FIVE: Memories of White Oak

Vicki and I stood in the back of the big auditorium - about the size of a larger high school gymnasium. The house lights were down, the stage lights were up, and hundreds of young people were singing along with a band on the stage. They were standing in the chairs, singing and waving their arms. Many were hugging one another. There were tears.

A tall, gangly boy with a baseball cap turned backward walked up to three younger boys, standing in their chairs, about three rows in front of Vicki and me. He looked at one of the boys and said, "Jesus loves you." That young boy burst into tears and fell into his peer's arms. One teenager introducing another teenager to Jesus. I cried and Vicki handed me a fast-food napkin from her purse.

For a reported 41 years, South Carolina Baptists owned and operated White Oak Conference Center, near Winnsboro, SC, about 40 miles north of Columbia. According to The Baptist Courier, in April 2016, the convention's Executive Board voted to sell the conference center, citing underuse of the facility by its churches, the cost of subsidizing the annual operations, and deferred maintenance costs of up to $4 million. Limping along these past four years without a buyer, the convention permanently closed White Oak this past week. I read about it on Facebook.

My first introduction to White Oak was in the mid-90s when I attended my church's weekend deacon's retreat there. I fell in love with the place, nestled into the countryside of rural South Carolina. I remember two things from that retreat. I remember sitting with men older than me and listening to them share their love for Jesus and His church. I remember committing to pray daily for sweet Patsy Simpson because Rick Simpson's snoring kept me awake the entire night. A group of Woman's Missionary ladies was in the room above us, and that rowdy group partied all night, shining a new light on these ladies as more fun girls than the image of stoic missionary Lottie Moon might have led us to believe.

White Oak Conference is:

• Where my two oldest sons learned to dive off a diving board . . . a true, old-fashioned high dive.
• Where I worshipped twice each year with the South Carolina Baptist Convention's Executive Board, heard great preaching, and lifted prayers and voices to our Lord.
• Where I attended several marriage enrichment weekends with my Vicki - weekends that provided both a rest from parenting, a chance to talk with other parents, and to learn from one another. Jack and Linda Maguire led two of those retreats, and Jack Maguire became a legit mentor for me. (Another post on this good man coming soon).
• Where our son William, aka "Princey," served as a college-age counselor for the annual summer camp, and where he annually reported the starchy camp food destroyed his bowels through Thanksgiving.
• Where, in my 50s, Vicki and I attempted a large-scale ropes course with other couples our age, and where Wayne Sharpe and I learned that Wayne's wife, Georgia, is "twice the man we will ever be." Georgia kicked butt on that ropes course.
• Where my family snuck away for Sunday afternoon picnics and may have been trespassing at the lake but a very kind Larry Allen looked the other way.
• Where I taught more than a dozen classes and break-out sessions on church communication and tried my best to communicate that every church has a story to tell - a story that will call its community to the gospel, The Good News of Jesus.

White Oak Conference Center is where I attended a certain staff retreat while serving as Director of Marketing for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. During an afternoon session, our Executive Director-Treasurer Carlisle Driggers dispersed our staff to find solace on the White Oak property and to use the afternoon for private Bible Study and prayer. I wandered as far as I could go - to the edge of the White Oak lake. Facing the lake, I sat on an old stump there and opened my Bible. 

I was down. Vicki and I were struggling with four little boys at home, the chaos of calendars, and the chaos of balancing checkbooks. I was too tired to pray. I thumbed through my Bible and rested on the last page - a blank page. There in the back of my trusty NIV, I began a list titled, "The times when I knew YOU were with me." At the Lord's whisper, I began a fast-and-furious hand-written list of dozens and dozens of times when I was drowning and the Lord rescued me. By the end of it, I was sobbing because the list just would not end. I was reminded that the Lord never, ever, ever abandons those who call on His name. Never. (Deuteronomy 31:8, Joshua 1:9, 1 Peter 5:7, Philippians 4:6-7, Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 94:14).

There at White Oak Conference Center, by the lake, Jesus showed up and put His arms around me. It was a spiritual mile marker that I will never forget.

Now, we say good-bye to what I call hallowed ground. I can't possibly imagine all the prayers, the teaching, the preaching, the singing voices of young and old lifted in praise, and the laughing among friends in faith that rose up to heaven from White Oak Conference Center. But, I know this: The Lord heard every bit of it and smiled his favor down on that very special place.

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