money. So I wrote my Uncle John for urgent aid. He wrote back saying that he would be at Camp Sychar in Mount Vernon, Ohio, for 10 days and invited me to come up and talk the matter over personally. ”
So Earl Seamands left for Camp Sychar thinking he would get to spend a few days at a recreation resort. To his horror and disgust he discovered that Camp Sychar was a holiness camp meeting!
“I wanted to turn around and head back to Cincinnati, but I needed financial help from my Uncle John, so I gritted my teeth and stayed.
” Little did realize,” Dr. Seamands continued, “that when I would walk out of that camp eight days later my life would be changed.”
Dr. Seamands, like so many youth through the years, received his call on “missionary day ” at a camp meeting.
OMS International and World Gospel Mission dominate the camp meetings’ missions emphasis today. Many camps even include these missionary organizations in their budgets. (Unfortunately, the UM Board of Global Ministries is no longer supported by camp meeting people because of the board’s non-evangelical direction.)
Camp meetings certainly are not in their heyday anymore, but they’re not ailing either. Some, in fact, are thriving. A key reason for their vitality is youth participation. That may surprise you, considering their stringent rules, rigorous schedule, and frequent lack of recreational facilities. But it’s true. And perhaps what’s most surprising is that the kids love it. They come in large numbers to many camp meetings.
A leader of Cherry Run Camp in Pennsylvania told me, “We don’t have much in the way of recreation facilities for the kids, but we do have results.” He meant conversions to Jesus Christ, spiritual growth, and calling of many into Christian service.
Some camps are better equipped for recreation than others. A family from Indian Springs in Georgia, for example, recently built a private lake just for the camp’s kids. Now they have swimming, sailing, skiing, and boating-along with other excellent facilities. However, none of the camps make “entertaining the kids ” a primary goal.
One facility all camps do have is a youth tabernacle. Here they conduct their own services, special activities, and vespers. Many camps even have evangelists for the youth.
Evangelism and new birth are not the primary emphases of camp meetings. After all, most people who attend are already Christians, so the camps traditionally focus on Christian growth … the deeper life … holiness … sanctification.
Perhaps that’s why the camp bookstore is always such an important place. Reading is emphasized, and so people stock up on good books for another year.
Camp meetings, I noted, have a strong emphasis on ethics. They are not, as you might suppose, mainly experience-centered. How you live is more important to them than what you feel. Maybe that explains the prevalence of camp meeting rules. (John Wesley himself stressed “General Rules ” for all the early Methodists. These still appear in our Discipline, pages 67-70.)
Above most pulpits hanging high on the tabernacle wall is a sign proclaiming “Holiness Unto the Lord.” Other camp meetings have banners instructing “Mind God.” Camps take people’s behavior seriously; thus, no drinking, no smoking, no obscene language, no visiting during services, etc. And many camps also define what type of dress is acceptable.
Legalism? Maybe. But camp meeting people simply call it “discipline.”
Contemporary camp meetings tend to be ingrown. They have become a kind of Christian sub-culture—knowing little beyond the holiness movement and known only faintly by the outside Christian world.
Camp meeting people don’t readily trust outsiders because of the prevailing humanism in so many churches. As a result, certain preachers are re-cycled year after year. At one camp I visited, the two guest evangelists had preached there a joint total of 20 times.
Over and over I found myself asking, “Why do all these people come in spite of regimentation … often rustic facilities … stringent rules … long preaching services?”
Then one night it dawned on me while I was listening to another sermon. The evangelist remarked: “Christians are a minority, yes. But show me a kingdom where the royal family is not a minority.”
That’s it! Of course camp meetings are a sub-culture … of course they’re a minority. Though the facilities aren’t plush like the Holiday Inn and though Christian expression in camp meetings is often outdated, lots of people come back year after year. Why? Because they are a part of the royal family … because they love the King.
by Steve | Mar 2, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: Our Master’s Mind
Reflections on the atoning death of Jesus Christ
by Rev. Dr. John N. Oswalt, Associate Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky
Elder, Kentucky Annual Conference, United Methodist Church
Today, at every turn, we meet the sign of the Cross. We see it on coat lapels, on slender, golden chains about girls’ necks, on church steeples, even on ball point pens. There is something clean about it, something geometrically satisfying, something lovely.
Yet, the Cross (as a cross) was the exact opposite of these. It was not clean but degrading … not satisfying but horrifying … not lovely but gruesome. It was an instrument of torture, devised to produce the slowest, most excruciating death the ancient world could inflict. Yet it was to such a death that the Lord of Glory went—consciously, purposefully. Why? What was it which impelled Him there—to that stake?
