Friday Night- There is always something about traveling down Bayside Camp's long road that forces me to focus more. It's probably because of the dark hilly road with lots of pot holes and big rocks. I am always nervous that I will either miss a veer or that a pot hole will swallow up my car. That is more or less how I feel when I am speaking there too.
This is the forth time I have come out to the camp to speak, but the newness of it hasn't left me yet. I still find it odd speaking to people I don't know and will not get a chance to know for the most part. The worst part is I have to make a lot of assumptions. I have to guess what they need to hear and what is the best way to get them to hear.
Tonight I will try to introduce our topic, Aliens in a strange land and our key question 'How do we sing a song to the Lord in a foreign land? And the introduction went well thanks to Alien Song. We talked about the crash, the moment leaving summer camp meets real life, when all your energy and enthusiasm met the day to day pressure of being a teenager. I could see in their eyes that a lot of them got it. They felt it, they we're living it. My goal now is to try and help them navigate it.
Saturday Morning- Morning felt early. Coffee was a little slow in coming. I missed my bed, and Meghan. And I had a little difficulty sleeping without hearing Simeon's night time music over the monitor. But today I needed to start the navigating process, so I needed to wake up. The sausages helped.
After a mellow music opening (not the energy lift I had hoped for) I was on. This morning I had planned to introducing the idea that we are aliens. To do so I had made a power point game called 'Name that Alien' with a number of what I hoped were recognizable aliens. We should have checked the visuals before I stepped up front. It wouldn't turn on. My springboard game was not coming to life.
Not quite the morning I had envisioned.
After stalling for a few minutes and trying to do my own tech support we gave up and moved on. I flew in to the idea of being from somewhere else, but that there is a pressure that is trying to conform us to this place. A sort of Roman's 12:1-2.
I wish I had thought about that verse before just now.
After going over the core concept the computer finally did what we wanted it to do, so we played the game anyway. They got in to it. And somebody knew every alien I picked.
We moved on and started to talk about being yoked together with either Jesus or someone else. Since I assumed no one had yoked an ox we had a little three, than five legged race. When the person in the middle was tied to two different people I had the outside girls move in opposite directions. You can imagine the results.
My goal was not to tell them 'don't have non-Christian friends' but to be aware that non-Christians do not care about your Christian growth. Of course I said they don't do that in a mean way, a sort of active not caring but a passive way. Their choices will not (for the most part) take into consideration our relationship with Christ.
When I finished they left to their cabin groups to unpack that idea. Again I think a lot of them got it. They could feel in subtle ways, and not so subtle ways their non-Christian friends were pulling them in directions they didn't think they should go.
Well I am about half way done now. Tonight we will talk about the other side of things. It is not just about avoiding doing bad, becoming a goody two shoes. Instead it is about being a positive moral force.
Wish me luck.
