Camp this week was good. I say just that. It was good. Our teens had a great time which is the most important.
One of them laid down some heavy stuff in his life.
The great thing about camp is that teens get out of their immediate environment for a week. Which is why I think they respond so well when they are there.
When you cut off the media and friendships in most of their lives or the outside noises, it allows them to focus their attention and hear from God.
I wonder though about the push to make this the Superbowl event of the year for youth ministry. In about 14 years of youth ministry I have seen teens go off, get their lives right, fall, go off again, get their lives right, fall...and repeat the cycle.
There has got to be some fundamental week to week teaching or push for teens to go off not to get on fire, not to hear God for the first time, not to get their calling from God their, but to go and stoke the fire higher than they are on a weekly basis.
There has got to be a push and a challenge on a weekly basis for teens to experience an almighty God. To live a holy life. To seek and know the call of God on their lives.
Camp should be an important place in youth ministry. One that supplements what we already do...not one that we are banking everything on. Otherwise they will come back and within six weeks...be back to their normal routine.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I'm with ya. There in lies one of the big challenges (at least in our ministry, in Nebraska). We need to run with the momentum we gain from camp, and build on it. It is so easy to say that camp was so great, and just go back to how things were. We started building this year immediately after camp with some of the kids who were really changed by letting them jump right into some leadership roles. I don't know how it will turn out, but at least for the last two weeks the kids have kept that fire from camp burning, b/c they get to use what is going on inside of them.
Post a Comment