It was His mind. No, not His mental capacity … not His brainpower, but His outlook on life, His basic approach to living. It was His servanthood. Both Philippians, chapter 2, and Isaiah, chapter 52, proclaim this truth.
What was the nature of Christ’s servanthood? The famous servant passage, beginning with Isaiah 52:13, depicts several facets of Jesus’ attitude.
First, Jesus’ servanthood is rooted and grounded in triumph. The outcome was sealed from the beginning. Jesus knew who He was; He knew whence He had come. More than that, He knew where He was going. Any identity crises He may ever have had were resolved in His abiding faith in His Father and in the certainty of the triumphant conclusion of His mission. He had no need to exalt Himself, to fight for status. He knew who He was.
But immediately, one is brought face to face with the jolting results of servanthood: astonishment and rejection. From the heights of promised triumph one is dashed down by the memory that although the world longs for the balm of true servanthood, none of us likes the scarred, twisted face of it. (53:1,2) Who could believe that salvation would look like that? Where are the accouterments of divinity? Where at least is the charm of physical beauty?
What did we expect—a costumed drum major to lead our triumphal parade? No, but at least we expected a sign so that we could know He was on the winning side before we decided to join with Him!
How astonishing that He should grow up so quietly and naturally, like a plant—no fireworks, no glittering bodyguard, none of that satisfying royal pomp. No, His divinity was in His character, not His bearing. He loved people, common, ordinary people, and it was a divine love. He desired to serve people with their hurts and their sorrows, and it was a divine desire.
But most of all, through it all, He was a good man, maddeningly, unconventionally good. That’s why we reject Him—His absolute goodness condemns us! Nobody can be that good. Nobody ought to be that good! Away with Him!
Legalistic goodness—totaling up its points, toiling upward on the weary path—that we understand. That we like. But goodness for its own sake? Plain, unadulterated unselfishness? It’s embarrassing, it’s indecent. It is as if someone were walking around naked, unprotected! It’s contrary to human nature. That is why “we hid as it were our faces from Him.” (53:3)
The results of Jesus’ servanthood were astonishment and rejection. “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (53:3) Whose? His own? No. “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” (53:5)
Whose twisted, scarred, broken face is that I see upon the Cross? It is the face of all the world. All the injustice, all the greed, all the hopelessness, all the insane hatreds look out at me from those eyes. My God, it is my face I see! That terrible, broken, despised face there on the Cross is mine.
And yet—and yet—we saw Him suffering and we did not think much of it. Perhaps He deserved it. Perhaps He brought it upon Himself. If only He had been a little less prodigal, a little more restrained, a little wiser, a little more conventionally pious, perhaps then He would not have died nailed to a cross between two thieves.
We cannot admit to ourselves that this should be our end, the end of our selfishness. We dare not admit that through the Cross He has taken upon Himself our own nature and has thus transformed it.
Yet, “All we like sheep. have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way.” (53:6) In us it is that quiet, stupid, thoughtless willfulness which leads us , like sheep, from one clump of grass to the next, following our noses, refusing to be led by Him. But He has taken our sheepliness upon Himself and in Him it is transformed. “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is dumb before her shearers, so he opened not his mouth.” (53:7) He has taken our nature and our fate, and taking them He has shown us all that we were meant to be.
What is the result of Christ’s servanthood? To be misunderstood … rejected … loaded with unbearable burdens … killed. Even the final irony, to be buried with the thoughtless, self-sufficient rich! Worst of all, He was cut off without children. (53:8) To those of the ancient world, no worse fate than a childless death could be imagined. For children provided the only certainty that one’s name would live on after one had died. Resurrection could be hoped for—but in children there was a certainty of living on. To die childless was to be as if one had never lived. (53:8)
But there are offspring from Jesus’ servanthood—a numberless host. “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou was slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priest to our God.’ ” (Revelation 5:9, 10a) “Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
Because Jesus dared to trust His Father’s promise, all the world will fall down in honor of that Name above every name. Jesus—Savior. Immanuel—God with us.
How many times must Satan have whispered in Jesus ear, “This is crazy! You’re going to die and it’s going to be all over. You’ll be forgotten in six months.”
Suppose—impossible thought—Jesus had succumbed. Suppose He had not had the faith to see beyond the present. Had this happened, then His real posterity—you and I—would have been lost.
