"Well, that's an hour of my life I'll never get back."

We've all heard that phrase. Usually it's spoken with regret after wasting time on something that wasn't worth it.

This past week, I realized something.

I've spent 52 weeks of my life at FUGE Camps.

One entire year.

If you've spent any time at church camp, you know those weeks are filled with things that are hard to explain to anyone who wasn't there. The songs that immediately take you back (the banana song), traditions that somehow made perfect sense at the time (going insane for a FUGE flag), and moments that became part of FUGE folklore (the pack is back)....

I'll never forget riding an imaginary pony around while screaming into a microphone. Cranking it like a chainsaw or referring to everything as "quality" and calling people "badgers." The sweet taste of Mega Relay victory and hoisting the FUGE Cup, seven times! And of course, all of the late night meals at Perkins, cause after all, "we belong here."

Rec Rally

This encompasses the essence of camp!

Fifty-two weeks away from home. Fifty-two weeks sleeping in dorms and bunk beds. Fifty-two weeks eating camp food, playing wild games, losing my voice at rec rallies, running countless Mega Relays, sweating through hot summers, praising Jesus at the top of my lungs in worship, and watching thousands upon thousands of students encounter the living God.

One full year.

A year I'll never get back

The journey started the summer before my junior year of high school. I jumped on a van with my home church growing up, Park Baptist, and headed to Ridgecrest Conference Center for my very first FUGE Camp.

I had no idea that one week would shape so much of the next twenty-one years of my life.

At the time, it was just a youth camp that some leaders thought would be good to take us to. Looking back, it was the beginning of a story only God could write.

First Ever FUGE in 2005

Me and Whitney Shaw on stage blowing spit wads on each other’s glasses.

As a camper at FUGE, God deepened my walk with Christ. He challenged me to pursue holiness, to love His Word, and to take my faith seriously as my own.

The next two summers, I attended M-FUGE at Belmont University. There, I learned that ministry wasn't just something pastors did behind pulpits. Ministry happened in neighborhoods, with children, among the forgotten, and even inside juvenile detention centers. I was a teenager discovering that serving "the least of these" wasn't an event, it was the heartbeat of Jesus.

Those weeks quietly shaped the kind of ministry I would one day lead.

It was at FUGE the summer after my senior year of high school, just a few weeks before college started, that God changed my plans and sent me to Hannibal-LaGrange University. God would write another significant chapter of my story through that school, but that is a blog for another day.

During college, I returned to FUGE as an adult leader, alongside my youth pastor, bringing students from my home church. It felt like I was giving back what others had invested in me.

Then came the summer of 2010, my first summer on staff with FUGE camps.

Just nine days before staff training began, I survived a horrific truck accident while serving on a mission trip in Haiti. You can read more about that story HERE

I honestly wasn't sure if I should even work camp that summer.

Everything in me felt shaken and uncertain about what God was doing...

But I went.

I see now, God knew exactly where I needed to be. He surrounded me with people who encouraged me, gave me purpose through serving, and reminded me that even in seasons of pain, the Lord is faithful to sustain His children.

Sometimes the place where you go to serve becomes the place where God heals you.

Two years later, while serving on staff in 2012, God interrupted my plans in two huge ways that would shape my life to this day.

First, it was during that summer that I surrendered to full-time ministry. I knew God wanted me to serve the local church. Surrendering to that call changed the trajectory of my life forever.

The other divine interruption, a girl named Brittany Nicole Marshall. Turns out God had been working on more than just my calling. Meeting my wife while serving the Lord was the beginning of a story we are still writing today.

Summer 2012

This picture was right after camp ended and we could officially “date"

The next summer, God blessed me by allowing me the honor and privilege to be one of the Directors of a FUGE Camps team. Leading a team of college students taught me more about shepherding people than I realized at the time. I know now that God was preparing me to pastor long before I ever had the title.

Speaking of pastoring, it was that summer that I connected with a church by the name of First Baptist Hazel Green.

At the time, it was just another church attending camp.

Five months later it became the church that gave me my first full-time ministry position as their Student Pastor.

