Nature, God, and Faith

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, welcome to the Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Bill Hendricks. I'm the Executive Director for Christian Leadership at the Hendricks Center. There're just countless benefits to living in the United States, but one of the greatest has to be the vast wilderness areas and parks and just the wide open spaces that we enjoy. I lived in New England for 10 years, used to love going up to Acadia National Park in Maine and Cadillac Mountain and looking out over the Atlantic. And then of course, on the other side of the country, you have places like Death Valley in California and Nevada or the Arches Monument in Utah. And, of course, here in Texas where I'm located, we have the Big Bend out in West Texas, which is quite grand. And one of the better places to see stars. And, of course, the granddaddy of them all is the great Grand Canyon out in Arizona, of which many of you have no doubt visited. 

And in fact, our country was astute back in 1916 to actually establish a department within the government to oversee these natural resources, which we now know as the National Park Service. And when we go to places like this, we just always tend to think of God's handiwork. We have that great hymn, How Great Thou Art, and it captures up so well, the kinds of experiences that we have out there in nature, the rolling thunder, the stars. And when we see all that we're reduced to worship and praise, How Great Thou Art. What if there were a way to use the National Park Service or the National Parks to actually grow Christian leaders through full-time work and worship and ministry opportunities? That sounds pretty cool. Well, there actually is such a organization that's doing that today and it's called A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. And with that, I want to welcome to the table Amos Smith, who's the program coordinator for ACMNP. Amos, welcome to The Table. 

Amos Smith: 

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad I get to hang out with you for a little bit. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I've been looking forward to this podcast for literally months. I first came across what you guys are doing a while back and just the sound of what you're doing, sound of what your organization's doing, your team, it sounds like the coolest thing ever and I'm sure everybody says, oh, you sound like you have a dream job, and I know every job has its challenges, but it sounds like a pretty cool gig that you have. Tell me about your background. Where was growing up and was the outdoors always an attraction for you? Fill in the pieces. 

Amos Smith: 

Honestly, it makes me laugh sometimes how God moves things around. I grew up in Florida, lived my whole life there. And outdoors in Florida is very limited, camping. Nobody in Florida camps, there's one month out of the year that it's okay. So I didn't grow up around it, didn't do much outdoors. I actually went to a ministry school, studied ministry, and I got into youth ministry. So I did that for a number of years, I was a youth pastor, loved doing it and had a great time doing it. But in 2020 some crazy life stuff happened. Obviously COVID happened as well. My life got flipped upside down and I was just left wondering what am I doing? And through a series of conversations with mentors and some deep conversations with God, I really rethought my life. Went on a little vacation out to Arizona and saw some friends. Then went up to Utah and I went to my first national park. I went to Zion National Park. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yes. 

Amos Smith: 

And I went to Zion and then I went to Bryce Canyon on that same trip. And while I was there, I had an encounter with God, and God was resetting my life after a lot of craziness. And when I got back home a couple of days later, I talked to a friend about it and he said, Hey, there's a ministry that does things in the national parks, you should look into it. So through some prayer and conversations, I decided, hey, I think I want to explore what this ministry looks like. And so I actually resigned from my full-time position as a youth pastor, and I applied to a Christian ministry in the National Park as just a team member. And I sold most of what I owned, packed up the rest of what I had in my car. I left Orlando, Florida and I drove all the way to Glacier National Park in Montana. 

And I lived there for a whole summer working a simple easy job and doing ministry and hiking mountains all summer long. Loved it so much that I re-upped and I went and did a winter season and I lived in Death Valley National Park for five and a half months. And then in the process of doing that, the organization, they were looking for a full-time position as program coordinators. So I applied for that and got the job and as soon as I finished my contract in Death Valley, I drove from Death Valley straight to Denver, Colorado and started working and been there ever since working full time. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. So your story there is you leave Orlando and leave behind amusement parks and enter a world of what we could call amazement parks. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. All those parks that you mentioned I know have just incredible features to them. And I have to ask, you sell off most of your possessions and quit your job and head West. And where there people going, oh man, something's wrong with Amos, man, he's gone off the deep end.b because most people would say, are you insane? You need to go get a real job and make a bunch of money and all that stuff. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, I think for the most part, most of friends and family I had were pretty supportive. Maybe a little confused, maybe a little, I'm not sure what you're doing, but we trust you. So I had a pretty supportive community behind me. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, that helps. 