This brings us to the final aspect of Jesus’ servanthood—the nature of it. It sounds trite and simple, especially here, but His servanthood was redemptive. No place in the Old Testament is the process of Christian redemption more clearly stated than here in Isaiah 53. The hurts, the agonies, the iniquities of the world cannot be ignored, they cannot be whitewashed, they cannot be pushed under the rug. They must be faced. They must have the poison drained out of them.
The Cross stands out on the highest hill of time, a lightning rod attracting to itself all that we have made of ourselves. In this sense it pleased God to bruise Hirn. (53:10) He was glad to lay all of that upon His Son—Himself—in order to save us from the consequences of ourselves.
But He forces this gift on no one. A servant does not command, He offers. He offers, and offers, and offers. He offers Himself to us in order that we might, in turn, offer Hirn to God: His transformed nature in place of our deformed nature. It is so terribly embarrassing: that a person should give Himself to us without reserve or condition! It is frightening … it is unbelievable … but it is true!
This is the glory of redemption: it is not an “it ” or a “process,” but Him. (53:11b) Real life is knowledge of Him—that is, intimate acquaintance with Hirn. This is what it started out to be one morning several millennia ago. And unless the atonement results in fellowship, unless Jesus continues to serve us and we Hirn, then the purpose of the Cross is frustrated. This is not a cultic matter, the correct performance of certain religious acts. The Hebrew prophets 3,000 years ago, were trying to convey to their people that God wants us, not our church services or our devotions or our abstinences. If He has us, then these others may be of value, but not as substitutes.
How easily we fall into the trap of thinking that because we do certain things for God, He will do certain things for us. Or, if we don’t do certain things, God will not do certain things for us. Redemption is not a mechanical tit-for-tat affair. It is a relationship! This is why marriage is so commonly used in the Bible as a figure of speech describing the redemptive relationship. If my wife, Karen, were measuring me in terms of perfect performance as a husband, it would have all been over a long time ago. But she loves me and she knows that I love her. That makes all the difference!
What is the result of Jesus’ redemptive servanthood? Triumph! The Servant is the King. Had Jesus clung to that equality with God which was rightfully His, He certainly would have lost it. But because He rejected His “rights,” choosing instead the path of service, the Name above every name was given to Him. This, then, is the mind of Christ—revealed most of all by His death upon the Cross for undeserving sinners. What does this mean for us? What does it call for in us?
First, the mind of Christ in us calls for a continuing sense of triumph. In this darkening world, where increasing numbers of people are con vi need that there is nothing beyond the natural realm, it is only a sense of God’s eventual triumph which will allow us to deny the inner scream for self-protection and to take up the cross of service. This knowledge of God’s triumph makes it possible for us to lay ourselves down in the road and to become a bridge, as Jesus did on Calvary.
And indeed, the person who lays himself down will be walked on! Thus, the mind of Christ in us calls for the willingness to bear rejection, to be misunderstood, to be maligned. Let me add, however, that to be rejected is not proof positive that we have the mind of Christ. Some of us are rejected because we deserve to be! We are selfish, headstrong, tactless. Some of us are like porcupines—interesting to watch but not someone you want to get close to! Peter warns us to make sure that we are being persecuted for righteousness’ sake and not because we deserve it. No crowns are handed out for deserved persecution! (I Peter 2:20)
But suppose rejection is not deserved? What then?
One of the most basic human drives is to be accepted. People lie, steal, or kill to gain the acceptance of those whose opinion they value. One of the major causes of mental illness is a sense of rejection, of being unwanted. How can one face such a thing? How did Jesus?
One certainty was uppermost in His mind: God had accepted Him and it was God’s acceptance which mattered most. This can be our rock as well: God has accepted me! I am His, He is mine. Even when I fail Him, He knows the intent of my heart and He does not reject me. No, we are not Christ. We do sin. But even then, discipline does not mean rejection. Rather, God’s discipline demonstrates the completeness of our acceptance (Hebrews 12:5-7) “in the beloved.”
The mind of Christ in us calls for a sense of triumph and for a willingness to face rejection. It also calls for us to bear griefs and sorrows. Oh, this is hard! Judging is easier than bearing. Pronouncing is easier than grieving.
What did Jesus’ bearing mean? It meant sharing. It means taking upon myself another person’s sins and failures, becoming intimately involved. It means breaking down my self-built protections which wall out other people’s pain. It means to invite pain and upset.
This is hard. But it is the only safe path for you and me. Any other pathway ends in a whitewashed tomb. We need to live in horror of Pharisaism’s dead orthodoxy. In our worst nightmares we need to see ourselves lifting spotless hems lest they be defiled by the griefs and sorrows and sins of the world.