God was writing chapters I couldn't yet read.

My final week working FUGE came in the summer of 2014, and I couldn't have scripted a better ending.

My very first Bible study leader from 2005, Dave Snyder, brought students to Union University where I was serving. Nearly a decade after pouring into me as a staffer, he was getting to see me serve the way he had.

Also, on that team at Union was Daniel Taylor, a student who had been in my Bible study group while I served at Southwest Baptist University in 2011.

After that week, I posted this picture and wrote these words:

FUGE Generations

God is good! On the left is Dave. He was my Bible study leader in 2005. On the right is Daniel. Daniel was in my Bible study in 2011 at FUGE where I challenged him to be a leader and consider working FUGE. Daniel said God used that week in his life in a radical way. This past week I got the privilege to work alongside Daniel at FUGE and spend time with Dave who is now a student pastor. God works in ways you may never get to see, or he may bring you the blessing of your labor years down the road.

I've never forgotten that.

Because ministry is rarely about immediate results.

Most of the seeds we plant disappear beneath the surface.

Sometimes we never see what God grows.

But other times, by His grace, He lets us catch a glimpse of the growth years later.

Since 2014, I've continued bringing students to FUGE as both a youth pastor and now as a lead pastor.

Groups that were small in number and groups that took two tour buses to get there, but the impact was still the same… Hearts turned. Lives redirected. Young people walking away from camp no longer the same people who walked in.

Perhaps one of my greatest joys has been watching former students become the next generation of FUGE staff.

So far, twelve students whom I've had the privilege of pastoring have gone on to serve on staff.

Think about that for a moment.

In 2005, Dave Snyder invested one week in a high school kid. I doubt he had any idea what God would do through that one week. He couldn't have known that years later I'd work FUGE, surrender to ministry, meet my wife, pastor churches, or have the privilege of watching twelve of my own students become staffers.

That's how God often works.

We serve faithfully today, rarely knowing how far our obedience will travel. The seeds we plant in one generation often become fruit in another.

That's how the Kingdom works.

Disciples making disciples.

Faithfulness multiplies.

“The Lord does not always show us the full purpose of our service. He hides the end from us that He may train our faith.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon

Looking back over the last 21 summers, I realize that FUGE was never just about the things God taught me at camp.

It became a place where God shaped my character.

Where He clarified my calling.

Where He healed wounds.

Where He introduced me to my wife.

Where He opened ministry doors.

Where He allowed me to invest in students.

Where He let me see the fruit of seeds planted years before.

And where He has reminded me, over and over again, that no act of faithful service is EVER wasted.

We often think serving means we're giving something up.

Time.

Energy.

Comfort.

Convenience.

And when we don't see the fruit, we wonder if it mattered. When nobody notices, we consider walking away. We measure our service by what's visible, and the visible parts often feel thin.

But the Kingdom of God has always worked differently.

Jesus said that whoever loses their life for His sake will find it (Matthew 16:25).

Jesus spent three years pouring into twelve men. By Friday of the final week, it looked like everything Jesus had invested in those men had failed. It looked as though every seed He had planted had been buried with His body. But Sunday changed everything. The One who gave His life didn't lose it. The grave could not hold Him. And now He's inviting us to lose ours for His sake, trusting that He'll give us life we couldn't have found on our own.

That's been my story.

I thought I was just giving God my summers.

Instead, He gave me a calling.

A wife.

Friendships.

Ministry opportunities.

Spiritual growth.

Stories I'll tell the rest of my life.

I gave Him weeks.

He gave me a life.

So yes...

I've spent a full year at FUGE Camps.

It's a year I'll never get back.

And by God's grace...

It's a year I would never want back.

Because I received far more than I ever gave.

If you're faithfully serving somewhere today, whether anyone notices or not, keep going. Don’t give up.

You have no idea what story God is writing.

One day you may look back and realize that what felt like just a simple "yes" to serving God became one of the most significant chapters of your life.

Moments you will never get back, moments you will never want back.

"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up" – Galatians 6:9

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

— Galatians 6:9

A Year I'll Never Get Back

Kairos