Amos Smith: 

But really I left Florida and I had a contract for the summer in Glacier and I really had nothing planned after that. I didn't know what was going to happen. I just just trusted God and just has developed into this. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, it says a lot about you and one of them is that you're up for adventure and that you don't have to have the plan all figured out, and you trust God's going to show up and lead you. And I would think that that actually fit you well for the path that you were pursuing there. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. And I've told this to people before about my experience living in the parks. So I did youth ministry for over 14 years before I left. And the ministry I was able to do while living in the parks was, in honesty, all the best parts of ministry without the full-time headaches, and just got to live with people, live in a community of people, just figure out fun ways to love people and build community, build connections. And it was wild. And something to know about, people who work and live in the parks. It's an interesting culture. It's its own unique thing. So stepping into that, it really is like cross cultural ministry. It really is stepping into a different culture and figuring out what's the language here, what's the demographic, how are people thinking, how do people operate? And figuring out how to integrate into that and to love people and point them to something else in the midst of all of that. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Oh, I can only imagine. It's a very different culture, because we obviously, the vast majority of Americans are in urban settings and fewer and fewer people even in rural settings. And then there's what you're talking about are really wilderness type settings for the most part. I can imagine you have the people that work in the park service and the employees. You've got people who are, I guess I'd call them expert or very seasoned users of the parks, hikers, mountain climbers, skiers, that sort of thing. And then a lot of people that are just, they take the RV or whatever and they camp out and they pitch their tent. And then I know there's got to be a whole bunch of just yahoos that they don't really know what they're doing out there. They didn't come prepared. There they are and get themselves in all kinds of crazy situations. 

Amos Smith: 

Oh yeah. The national parks are such a unique place to go to see a melting pot of all types of people from all over the country and all over the world. A 100%. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And I assume for most of them you're seeing them out of their element, right? 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, yeah. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Which puts an interesting spin on things. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, it was actually, it's the joke, but it's also sad at the same time, and this happens consistently while I was working in Glacier for example, guests would come up and ask questions and sometimes the questions, I thought they were joking, but they were being serious. They would walk up and say, so when are you going to let all the bears out so we can see them? And there's people coming in with, they didn't do any research, they didn't think ahead, they just assumed it's like a zoo or something. And so it was pretty funny just like saying people asking those types of questions and I would just be like, well, this is the national park, this is the great outdoors, they're around. So maybe you might see one, but it might be good if you don't. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Now your organization, again, the full name is A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, I'll just call it ACMNP. You guys are there with a purpose and a menu of things that you're up to. Tell us a little bit about that core purpose or mission and then how that fleshes itself out and some of the different ways that you do your work. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. So what we try to do through our organization, through the teams that we send to the parks is to embody and extend the ministry of Jesus Christ through worship, service and leadership development. So that's the core idea. And to give a little context and maybe a little background just so people can understand what this means is. So ACMNP began in 1951, a group of students at Princeton University, they went to Yellowstone National Park to live there and work there for a summer in between their school years. And while they were there, they realized there was no church nearby. They were at the old Faithful Inn and there wasn't a church within a 100 miles. And so they decided, well, this is the kind of stuff that we're learning. We're in the seminary there, so let's do this ourselves. And so at the bar at the Old Faithful Inn on Sundays, they would get together and invite other employees that were living there for the summer and any guests that happened to be there and just invited them to come to a worship service. 

So that's how it began. They went back to school, they thought about it, they really were excited about it, so they wanted to do it again. They got help from the Princeton Dean of students who had some connections and essentially they just kept doing this, inviting more friends to do this. And one of the guys in that original group, Warren Ost, he decided, I want to do this continuously, continue to make this a thing. So really turn it into a nonprofit organization. So we've been going for, what was that? 73 years now. And so when people think about this, and this is where I think some people struggle, is when you think about a national park, most people think, oh, it's Smokey the Bear or Park Ranger. When I show up at a national park, if I've ever been to one, I see somebody on a uniform with one of those cool hats on. And that's one part of what happens in a national park is the National Park Service. The other part that most people don't notice are the concessionaires that operate inside the national parks. 