The mind of Christ, then, calls for redemptive servanthood. Not that we can redeem the world, but that we may be agents of Christ’s redemption.
How carefully we protect ourselves. We are so wise. Luke said, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none.” (Luke 3:11) But when we see a skinny derelict clutching a ragged jacket around his shoulders against a bone-chilling winter wind and we have on a $70 topcoat, “how dwelleth the love of God in us?”
“He wouldn’t appreciate it. Why, he’d probably sell it for $5 to buy some whiskey.” Yes, those things are very probably true. But I’ve still got my coat, don’t I? How redemptive is our servanthood anyway?
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
by Steve | Mar 1, 1977 | Archive - 1977
How God is working in the life of Fred Chambers, a mission-minded jet pilot. He declares…
Archive: Jesus Takes You Higher!
by Randall Nulton United Methodist College Student
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard American Airlines flight 677 from New York to Sanjuan, Puerto Rico. Estimated arrival time will be 10:56. Weather in San Juan is clear. Temperature is a mild seventy-six degrees. We will be cruising at a speed of approximately 575 miles per hour, at an altitude of 33,000 feet. …”
Twenty flights a month, American Airlines Captain Fred G. Chambers speaks over the intercom of the massive red, white, and blue Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet he is commanding. And during off-days and vacations, Chambers puts his 40 years of aviation experience to work for the Lord.
Chambers, a member of Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, New Jersey, pledges himself “anew to Christ” each day, asking the Lord to give him something special to do. “Don’t ever say that unless you mean it,” the trim Captain testified. “You’ll really get some assignments!” Those “assignments” for him have included inspecting missionary pilots the world over, “smoke jumping” into dense jungles, skydiving at exhibitions, and numerous speaking engagements.
Having logged over 20,000 air hours in everything from the Piper Cub and helicopter, to the enormous 747, Chambers is qualified to fly almost anything short of a rocket. During the 1960s, he served as superintendent of American Airlines flight training when the airline was making a transition from propeller planes to jets.
Doors suddenly opened for mission field service after Fred and his wife, Winifred, had put their sixth child through college in 1970. Fred was asked to serve on a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Committee that was taking a “fresh look” at the missionary pilots’ accident records.
“We have always had an interest in missions and we knew a little bit about a couple of mission boards,” said Chambers. “When we became available, the Lord used us.”
In May of 1972, Fred and Winnie traveled to New Guinea and Indonesia. There he tested MAF and Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS—air-arm of Wycliffe Bible Translators) pilots from an “outsider’s point of view.” He made six or eight suggestions to “the best pilots in the world flying in the poorest conditions.”
In March of 1973 and 1974, Chambers traveled to Zaire and Liberia, Africa, where he conducted safety seminars and proficiency checks for pilots in the Mission Aviation Fellowship and United Methodist Missions.
“The United Methodist pilots (Robert C. Bennett, Billy Davis, Leonard Woodcock, Kenneth Kuhrt, Fay Smith, Ken Enright …) were a bit critical at first, but then they agreed it was a good idea,” said Chambers. He passed along hints on flying techniques. Often, he takes a whole staff of Christian flight instructors along on these overseas trips.
“We’ve established a whole new procedure to mission flying,” Chambers continued. “We have inspectors going to the field every year. And at least every other year, each missionary pilot participates in a safety seminar. As a result, we are seeing improvements in the accident record.”
In 1963, Fred and his oldest son Fritz took a habit-forming plunge from an airplane. “We found our first parachute jump so thrilling, we took the whole free-fall training course,” explained the bald pilot (some friends call him “Bald Eagle” or “Kojack of the Air”). Immediately hooked on skydiving, Chambers has now made over 500 jumps.
“There is no sensation of falling, height, or speed,” said Chambers, describing a typical jump. “There is more a sense of weightlessness. It’s a big thrill to fly the 747 with all of its controls, but in skydiving it’s just me flying my body within the physical laws of God’s universe.
“At first I asked God: ‘Why this added bonus?”‘ Chambers went on. “The answer soon came, ‘You’ll use it for Me!”‘
A photographer made a 25-minute skydiving film featuring the Captain’s trim 5-foot-11-inch, 160- pound frame gliding and zooming through the air 7,500 feet above the ground. For years, once or twice a week, Chambers has used the film as a vehicle to share Christ to youth and adult church and civic organizations. Chambers also crusades with his movies of the aviation missions’ work in Indonesia and Africa.
