Paddle Into Eternity

To say that Jay Carty is an unusual communicator is a mild statement. Maybe a little nuts would be more accurate, not a preacher, not a teacher, more a storyteller with a very important message where some deep preachers are too snoozey for the rank and file and where some humorists don’t have much to say Jay’s stuff is generally regarded as an unusual blending of humor and profound content. A former Oregon state basketball star and LA Laker. Jay has dedicated his life to helping people say yes to God. Now we hope you enjoy Carty’s contemporary classics.

Rafting was the lure and I was the fisherman. See? And we had a lot of kids who didn’t know Christ because they knew they had to go to the meetings, but they’re willing to endure the meetings to go rafting. See, so I’m going to speak to them starting Sunday night, every night. So it’s Sunday night, they’re all anticipating going rafting the next day. And I’ve got a spotlight right in my face. Just one massive spotlight. We’re staying in an old rodeo fairground in central Oregon with the wooden steps and the wooden out cropping to keep the rain off and camped out there amongst the cow pies.

And I got one spotlight. I cannot even see the front row. So there’s no way to do any crowd control with my eyes. And I can hear everybody buzzing the whole time, elbowing each other, laughing, sneaking off into the bushes, climbing up into the rafters, Bedlam. And I had shadows crisscrossing my face from the bugs, flying through the spotlight. Moth what’s more than one moth? What’s a plural moth? Mothisis? Okay. So I got mothisis flying through putting, they don’t want to be there. They’re anxious to go rafting, Sunday night, waste of time.

All right, now we go rafting on Monday, you take 360 Western Oregonians who haven’t seen the sun for over nine months. And you put them in the sun on the water all day. They rest. I mean, it’s just what they do. They rest. They become lobsters they’re fried. You bring them home. You feed them. Half of them go to sleep. The other half are wired. They’re just wired. And now you put them in the stadium and I’m supposed to speak to them. I got a spotlight. I can’t see nothing. I got mothisis putting shadows across my face. We got kids elbowing each other, sneaking into the bushes, climbing into the rafters. It’s Bedlam.

Tuesday, in-house play day. Leadership says, Jay, we want you to give the kids a chance to receive Christ tonight. Say what? He said. Yeah, well, we haven’t connected yet. They don’t even know me. They couldn’t even tell you my name. I haven’t been able to communicate with this group yet. I need some more time. They said, no, we want to work with whoever decides to do that. And we want the rest of the week to work with, so do it, alright. Tuesday night, spotlight love these.

Elbows bushes, rafters, zoo, till halfway through, and God came on the meeting. I’m sorry to say it, it’s never happened to me since I’m thrilled to tell you it’s happened once in my ministry, once, like it happened that night, God came on the place. You didn’t have to be a believer to know God was there. Cause believers and non-believers stood, they sat in stone silence in the presence of God. People snuck in from the bushes and climbed down from the rafters. There were no open spaces. Everybody wanted to be next to somebody. And the mothisis, they stopped flying. I finally shut up and let God do what he wanted to, 52 kids came forward that night, but here’s the key, that was 13 years ago, folks. And we’ve counted. There were over 30 of those 52 that are currently in full-time service around the world as missionary’s pastors, youth pastors, but was a phenomenal, phenomenal night just but not George. Nope. Scott had brought him.

Scott was five-ten. 260 pounds. 4% body fat, a walking manhole cover. And he loved this friend, George. He was a good man. And Scott knew that good had nothing to do with it, because we’re all onions. And he knew that good has nothing to do with it. Relationship has everything to do with it. You’re going to let Christ stand before God for you? or you’re going to try to stand before God in your own merit? Those are the two issues that has nothing to do with goodness. And he knew his friend, George was in trouble and Scott didn’t know what to do. And he’d taken his best shot. He’d invite him and had the altar call and George didn’t respond. And Scott was frustrated and I was in the raft on Wednesday with Scott and George and one other guy. I’m 230, Scott’s 260, george is 200, and this guy weighed about 180. We had about this much raft out of the water.

It was like paddling a submarine, you know? And we’re lining up for a major run. And I hear Scott say to George, Hey George, you never know when something might happen. A person ought to be ready. And he throws him out of the boat, launches him. We come to garbage, here comes old George. And we paddle over to him when we got the still water and he hadn’t bumped his head or anything. He had a life jacket on. So he was okay and he and stuttering and spitting a bit. And Scott reaches down like a 260 pound, 4% body fat guy can do and one hands him into the boat. I looked him right in the eyes and said, see what? I mean?

We didn’t know how George took it. We were afraid to look. They didn’t speak the rest of the day and we didn’t speak to them. The only sounds were paddle right, paddle left, back paddle left, back paddle right. That’s the only, and when we got home that night leadership said, Jay, can you do a communion service? I said, well sure I can do a communion service. Did you bring the elements? No. Well, we got 52 kids who never had communion properly, so we want, we want to have a communion service. Can, can you figure it out for us? I said, well, I’ll see what I can do. So I go to the cook shack about all I could find was a box of kicks.

Cereal, corn puffs. And I found six, six-packs of Welch’s grape soda. They weren’t Episcopalians. We didn’t need bells and smells. I thought it would work. So we had us at communion service about 10:30 at night, the rodeo fairground under the stars. When we got through, Scott and George were sitting there. I went over, sat with them and Scott said, Jay, George would like to receive Christ. Would you lead us? It’d mean a lot to me. And then could the three of us have communion together? It’d be really special to me. We rummaged around found a couple of soggy kicks and shook a couple of drops out of the cans of soda and old George joined us in the family god that night.

You know why? Scott had earned the right in the relationship to throw George out of the boat and not kill the relationship. Let me say it again, in case you missed it. Scott had earned the right to throw his friend out of the boat and George’s soul meant so much to Scott that he risked the relationship to make sure he knew the jeopardy that he was in. I was at Hume lake last summer. I was just leaving the dining room and junior high camp the night before, we’d had a bunch of junior hires get saved. And the phone rang just as I started to go down the steps from the staff dining room. And someone said, Jay, there’s a phone call for you. There’s never a phone call for me at Hume. I go, it’s Scott. He’s a youth pastor in New York. His nephew was a junior hire.

Who’d gotten saved the night before. And he called Hume just on the chance of hoping to get me to thank me for playing a part in George’s life and now playing a part in his nephew’s life. And we cried together on the phone. What a wonderful gift you see? I can tell you what Scott believes. No question. You know how you can tell? By what he did, not by what he says. He threw his friend out of the boat to let him know how important this was. You won’t do that unless you understand the value of the soul.