So when you visit a national park, you go to the store or the restaurant or you stay at the lodge inside of the park. All of those different infrastructure are all operated by different concessionaires that have won a bid to operate it for 10 years or so. And so our organization, we work primarily with the concessionaires because they're always looking for employees to come and work and live in the park for a season or a whole year. And so we've developed a relationship with them over 73 years and have a fairly good reputation with them. So they want to have the people we're recruiting to be their employees. So when we recruit people with the Christian ministry and the national parks, we're saying, Hey, we want you to be part of this ministry and we're going to help get you a job inside the park so that you can live there and work there, earn money. 

But while you're there as a team, you guys will do relational ministry with people that are also living there and working there. And then you'll also provide a worship service or two on a Sunday inside the park, not only for the people living there and working there, but also for guests that happen to be visiting there that weekend. And so those are the people that we recruit, mostly college students, but it could be really anybody over 18. We have people from 18 to 75 that are part of our organization and are on teams all over the country in 30 to 40-ish parks a year, just depending on how many people we have. And they're all doing ministry consistently, throughout the week, relational ministry with coworkers, and then worship services on the weekends for anybody that happens to be there. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And quite apart from the jobs that your team members have, do you do any enhanced leadership development training or anything like that? 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, we do. Everybody that's part of the program, they come to training conference and something that we have them do is we actually have them take the Lion's Lead Leadership assessment. I'm not sure if you or your listeners are familiar with that, but it's an assessment that is designed to look at somebody's behaviors and to help them grow in different competencies and abilities. Things like self-awareness, managing emotions, perseverance, coachability, these types of things. And it gauges where they're currently at. And then it gives steps and ideas in content on how they can grow. So unlike Enneagram or Myers-Briggs that talk about your personality, this assessment really talks about these different competencies and behaviors that can change unlike your personality. So we have all of our team members take that assessment training, we coach them through that to understand it, to utilize it, and then they're able to take that during their season and see how they're growing. And of course, different people take it more seriously than others and use it at different levels, but it's a tool that everybody's given to help them grow as a leader. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's great. So you've got personal development and spiritual development built into the program. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Which sounds like a great opportunity for anybody who maybe is at a point in life where they need to do some reflection, maybe dial it back to listen to God, but they can't afford to take a year off. But, again, you get out of your element and you're doing real work, but at the same time you've got people pouring into your life in a way that's redemptive. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. And what I typically say when we're talking to people about this program, because most of the people we talk to are either college students or grad students that typically have more freedom during a summer season. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Got you. 

Amos Smith: 

And so what I'll say to them is, a lot of you need to look for some type of job or maybe an internship or something during your summer break. You might as well do it in some of the most beautiful places in the world. You might as well earn income while doing ministry in Paradise. That's my comment to people as they're thinking about whether or not to be a part of this organization, is people that are working in the parks, you're not making a ton of money, but typically in the jobs that our team members get, they'll walk away from a summer anywhere from 3000 to $5,000 in their pocket. So nothing crazy, but if you're going to have a job to make some money and do ministry and be somewhere beautiful, man, you can't ask for something better than this. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I assume that the concessionaires who are employing these folks in order to be able to have employees, do they provide or set you up with some accommodations to live in? 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, that's really the cool part about the whole thing is that once you have a job with concessionaire, you arrive there and they have employee housing, they have some form of meal plan, whether that's employee cafeteria or stipend or something. So there's always some, every park's a little bit different, but yeah, there is something there that when you arrive, you don't have to worry about trying to find your own housing, you don't have to worry about trying to make all this stuff work. That's what they're trying to do. They need employees there. They understand that it's remote and it's far out there, so they provide that for their employees. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, it strikes me that this... Well, let me ask a previous question before I ask that question. So the average person, is that just a summertime gig or is it a year long gig, or what would be a typical tenure? 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, typically the concessionaires, they ask for different seasonal contracts. So a lot of parks are only open parts of the year, excuse me. So there's a lot of parks that are closed during the winter seasons because there's too much snow. So they're operating from mid-May through mid-September. So they're looking for people that would be available sometime in that range. There's other parks, like you mentioned, Death Valley, that park is open all year round. And so they're trying to find employees that are willing to do longer contracts, but in the parks, they're always trying to find employees because people are always coming in and out via the seasonal lifestyle. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, so the question I was going to ask was it strikes me that for some of these assignments at least, this might be an actual option for what we call a gap year where somebody needs to just take a year out from the grind of school or whatever, or between college and whatever's next to think, reflect, air out and get another year of reflection and maturation under their belt. 