In 1970, Chambers mastered the “smoke jumper’s” art of parachuting into trees. In Peru and Colombia, South America, Chambers has taught JAARS pilots how to “bail out” into low dense jungle as an emergency readiness measure. In 1971 and 1973 Chambers ventured to Colombia where he joined parachute squads building an emergency landing strip near the headwaters of the Amazon River.
Some missionary pilots had been slashing and slogging their way through thick jungle for as much as two weeks to inspect new airstrips. Though crises requiring use of the strips have developed only a few times, the airborne missionaries have completed dozens of flights in threatening weather. Before Chambers came they wouldn’t even have been attempted.
Recently, Chambers displayed his skydiving skill in a series of exhibitions. They called it “Missions Day at the Airport.” These were designed to raise money, and interest recruits for the work of the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service.
“When the speaker drops in from the sky—people listen!” he laughed.
In his desire to keep abreast with the mission aviation scene, Chambers has recently earned his helicopter operator’s license. Mountainous mission fields often require the use of whirlybirds. In 1975, Chambers scarred his accident-free career. His helicopter’s rotor blades hit some tree limbs when he was practicing a confined area landing. He had to set it down in the brush.
“Once in a while the Lord shows us that we really are dependent on Him,” Chambers remarked. “No one’s perfect. We have to learn God’s laws, spiritual and physical, and stay within them. I had no business being in that tight area.”
The very next day the chopper was to be used in a JAARS “Missions Day at the Airport” exhibition. Footing the repair bill himself, Chambers calls the accident “A $5,000 lesson in humility.”
Fred Chambers accepted Christ as his Savior 36 years ago, after hearing Dr. E. Stanley Jones on the shores of Lake Erie at a Churchman’s League retreat.
“I wanted to use one of the fellow’s airplanes,” Chambers mused. “I couldn’t help but go to the retreat with him.” Later he joined the Fellowship of Christian Airlines Personnel, founded by United Airlines pilot Bob Burdick.
Chambers was born and raised in a Christian home, but the message had never gotten through. He had never asked Christ into his life nor made a personal commitment to Him. Looking back over his years with Christ, Chambers said, “Often the path seems narrow, but as long as I keep my hand in His, nothing touches that peace and security, and ultimate destination that I have.”
Chambers’ wife, Winifred, is a talented musician, endowed with perfect pitch. She uses her gifts when traveling with her husband. “You can whistle a tune for her and she can sit down and write out a score for the organist, the pianist, and the four-part chorus,” said Fred.
Winnie works with the indigenous music of the native people, often rewriting new Gospel songs in their musical modes. In one Point Barrow, Alaska, Eskimo church hymnbook, you’ll find 27 hymns that say: “Music by Winifred Chambers.”
“We’re in this together, continually talking about and praying for missionary friends, problems, and needs,” said Mrs. Chambers. “Also in planning how, when, and where to do things, according to God’s timing.”
Prior to his missionary travels, Chambers served for many years as junior high youth leader of their Pacific Palisades, California, Community United Methodist Church. He was also a member of the Beverly Hills Christian Businessmen’s Club. On moving to New Jersey in 1975, the Chambers joined Trinity United Methodist. When home, Fred serves on the mission board. Winnie serves on the music committee and often substitutes at the piano and organ. She also sings in the “real going choir.”
Though Fred is retiring from American Airlines in September, it will be a long time before the rocking chair gets the best of the 59-year-old pilot. Chambers jogs a few miles each morning and fasts each Monday. He believes physical discipline carries over into professional and spiritual life.
“The world’s worst thing to do is to sit around and wait to die,” Mrs. Chambers reflected. “Life gets more exciting all the time.”
Chambers hopes to return to Alaska where he landed his first job as a bush pilot 38 years ago. “Alaska is the logical place for me because I know the weather conditions and terrain,” said Chambers. “It takes two years to break in a new pilot.” This time he will be flying for the Missionary Aviation Repair Center, an organization he has helped occasionally during the past several years.
“If Christ can use something as ‘far out’ as my skydiving, He can use all of our lives if we turn our talents over to Him,” the Captain emphasized. “Jesus will take us higher, but we have to keep our eyes open, our ear to the wall, and keep getting trained in our field. I just use airplanes to launch my Christian service.”
The next time you wonder if … “IT’S A BIRD. IT’S A PLANE. …” don’t be fooled. It’s probably Fred Chambers free-falling toward the earth at 200 miles per hour on another “skydive for Jesus.”
