Off to camp...
This weekend I'm off to camp - woohooo! The most tiring week of the year but also the most enjoyable.
It was back in 1989, when I was just 13, that someone first explained the good news of the Lord Jesus to me. Although growing up in a church since I was a kid it was never explained to me clearly (or I hadn't realised) that my sin was a problem and that I needed to be forgiven by God.
Basically I wasn't as bad as those other people you heard about, I did go along to church and youth group - although more to see my mates than anything else, and I did what my parents told me - most of the time, I was never expelled from school, so there wasn't a problem...but in fact there was. Maybe I wasn't as bad as I could have been but I certainly wasn't as good as I should have been. God didn't have centre place in my life. I did what I wanted when I wanted and I didn't really give God a second thought.
It was that year on camp that my tent leader explained to me how I could 'get right with God'. I asked God to forgive me for all the wrong things I'd done and thanked him for sending Jesus to take my punishment so that I would not have to. From that day I had a new life on earth and the promise of an eternity in heaven with God when my physical life on this earth ended.
Since then I've not always lived to please God. I have failed God many times - sometimes unconsciously and sometimes consciously. But I know that I can go to God and ask to be forgiven and ask that he would help me to live a life that is pleasing to him. He continues to 'work' on me...but there's a long way to go yet :-)
All through my teenage years camps have been such an integral part of keeping me going in my faith, leaders would write letters to me (in the days before email) and encourage me to keep going, to read God's word, to spend time in prayer to and would help me with practical suggestions of how to live for God. I thank God for these leaders, many sadly whom I have lost contact with.
I was asked when 'interviewed' in church last Sunday about camps, what is the value of them?
And there are many things you could say but I think these sum up the value of camp:
1. For non-Christians they have the opportunity to hear the good news about Jesus. They have the opportunity to ask questions about God, faith, Christianity...and each year I get to answer many, many questions
and...
2. For Christians it's an opportunity to encourage them to keep living their lives for God. There are so many pressures on young people in schools, colleges, homes, from social circles to just live as though God doesn't exist, to live with yourself as the centre of the universe. On camp these young people have a week when it's seen as a great thing to be a Christian. And we as leaders have opportunities to talk through situations with the young people and pray with them and help them think through practical ways of handling situations. Then we have the awesome privilege after camp to support these young people as they go back home, through prayer and letters / emails etc.
Camp...is exhausting...but I know that camp will have lasting effects for all eternity.
So what started out as a little post to tell you that I was going off to camp has turned into a bit of a marathon.
But please pray: for last minute prep of talk, Bible studies, for good sleeps before camp, for energy and enthusiasm, that we would get on well with the young people in our dorms and have good conversations and that God would work in the lives of these young people...bringing some to faith and encouraging others to keep going.
For His glory...
It was back in 1989, when I was just 13, that someone first explained the good news of the Lord Jesus to me. Although growing up in a church since I was a kid it was never explained to me clearly (or I hadn't realised) that my sin was a problem and that I needed to be forgiven by God.
Basically I wasn't as bad as those other people you heard about, I did go along to church and youth group - although more to see my mates than anything else, and I did what my parents told me - most of the time, I was never expelled from school, so there wasn't a problem...but in fact there was. Maybe I wasn't as bad as I could have been but I certainly wasn't as good as I should have been. God didn't have centre place in my life. I did what I wanted when I wanted and I didn't really give God a second thought.
It was that year on camp that my tent leader explained to me how I could 'get right with God'. I asked God to forgive me for all the wrong things I'd done and thanked him for sending Jesus to take my punishment so that I would not have to. From that day I had a new life on earth and the promise of an eternity in heaven with God when my physical life on this earth ended.
Since then I've not always lived to please God. I have failed God many times - sometimes unconsciously and sometimes consciously. But I know that I can go to God and ask to be forgiven and ask that he would help me to live a life that is pleasing to him. He continues to 'work' on me...but there's a long way to go yet :-)
All through my teenage years camps have been such an integral part of keeping me going in my faith, leaders would write letters to me (in the days before email) and encourage me to keep going, to read God's word, to spend time in prayer to and would help me with practical suggestions of how to live for God. I thank God for these leaders, many sadly whom I have lost contact with.
I was asked when 'interviewed' in church last Sunday about camps, what is the value of them?
And there are many things you could say but I think these sum up the value of camp:
1. For non-Christians they have the opportunity to hear the good news about Jesus. They have the opportunity to ask questions about God, faith, Christianity...and each year I get to answer many, many questions
and...
2. For Christians it's an opportunity to encourage them to keep living their lives for God. There are so many pressures on young people in schools, colleges, homes, from social circles to just live as though God doesn't exist, to live with yourself as the centre of the universe. On camp these young people have a week when it's seen as a great thing to be a Christian. And we as leaders have opportunities to talk through situations with the young people and pray with them and help them think through practical ways of handling situations. Then we have the awesome privilege after camp to support these young people as they go back home, through prayer and letters / emails etc.
Camp...is exhausting...but I know that camp will have lasting effects for all eternity.
So what started out as a little post to tell you that I was going off to camp has turned into a bit of a marathon.
But please pray: for last minute prep of talk, Bible studies, for good sleeps before camp, for energy and enthusiasm, that we would get on well with the young people in our dorms and have good conversations and that God would work in the lives of these young people...bringing some to faith and encouraging others to keep going.
For His glory...
posted by Dawn at 8:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home