Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Some reflections on a week at camp...

I got home Friday evening from a tiring week at Camp Whitman on Seneca Camp. It was a great week as director at an Advanced Sailing Camp, and since sailing is one of my passions, I had a blast. But it was more than just fun, as I’m sure you know. We didn’t just teach our campers how to sail, we taught them a little about how to live.

The theme for the week in our daily devotions was “On the Way.” We talked about our life journey’s, from childhood to maturity as adults. We also tied in our Spiritual Journey, which parallels our life journey in that we start as babies in the faith, grow into childhood, learning more and more, trusting more and more, until we become mature believers.

This week I will share some of the camp stories, at the devotions. As we reflect on our faith, I want to lead you through the curriculum, at least in a very simple and quick way, so that you might have an opportunity to reflect on some of those things the campers reflected on.

The day was “Blessed on the Way,” and we looked at some of the ways that we were blessed. We looked at the story of Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12, and we saw how God had called them out of their hometown, to a place He would lead them to. They left everything and went, not knowing where they were going. Just knowing that God would go with them, and that he would bless them.

Would we be willing to do such a thing? Would we leave everything based on God’s call and promise of blessing? Would we leave our friends, our family, our job, our home? None of our campers thought they would do that. How about you? How many of you would be willing to do that?

We also talked about God’s promise to bless them. We looked at ways that we are blessed, then we looked at ways that we are a blessing to other people. We had them go through a stack of magazines to look for pictures that might represent these, and make two posters – one showing ways they are blessed, and one showing ways they are a blessing.

How are you blessed? What things really bless you? What pictures would you use to represent these? What would your poster look like?

And even more important, how are you a blessing to others? What pictures would you choose here? How do you bless other people? And is there a relationship between the two? Could it be that we are blessed to the extent that we bless others? Do we intentionally look for opportunities to be a blessing?

As believers, we are called to love others as Christ loves us. We cannot do this without intentionally blessing others.

No comments:

Faith First

  Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  Taking him...