"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 2 Corinthians 4:7-12
Some of you may have noticed that about 100 of us were missing from Sunday morning worship service. Don't worry we weren't "back-sliding." We were actually in Oakhurst for our annual Winter Camp at YBC. This year we all focused our attention on the passage above, from 2 Corinthians 4. Our teens, counselors, and staff all took time to study this passage through worship, keynote lessons, breakout groups, upper and lower bowl devotionals, and cabin devotionals. I am so grateful for our support team that worked so hard to make this a very deep and spiritually enriching weekend for our student ministry. We had over 80 campers and over 30 staff members.
Here is a breakdown of some of the preparation that went into the weekend and stories that resulted from our weekend on God's Mountain:
This year we wanted to be more intentional in our preparation for the weekend. I wanted the staff to go into the weekend with focused hearts on how we planned to see God in our teens and show God to our teens. To do this we had all of our staff take the time to do a daily devotional leading up to the weekend, from Sunday to Friday. Everyday we had a selected reading, several questions to think about, and a prayer prompt directing us to God with a focus on our time with the teens.
When we arrived on site we led the teens through a couple of games and showed a video our ministry made to help illustrate Tim Parish's Friday night keynote. The rest of the weekend we turned the keynote duties over to Eli Hooper with our breakout groups following each lesson. We used the breakout groups as ways for our teens to process the lessons and have time for prayer request and confession.
Saturday night we do a devotional time where we visually illustrate our theme. With this year's theme being "jars of clay" we had our group broken into Jr and Sr high with counselors leading each age group in an interactive devotional experience. We had 6 counselors hold clay flower jars with candles in them and tell life experience stories about life pre camp, at camp, and after camp with each counselor talking about how they extinguished their flame only days after leaving camp. Our teens then were encouraged to take the time to light each other's spiritual candles. We gave them an hour to talk and bless each other with this time leading into more specific cabin devotional time.
I have been incredibly blessed this week by the excitement, spiritual fervor, and focus that our teens have exhibited since being home. A big thank you to all of our staff for the time and energy they all put in to making this the best Winter Camp yet!
When we arrived on site we led the teens through a couple of games and showed a video our ministry made to help illustrate Tim Parish's Friday night keynote. The rest of the weekend we turned the keynote duties over to Eli Hooper with our breakout groups following each lesson. We used the breakout groups as ways for our teens to process the lessons and have time for prayer request and confession.
Saturday night we do a devotional time where we visually illustrate our theme. With this year's theme being "jars of clay" we had our group broken into Jr and Sr high with counselors leading each age group in an interactive devotional experience. We had 6 counselors hold clay flower jars with candles in them and tell life experience stories about life pre camp, at camp, and after camp with each counselor talking about how they extinguished their flame only days after leaving camp. Our teens then were encouraged to take the time to light each other's spiritual candles. We gave them an hour to talk and bless each other with this time leading into more specific cabin devotional time.
I have been incredibly blessed this week by the excitement, spiritual fervor, and focus that our teens have exhibited since being home. A big thank you to all of our staff for the time and energy they all put in to making this the best Winter Camp yet!
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