Amos Smith: 

Absolutely. You nailed it. And we do have a number of people that do that. We have a number of people that between high school and college, between college and grad school, after their schooling is done, take a whole year. And some people just love it so much they stay in it because they found that this is their niche, this is the ministry that they want to do, and they stay in it for several years. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's great. 

Amos Smith: 

So there's all different ranges. And we're actually currently working on a program to, it's still in the very beginning stages, of an official gap year program. So we have people that do that, just working with us season by season, but we're working on actually having a full gap year program. We're hoping to roll that out in the next year or two. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's fantastic. One other thought that occurred to me about the work you're doing, for somebody who was planning to go into pastoral work in a church somewhere, this sounds like it would be a great opportunity to get some familiarity with life in the outdoors with a view that when I get into a church, I would like to create, I'll call them adventures out in the outdoors for different groups of people in the church. Could be a group of men, could be families, could be father daughters or father sons, could be youth, teens, young adults. That way they come in with some experience under their belt and it's not the first rodeo that they've gone to. They know what to expect and what gear to bring and how to get people's expectations and all that kind of stuff. 

And I'm sure you have far more examples than I would of people whose lives have been changed by a hiking trip they took or a canoeing trip or someplace where they got out of their element in the outdoors with somebody who was structuring things for them to have an encounter with God and his people, and God does some real surgery on their heart. 

Amos Smith: 

It's really, really cool that you bring that up because that is actually the real heart of the second aspect of our ministry. What we have been talking about is our park life program, going and living in a park for a whole season. But we understand that there's a lot of people that can't do that, that can't give up a whole summer, whole winter and go live in a park. It's a limited number of people that are capable of doing that. So we created a second program called Impact Trips, and it's exactly what you just described. They're shorter retreats from three to seven days long that we work to build and create for groups to go experience the national parks in a Christian context with our mission of worship service and leadership development baked into that trip. And so we work with schools, with youth groups, with men's groups, women's groups. We even put some together and just invite anybody that's able to come. 

We do all sorts of different trips like that with that in mind of, Hey, we understand that when you step out of a normal context that you're used to, that you're accustomed to and you step into a place that is bigger than you for whatever reason, it opens doors in people's hearts and their minds that allows them to have a conversation with God that maybe God's been wanting to have with them for a long time. So we work to create these kinds of trips to bring people into that context, to ask those questions and hopefully have that opportunity where they can experience God and connect with God in a totally new way. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So let's say there's a pastor, a church leader out there who they've thought at different times about, wow, wouldn't it be great to take the boys in my youth group, my high school youth group, to go on a guy's trip for a week or two, but I don't really know how to do that. I don't know anybody. They could contact ACMNP and work together for you guys to help put that together. And he brings the youth and you run the deal. 

Amos Smith: 

Yes, exactly. And we want to partner with people as much as possible. So in that example, if that pastor contacts us and says, Hey, I have a group of guys, we want to go and do one of these trips, what could that look like? We would discuss and talk about locations and times and cost and all those elements, and then even have the discussion of how much content do you want to bring to teach your group, and how much do you want us to bring to teach your group? But we can find where that lands. If you just want to be hands off and you want us to run everything, we can do that. If you have a program idea and you just need the context to be operated, we can do that and you can run your program how you want to do it. So we're pretty flexible with what could happen. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, and I must point out, you're making this pay for itself, but it is a benefit that this is, I think the national parks is my opinion, but I think the national parks are one of the best examples of our tax dollars at work. It's like, oh yeah, we're actually taking care of these resources. We could bicker over whether we're taking care of them as well as we should obviously. But that we've got these places that have been designated and they're off limits to development and so forth. And our system is paying to maintain those things. And here's an opportunity to benefit from the wilderness resources that have been set aside for purposes of life change and personal development. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. Yeah. And I know that a lot of people maybe have only been to one national park or maybe two, and a lot of people just haven't been to any of them from a distance. You might see some pictures or might see it in a video or a movie or something and just say, oh, that's cool. But until you actually go to one of these places and you're standing there and seeing it with your own eyes, it's a totally different experience, a totally different story. And like I said, there is something that comes alive inside of us when we see these things that are so much bigger than us. And I think that's why people from all over the country and all over the world spend all sorts of money just to be there. There's something that's speaking to our hearts and our souls that's deep inside of us that comes alive when we're there. And there's something that draws us to those places that we want to see and experience more of those. 

