Home, Sweet, Home

August 7, 2009 at 7:44 pm (Uncategorized)

Well I’m home and just had a HOT shower to work out all the soreness from one tubing experience and a whole lot of loading and unloading luggage, band equipment, stage equipment and even furniture!  I love the feeling of home.  I can’t tell you how much having normal food is a good thing.  It doesn’t take more than an hour for home to settle in and camp starts becoming a more and more distant memory.

However, this makes me sad on so many levels.  The theme of looking at David’s life has been so good for me.  Watching your kids fall in love with God’s word and the new direction of our ministry(and our church for that matter!) was a thrill a minute.  Did you know that more than half the kids at the camp made a decision to ask someone to be discipled by them?  I can’t truly explain how outside the box this truly is.  11 year old students heard God call them to ask a friend if they can help them imitate Christ as they have learned to imitate Christ(1 Corithians 11:1) and the askee accepted!  Do you realize how transformed our ministry will be as these students disciple one another and it spreads to their schools and sports teams and neighborhoods and beyond?  This is nothing but a huge God movement in which the Holy Spirit is organically using the little children, metaphorically speaking, to confound the wise and learned(like us adults!).

As you watch your kids come home and drift into normalcy, why not ask them and see if they decided to disciple or be discipled.  If they answer in the affirmative, encourage them and empower them to succeed.  They need our support and coaching to keep this movement alive.  It’s why we are here as parents, to develop a love for God that lasts for life.

We also want to help our kids keep discipling after camp too.  As a result, we will no longer be doing a Roots Bible discussion on Sundays in August, but in its place we will be doing discipleship coaching for our students and staff at 6-7pm on the next 4 Sundays in August at the Student Ministry Offices at the Swamp in the NE corner of the church property.  We will be allowing our students to debrief their efforts at discipling and give tips and pointers that will help them to move forward in this vital mission.

Thanks for letting your kids come to camp!  They blessed my socks off!

Pastor Mark