Main Street Journal: Feature Article: Faith Baptist Goes to Camp

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The following article is taken from the March 2010 issue of the Main Street Journal. Click “Subscribe Online” above to start your subscription.

Faith Baptist Goes to Camp
By: Jonathan Devin

While the City of Memphis and Shelby County might have very specific ideas about who owns what and how much they should be taxed for it, a church is quietly making changes to a piece of hallowed ground where the Spirit of God seems to waft between the trees and “ownership” becomes less a matter of setting boundaries and more a practice of being open to simple enjoyment.

“It’s a place where so many people can come and kick back and express love to somebody else and experience what God’s best is for your life, and I just think that camping and that time away, it’s hard to do all that in a Sunday school hour,” says Neal Pflibsen, the recently hired camp director of The Grove at Red Oak Lake.

The 75 acres of rolling hills, sunlit fields, and gently shimmering lake lies off the extreme eastern end of Walnut Grove where the city paving ends and the homes and businesses take on the look of Cordova even though it is officially in Memphis.

The Grove, which was owned and operated by the Mid-South Baptist Association as Camp Cordova for about 60 years was sold for $2 million dollars in October 2009 to one of its member churches, Faith Baptist Church, which began making improvements to the property almost immediately.

Pflibsen, a former children’s pastor from Pensacola, Florida was recruited and moved to the property in September. His wife Janine, now the camp’s administrative assistant, and their 22 year-old daughter came too and together occupy one of three residential houses on the east end of the property near Rocky Point Road.

The den of the house is a converted office where Pflibsen will work until the camp’s main office is refurbished.

Fixing up is priority these days for Pflibsen and Keith Magness, the camp’s director of operations. While the bones of the camp’s fifty buildings are solid, most are in need of a facelift in order to attract the kind of business they hope for.

Pflibsen says that in the past the camp was used mainly for hosting out-of-towners attending various Baptist ministries in the area, but the local churches didn’t have much use for it.

“All of the churches owned it through the association and Faith Baptist was one of those churches,” says Pflibsen. “They wanted to sell the camp because they were getting out of the camp ministry and more into starting churches. A lot of churches didn’t want to see it go, and Faith was one of those possibilities that turned into a solution.”

The hope is that more local churches will bring members to the Grove for their events and that businesses and community groups will rent the camp for retreats and conferences.
According to camp records, 1988 was the biggest year in its history with about 12,000 people staying there at least one night.

Lately, use of the camp has been incidental. A woman who insists on being called “Big Mama” comes regularly to fish in the lake, as do a handful of Baptist pastors. The lake holds a good stock of bass and bream.

In the summer, daycare centers rent the camp’s pool by the hour. The Boy Scouts held a late February campout out using their own tents and the facility’s shower houses.

Neighbors walk their dogs through the wide open field behind the lake on the western end of the property.

And all that’s just fine, says Pflibsen, because people are finding something relaxing and spiritually comforting there. But he wants more people to experience it.

Originally 113 acres, some of the land on the south side was sold off to a developer to form the Castle Rock subdivision, whose massive stone entrance archway overshadows the pool’s shower house.

Pflibsen sees the other two existing houses, which can sleep about 20 people each, being used for out-of-towners who come to Memphis for outreach programs in the city. He calls them Memphis One and Memphis Two.

The houses sit on opposite sides of the main entrance with a lane winding down between them to a large parking lot where the future office and gift shop building and the dining hall—the most modern of the buildings—lie with commanding views of the valley below.

The front wall of the office/gift shop already has new façade of naked pine replacing narrower gray wood siding.

Beyond it, a large, gymnasium-like auditorium sits at the edge of the water, its insides largely gutted. The stage at the far end has been stripped back to the studs along with much of the interior walls. Pflibsen explains that volunteers can work on it since the wiring and A/C system are fine. Good bones, in other words, but a lot of cosmetics are needed.

He can already see home school groups having their graduations and Fedex groups hosting company picnics in its vast expanse.

The 30 cabins are another story. Each one holds about ten people, but all needed electrical upgrades as well as aesthetic improvements, so contractors were called in. Some already have new wall coverings of varnished wood-grained paneling and modern, wall-inset air conditioners. In time they will have new ceilings.

The cabins, which sit on slabs of concrete, dot the hills just south of the auditorium on two narrow roads called Pioneer Trail and Chickasaw Trail. Both were paved before any other improvements were made on the property.

If it sounds remarkable that so many improvements have been made since October, it probably is, but Pflibsen attributes that to having a clear direction.

“Everybody says with so many people owning it, nobody owned it,” he says, referring to the camp. “At this point I have a boss and we’re going to have a board of directors, but it’s a very limited number of people and if they say go for it, it’s a very clear direction.”

The Grove’s jewel is an 80-bed, stone-face lodge on the lake’s southern shore, the only overnight facility currently in operation. The lodge has twin wings for sleeping quarters and showers. The rows of institutional metal bunks are being replaced by rustic wooden beam bunks. In the great room, the wall facing the lake is being replaced by large windows, which arrived from Lowe’s just the week before March.

“When our church family began to dream about bringing the property back to life, it was as if the Lord burned that vision into our hearts,” says Danny Sinquefield, pastor of Faith Baptist. “Our people believe God still has great plans for this beautiful place to be a mission and ministry hub for reaching the greater Memphis area with the message of hope.

“I have served as senior pastor of Faith Baptist Church for more than 15 years and nothing we have ever undertaken has been more widely embraced by our 4000 member congregation.”

Pflibsen wants the Grove fully operational in June, and while recognizing that there will still be some work to do even then, he’s leaving the bulk of the camp’s aesthetic improvements to a higher power.

By then the hundreds and hundreds of trees now barren will be so thick with leaves that visitors won’t be able to see more than 100 yards. The valley surrounding the lake will be speckled with wildflowers and brightly colored birds which do not care to venture any further towards town. And the breeze will sweep through the fields carrying sounds of laughter, splashing, and songs.

The parts of the Grove which can never be truly owned are ready and open for business.

The Grove At Red Oak Lake
849 Rocky Point Road
Cordova, TN 38018
www.mygrove.org

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