In my own experience, I see those places, I consider those places the thin places of the world where when you're there, the distance between you and God seems much, much smaller. And honestly, for the ministry aspect of it, especially for people who do the Park Life program, live there for a whole season, they learn that a lot of people who aren't Christians, who aren't interested in God at all still come to live there and work there because they know that there's something like giving about being in these places. And that's where the ministry for our teams really can shine is because they step into a situation. There's a lot of other employees that are atheists or agnostic or don't care about God or have a lot of church hurt, and are very hostile towards the idea of Christ. And our team step in and help bring some context to why they love these places. One of the things that we love to do as team members is just invite other people to go on hikes with us. 

It was one of my favorite things to do is just say, Hey, let's go on this hike. You guys want to go, you want to go? Get some people together and go on a hike. And as you're hiking through these beautiful places, you just start talking. You start sharing life, sharing stories, what brought you here? Where are you from? What do you like to do? And it develops into deeper conversations of what do you think? What do you believe in? Where do you come from on all this thing or that thing? And it leads to deeper conversations and ultimately myself and other team members were able to turn that to a conversation about God and at least open that door to that conversation. And what we discover is a lot of times people are very curious, at the least, very curious of why do you believe in this person and what's the answer for these different life things? And so our teams really can step into that unique beautiful space with people and have those conversations and be open to those conversations as they're processing and thinking through all these things. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. That dovetails with a statement that I came across recently where someone said, he had been reading a theologian who says God moves at three miles per hour. And his point was that walking speed for the average human is like about three miles per hour, and that God is much slower than we often want them to be, but it's actually healthy. And of course, in times before the kinds of technologies, transportation we have today, you would move it three miles an hour most everywhere you went. And I can imagine that allows you to notice the flowers, as they say, smell the roses, but also engage in conversation because you're going to be on this particular trip or journey with this person, this path for the next hour. And it's very common for people to have conversations and they don't have other distractions. So now you would start to get into deeper issues and issues of concern inside. And I guess that's what you're setting is doing for people slowing them down. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. What we discovered, at least I discovered when I went into the parks is when I got to Glacier, pretty quickly I disclosed and shared that I'm a part of this Christian ministry, I'm here in the park and I'm a Christian. And right off the bat, a lot of people were pretty hostile towards that. They just assumed that I was an arrogant self-righteous, bigot, because I just said that I was a Christian. And so then myself and my teammates have this beautiful opportunity to rewrite stories for people, their belief in their assumption of what a Christian is, of who Jesus is, of what the church is. And some of them had had really bad experiences to be fair, but our ability to consistently live with them and build community, build relationship over a whole season really change their perspective and their story to see that, Hey, you guys, you Christians are actually really cool. You guys are really great, and you're not what I thought you were. You're not what I assumed you would be. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Amos Smith: 

And so being able to rewrite stories is one of the coolest things that our teams get to do. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Absolutely. And for really all of us, I suppose rewriting story is a core thing because all of us, we start out in this world as fallen, broken people despite whatever great background we may have had, there's still an emptiness inside and a brokenness inside because of our estrangement from God. And that narrative, the narratives that we now have in our mind about reality, about God, about life are in many ways false and broken and bent, I guess I'd say. And so we all need a course correction as we go. God needs to speak truth into us. And truth is not just propositional. It is, but it's personal, it's relational. And what you guys are doing is bringing a lot of that relational dynamic into play because you're able to converse with people over some time, again, in a setting that they didn't see it coming. 

Amos Smith: 

Exactly. Exactly. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. I'm curious, just a personal question, I'm sure you have it yourself been to all, maybe you have all the national parks, but the ones that you have, do you have any personal favorites or even places that you go, man, if I didn't have anything else to do and ahead of time I'd go here because this is what I love about it? 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, there's 63 national parks. I've been to 32 of them, and so there's still plenty more to see and experience. As far as to answer your question, I think Glacier would probably be at the top of my list. It's a little unfair because I got to actually live there, so I got to see way more of it than most people get to see. But it's still one of the, if not the most beautiful and incredible places. And if somebody decides to go, I can recommend that you go to the east side of the park and you go to the Many Glacier Valley, and there's the Many Glacier Lodge and the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, the places to stay on the east side. 

