Camp was Great. Need mas Sleep. Do Hard Things!

I was a little nervous about this camp. This year has been way too busy and too many things were left unplanned. To add to that, to be speaking AND making the videos AND to run all the media put a large work load on me, it was nearly impossible to spend time on my messages at camp. Every night, before I spoke, I forced myself to go for a quick drive and I always said the same prayer: “God, help.” The rest of the pray varied here and there but the idea was the same.

Well, God did help. Emotional camp experiences are great but to have such a large one at the beginning of the week was unexpected. And then for there to be decisions, commitments, and reactions every night even without the “emotional” prompting was by far the most amazing thing about camp. Students made decisions and committments without the background music, without the yelling, without the crying, without the other elements we often use to help “wake up” students. They were calm, decisive, pointed, and serious. Not what “we” expect from teenagers…but, of coarse, that’s the point: we don’t expect the right things from teenagers. Society labels them as Non-adults and we expect them to goof off and mess around. But to be mature, disciplined, focused, and serious…will that’s just not natural for adolescence… or so we say.

Teenagers know deep down that they are more what we expect out of them. They have potential NOW and not when they’ve “grown up.” They can be smart, they can learn, they can lead, they can change, they can do hard things. And God showed them that…

I’m at the church waiting for some things to download and install on our church’s media computer and it’s done now…so I am done now as well. I’ll write more about this later.