Tag Archives: camp

This years Winter Camp was no doubt a success.  The positive comments from leaders and students has been very encouraging.  Our (my) anxiety going into the weekend with the weather and lacking a nurse werent realized.  It definitely rained but seemed to stop during the moments we needed it to the most.  We didnt end up Tubing on Sunday…weather was too warm and rainy. Also with only 6 students needing medication the nurse duties were at a minimum and Debbie handled each of them very well.  Our one medical scare involved one of our high school leaders taking a nasty spill as she tried to topple a medicine ball.  With her neck aching we didn’t take any chances and sent her to the hospital for an XRay…ended up fine.

So here are my highlights from the camp;

• The Dance Party.  My good friend Chip was our DJ and as usual he brought a great, high energy set list of age-appropriate music.  I love again seeing soooo many leaders getting into it…I’m sure some of them haven’t danced like that since their high school prom I busted out my roller blades and was rolling around the party…which was alot of fun.
• Watching students play earth ball in the mud.  Someone said it reminded them of Gladiator and I can see why…it was pretty intense! Our activities team was so detailed and organized this year, they did a superb job!
• Hearing so many small group leaders say how my sharing my personal junk Sunday night really connected with the students. My prayer is that God used it to change the trajectory of many of their lives.
• Celebrating Wildfire’s 3rd Birthday at the very fire pit where we launched back in 07′.
• Being able to have extended relational time with students.  I loved sitting and chatting with them at meal times and during free time.
• Seeing God bring the theme together.  Our theme centered around the apple that Adam and Eve ate, how it symbolized choice. Genesis teaches us that Eve ate because she was deceived into thinking it would be good for her to eat it to gain wisdom.  What she thought was a good choice turned out to be a very bad one.  We ended Sunday nights program challenging students to eat an apple (or take a bite) symbolizing a desire for God’s wisdom.

God gets all the Glory.

No time for a Wildfire Wrap today…but for the amount of effort put into to last night it was a good night

I will be at Winter Camp this weekend and though we have limited internet most likely wont be posting anything since my mind will be pre-occupied with my duties there. Stay tuned for a post-camp blog. Continue to ask for your prayers as at the weather outlook doesnt look great.  For those of you interested THIS is the camp we will be at, been at this camp all the five winters I’ve been here…great camp.

And so it begins…what some in youth ministry circles refer to as “hell week.” Hell week is the final week leading up to a camp and is always an emotional roller coaster that I wouldnt recommend for the faint of heart.  Leading camps for 100′s of students involves quite the undertaking, with lots of teams working together.  Whether it is the transportation, programs, activities. food, worship or budget…there’s alot that could go wrong.  Satan loves to remind us of this fact with a number of curve balls and last minute issues. Thankfully we believe that the chances of “alot could go right” are much greater and continue to run camps. 

If you are a believer I would appreciate your prayers this week, personally and for everyone involved in camp. I will be speaking for five sessions this weekend and Tyler is leading our worship. Both of us are sick and could use some healing & energy. We are still looking for a camp nurse if you know someone that might be interested in coming for part or all of the weekend.

I am back from four days at Middle School Winter Camp.  Overall it was a great weekend. God gave us great weather, safety, excellent conversations,  effective programs and an amazing team of leaders.  Our theme was LOVE WINs…which is totally ganked from Rob Bell.  Eric was our speaker and focused on connecting our stories with Gods story.  We trained our team to get to know each students stories during the weekend and then seek to connect it up with Gods. After receiving some feedback from the team, I think the weekend was a great start to “story based” ministry and think it was an essential beginning.  

I came in at noon today…definitely needed to catch up on sleep last night. After being in a cabin with 8th grade guys for three nights you dont tend to get much sleep.  Our cabin had 8 students in it, 4 from Austin’s group and 4 from Craig’s.  Admittedly I was a little worried on the front end about the mixing of the two groups…specifically because of two of the guys who can be a handful.  Ended up working out better than I hoped, I think we did a good job the first night setting the tone for the weekend.  It was good to see again firsthand the REAL issues our students are facing…specifically our guys who rarely share from their heart.  It was also a treat to watch up-close Austin’s leadership and see how God has uniquely gifted this punk.  He had a number of original ideas that helped the group to connect better…and did an excellent job of seeing his role as larger than small group leader.

Now I am trying to pull together our program for tomorrow night. It’s gonna be a camp recap theme this time…with alot of sharing time.  Hopefully it will come together nicely. You are invited to come tomorrow if you would like to hear more about LOVE WINS.