I worked and live at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, and if you want to just look up pictures on your own time to be blown away, you just look up Many Glacier, M-A-N-Y, Many Glacier. And that area, it will floor you how beautiful it is. And then that's just an example of some of the places that our teams get to live. Wake up every day in paradise. 

Bill Hendricks: 

No kidding. 

Amos Smith: 

My thing was like, I'm going to work. I got to work my job, I work eight hours, clock out and get some people, and we're going to go do a 10-mile hike and get to the top of that mountain and come on back down. So it was just like an everyday thing. Work, clock out, go on a hike. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Sounds like a pretty good deal. 

Amos Smith: 

It was. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And do you ever get to the point where you go, okay, this is all well and good, but I got to get back to a city somewhere? 

Amos Smith: 

Oddly enough, when you're living in the parks, there's part of you that you mentioned slowing down earlier. There is something that happens. It's this weird thing, I can't even describe it, where time moves differently in most of the parks. Your connection to the outside world's limited. In Glacier Eye, there was only one building that had any type of wifi and was spotty. So it was only ever once in a while I was able to check emails or Instagram or something. Most of the time I didn't have it. And suddenly my world slowed down and every moment was more alive than it had ever been in my life. Every conversation, every interaction just became something far deeper and more real. And so simultaneously it felt like I had lived there my whole life and that it was going by quickly. It was this odd thing, and it was so powerful for me that I was like, I need to keep doing this. 

And that's why I re-upped and went and did a winter season in Death Valley just to continue to experience this other worldly life and experience of connecting and building community. And my thing, I've joked around with some of my friends that were also in student ministry, I was like, Hey guys, if the job doesn't work out at some point, you need to move on or it doesn't happen, I can recommend take a little bit of time and come and do ministry out in the parks. It is life-giving, it's weird, it's crazy, it's challenging, but it is so amazing. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, you raised an issue that I was actually going to press into, so thank you. Because I can imagine a lot of places in the parks, you don't have cell phone access, you don't have wifi, and I just know there's just got to be a whole lot of younger people, particularly I'm a boomer, there's probably a ton of boomers, that would be the deal breaker for them. Oh, there's a great idea, but man, I can't live apart from my social media. I can't go off the grid like that forever. I don't think I could survive. I don't know what I'd do with myself, but you're saying, well, actually you can and there's some good to that. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, yeah. It's hard to describe until you experience it, but it's like, and I'm sure plenty of people have tried to explain this in different ways at different times, but it's almost like the difference between looking at a crayon drawing and seeing the real thing. It's the difference between trying to breathe with three shirts over your mouth versus breathing fresh air. You're contained and stifled in ways you can't really understand right now, but when that's removed, suddenly you realize, I actually wasn't living a full life like I thought I was. And what I'm seeing and experiencing and living right now in this beautiful place with these crazy and weird people, this is actual life. And once you get a taste of that, it's like, I've been asleep my whole life and now I'm finally awake. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I think context has to have so much to do with it. Obviously all of us can dial up in an instant on our device, a National Geographic quality photo of the Grand Canyon or a waterfall. And if somebody on YouTube put some music to that and maybe dissolves it with a bunch of other pretty scenes, and it's very relaxing, beautiful, pleasurable moment that you have, but that's a problem. It's just a moment and it's also mediated. Somebody's giving you a taste of that experience, and then you're back to the real context you live in, which is so chopped and fragmented. 

And what you're talking about there is out in the wilderness, is you're in a context that's stable now and, it's not stable in the sense, there's a lot going on around you, but it's happening at levels that you're so unused to. The pace is slower and the things going on are so much grander than the instantaneous little fireballs that are coming at you in a more technologically driven place. And this context, you're going to be there for a while because it's too big to get out of quickly, and that's got to do something to your soul. 

Amos Smith: 

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, keeping the analogy going, it's like the difference between getting a sip of water and swimming in a lake. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Amos Smith: 

I learned so much about myself, about people, about life by being there, connecting and listening to God in ways that I never realized that it was possible. The conversations I had with God sitting on top of mountains were the most real conversations that I've ever had. Walking through the canyons of Death Valley there's a stillness and a quiet there that's deafening that you can't fully describe or explain until you're there. And it's in those absolute silences that God can speak in the deepest ways. Walking on the Salt Flats at night under the stars and seeing for miles in every direction, I'm surrounded by salt on this ground and I'm surrounded by stars in the sky. At a moment of loneliness in life, looking around and seeing these things as examples, real examples of the stars and the light and the salt of the earth that Jesus talks about and remembering, I'm not alone. 

There are others that are experiencing life with me and following Jesus. These real tangible examples of what Jesus teaches, of what God teaches through his word in seeing these things and seeing the message, the sermon that Jesus is consistently preaching to me and to others constantly just by being there and living there and observing that, there's something so meaningful to that. And just the growth of my own spiritual development and understanding God's word, it went from just purely intellectual and trying to understand a text to I'm surrounded by all of these incredible, beautiful examples and analogies of this truth that God's trying to get across to me, seeing this every day and then easily pointing people's attention to that through any of the messages or sermons I was able to preach at those worship services we did, or the Bible studies we did on our own, and just pointing people to see that mountain, see that valley, see this river. You see what this is saying to you. What is God saying to you? Yeah, there's something so beautiful and powerful about that experience. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I hear that Amos, and I'm blown away, and it makes me think, wow, maybe another program you guys are going to have to put together, I'll call it the Reentry Program because somebody goes for a summer or whatever, or even just a two-week trip, one of your impact trips. And they do, they have that so-called mountaintop experience, but there's something to that. And then they inevitably do have to come back to where they live in a big city or whatever. And for so many people, they get into a habit of, oh, we go and we have the mountaintop experience. Well, let's get back to the real world. And it's like we love those memories, but they become just that memories. And I guess the thought is how to help people prepare to go back to old systems and layers and frames of living, and yet bring something into those and into that context that they didn't have before. And they'll never quite live in that context quite the same way again because of that. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah- 

Bill Hendricks: 

How to solidify the gains, I guess is what I'm trying to say. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. That was something I had to wrestle with too, is stepping away from living in the parks to living in Colorado now. There was a little bit of a shift and change, and there was part of me that missed it, missed the beauty I lived around consistently. However, what I learned in my experience, some of the key things that I learned, I realized these are so valuable and important no matter where you. A clear example of this that I really latched onto was this idea that I came across while I was living in the parks was this idea of gravity, mass and gravity being a great analogy for identity and influence, because living in the parks, I just saw you've got all sorts of different people. You got different groups of people, cliques of people. And I would notice that the people who seemed to know, whether they did or not, seemed to know who they were, have their identity figured out. They were the ones with a lot of gravity. They were the ones that were able to pull people into their orbit. 

And so then I realized, and then I shared this with my teammates, is like, we need to know who we are. We need to know who we belong to. We need to be solid in that, have a solid mass, solid identity. That way we can bring people into our gravity and into our orbit and show them who we follow. Because if they don't, they're going to fall into somebody else's gravity and who knows where that's going to take them. And I realize that's a truth that not only did I learn that and live that in the parks, but that's a truth that I learn and live anywhere and everywhere, is your identity is what allows you to have influence. That's just one example of these things that we've learned. Power of community, the power of generosity, of kindness. 

Another quick example, when I lived in Death Valley, there was a guy that worked there and he worked in the employee dining room, and his job was to clean things and make sure everything was set and ready, but he was one of those guys that really loved the rules and loved making sure that everybody else kept the rules, and it was just his job. So I ran into him multiple times where he would get onto me for something, oh, move your backpack, or you can't sit there or do this or do that. And I got really annoyed with him. I got really frustrated and to the point where it was like I hated going into the employee dining room because this guy was going to be there and he was going to tell me some other thing that I was doing wrong, and to the point where I was just like, I don't want to be around this guy at all. And one day God was just convicting me and said, maybe you should actually love this guy. 

And so I was really convicted by that and thought, okay, maybe I should do something. So I went to the store, I bought a little card and I just got the card and I just wrote in there and I was like, Steven, I know you work hard and I want you to know that I see the work that you do, and I just want to say thank you and signed it. And I left it on his desk. The next day I'm sitting in the dining room and he walks up to me and he looks at me, he says, I've worked here for 12 years, and nobody has ever said thank you. And I was blown away by that. I was just like, oh my gosh. A few days later he told me, he is like, I took your card and I hung it up in my locker so I could see it every day. 

And this guy went from being an enemy towards me to being a friend. And he showed me all sorts of incredible places to hike and took me to some incredible places. And just listening to God and seeing these types of things and seeing people differently and seeing the community that can be built through just intentional care and generosity, that's a truth. That's a reality that existed there. But it exists anywhere and everywhere. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I can imagine as well. You mentioned some of the worship services that you and your team lead, and you've got people from every kind of faith background and no faith background as it were. And I can only imagine that for many of those people, if you say a prayer for them, that's the first time anybody's ever prayed for them. It's like your friend, I've never gotten a thank you note. And it's like, you mean you, you'd pray for me? I've never had anybody do that before. And that in and of itself becomes rather powerful and redemptive for them. 

Amos Smith: 

It is, it is. And you mentioned this, and just to expound on just a little bit more, we are an interdenominational ministry, so there's people that are part of our organization, part of our teams that come from all different church backgrounds, different Christian church mindsets. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. Traditions. Yeah. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah, exactly. And so that's one of the really cool and unique and challenging things for our teams is we're putting you on a team with other believers that probably all come from different traditions or backgrounds or denominations. And so you guys, as a team, not only are you doing relational ministry, but you guys also have this beautiful opportunity to learn how to love and listen to each other and build community even though you may have some differences on things. And that's what we try to challenge our team members too, is allow this to be a season where tension creates love, where at the end of the day, you may walk away and you may not agree with your teammates' perspective on certain things, but just for this season, figure out how you guys can point people to Jesus together instead of an opposition. And it creates a cool context where you can learn a lot about other people's... My background is nondenominational. I was on a team with a guy who was Lutheran and a young lady that was Armenian Orthodox. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Amos Smith: 

And so the three of us had to figure out how do we communicate to everybody around us, our love for Jesus and in our worship services, how are we going to communicate that and show that? And we teach our team members, we actually have, I'll show you, I don't know if your listeners may not be able to see this, but we have these worship books that we've created that have all sorts of songs, prayers, creeds, different readings, all sorts of stuff from different types of Christian Church backgrounds. And so we give our teams those that they can use at their worship services. So when they're going in to do a worship service, there's so much content that we already give them from the get go that they don't have to create from scratch. Really, the only thing that they have to build from scratch for a worship service is whoever's going to give the message that week. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, this is fantastic, Amos. Unfortunately, our time has gone, but I love the fact that, the way I see it is God has created all this amazing creation out there, and it's all over the country, and it's all over the world. And he calls people out there knowing that if they see what his handy work is like, it at least puts them in the right direction of paying attention to him. And then he wants to start speaking to him. And what you guys are doing, it's like, okay, God's already there. So now we're going to go out and work with him just to try to help people realize that he's here and he's got something to say to him. We're just helpers of what God's doing. And I love that. And it sounds like you guys and God are making a pretty good team. 

Amos Smith: 

Yeah. That's what we love to do, and we're just going to keep doing it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, please do, and God bless your work. This is so exciting to hear about. Thank you for being on The Table today. 

Amos Smith: 

Thanks for having me. Appreciate you so much and what you're doing, and we'll keep talking. And Bill, I'll get you to come on one of our impact trips and you can check it out for yourself. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I will absolutely be glad to do that. And I would say to you as listeners and viewers, look up A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, ACMNP.com. And Amos is on there and all of his team and their programs. These are wonderful opportunities for you as an individual, for you as a church leader and people in your church. And to me, it'd be crazy not to avail ourselves of what ACMNP has put together in, frankly in, I'll say at least collaboration, not formally, but informally with our National Park Service, and to take advantage of the wonderful resources that God has blessed us with. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please give us a rating on your favorite podcasting service and subscribe to The Table podcast so that you can see additional coming podcast that we'll send out and let us know what you think. So for The Table, I'm Bill Hendricks and I want to thank you for being part of The Table with us today where we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology for everyday life.