PYV Summer Camp 2015 - Day Five

Our faithful and brave leaders

Day Five (Thursday Dec 31)

The leaders gathered together again this morning, although I think it’s getting harder to be here ready to start at 7.00am! Today we referred to 1 Corinthians 15:9-10. In this chapter Paul notes that he is what he is “by the grace of God” and so it is for us. All that we are is by the grace of God. A good reminder for us at the start of the day.

Our prayer meetings through the day have been well attended. It has been exciting to see some of our youngest campers meeting with others and praying together before we have breakfast.

Because we have some incredible activities planned for tonight, we had our worship session straight after breakfast. Our video today featured Paul from Canterbury church and a team who work with him providing meals and a safe place to eat together for homeless people. It has been inspiring to watch this series of videos and realise that there are people in our denomination who are living out their faith in wonderful and practical ways. May there be more and more.

Andrew’s message to us today came from James 5:1-6 and confronted our attitudes to materialism. And the video message we started with was confronting. We know that there isn’t a fair and equal distribution of wealth in this world, but to realise just how much wealth of the world is held and controlled by a small percentage of people is  . . . well, frightening! Andrew helped us to look at what the Bible has to teach us about materialism and the impact it can have in the world. “Poverty in our world is wide. Selfishness in our world is deep.” So, the challenge for us is to let go of our ambition for luxury and instead strive for justice and equality.

“Poverty in our world is wide. Selfishness in our world is deep.”

After morning tea we divided again into our study groups to discuss what we had heard in the talk and how it can apply to our lives. For this we looked at 2 Corinthians 8:9-15, a passage which has much to say about having a good attitude toward money. And here we are confronted by an attitude and an action. “What practical things do we need to do in our lives so that our “willingness” translates into “action”? Here’s my answer:

Determine what I can give. Determine where I can give. 

Our final dinner for 2015

Fairy Tales in 3D

Today is hot. Very hot. So the opportunity for a water fight on the oval was taken up with a lot of enthusiasm. I want to say a huge “thank you” to those who prevented a bucket of water being poured over my head. I might have enjoyed it, but I did have my phone in my hand at the time. My intended assailant did end up very wet. Which made me smile.

Every PYV camp has a theme. And on the last night at each camp most everybody dresses up in a costume matching that theme. For Summer Camp 2015, the theme has been “Fairy tales”. There has been some good work done by campers and families on costumes for tonight’s dinner and photo. There was a few dwarves, a lot of Red Riding Hoods, some little pigs, and if you looked carefully, you would also find the Big Bad Wolf wandering around. A special mention must be made to Thor and the work on his hammer. It looked fantastic! (Whether or not “Thor” or “Lord of the Rings” are fairy tales is open to debate.)

Just some of the talent

After dinner, we had our first “Open Mic Night”. And if I thought that there was some talent shown in the pirate ships yesterday, and in the costumes people dressed in, that was just a shadow compared to the talent on display tonight. We had some guests to play for us after the open mic night. “Babel’s End”, a trio of men who attend Cranbourne Presbyterian Church, play hard and play loud, and use their talents – which are significant – to glorify God. A huge thanks to the two of the trio who travelled up to Rawson just for this. 

Babel's End

A late evening of different activities gave us all the chance to enjoy being outside as the weather mercifully cooled down. Living the old Fairy Tale theme meant we could make armour, enjoy some jousting (pool noodles), fencing (textas and old t-shirts), eating apples hanging from a string, and throwing food at people in stocks. I think some people enjoyed this activity a bit too much.

Happy New Year!!!

From 10.30pm the music cranked up and those who wanted to dance the year to an end crowded into a sweaty room while the rest of us enjoyed playing quieter games, or just being together. At midnight there was a great cheer and a welcome into the new year.

And then comes what is, for me, the greatest start to a new year. We sing. Not the songs that people have been dancing to for the last 90 minutes. That won't help us into the new year.  Instead we sing the songs of praise, we sing with enthusiasm, we sing to a God who is beyond ages - the God of our salvation. Then we split into our study groups and pray together.

Praying our way into 2016.

New Years Eve at Summer Camp is a very long day. And it is a great day.

All glory to God!

#pyvsummercamp15 #onceuponapyvsummercamp

PYV Summer Camp 2015 - Day Four

Day Four (Wednesday Dec 30)

Morning Leader's Meeting

In our leader’s meeting today we read from John 14:1-14 with the reminder that we are to keep going with the message that Jesus is the way to heaven. It might seem a simple reminder for many of us, but it was certainly relevant to what happened later in the day. Our prayer meeting had a mission focus and it was good to hear people praying for those working for the gospel in both distant countries and in remote parts of Australia. May God continue to answer these prayers.

Study Group

Our study groups this morning took a slightly different format. Instead of answering a number of questions relevant to the topic, we looked at a number of statements from Proverbs relevant to the way we speak. Here are a few:

Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed. 11:11

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. 15:1

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts. 18:8

It has been great to hear young people consider carefully what these words mean and how they could be applied to our lives. Truly they have been reminded that what we say and how we speak reveals what is in our heart.

Such Style and Swagger

After morning tea, the campers divided again into the activity groups. Today had a “Peter Pan” theme, and if I had bought my Captain Hook costume I could have been the villain. I was happy to leave that responsibility to someone else. When I walked past the teams at one point, they were lining up waiting for their cardboard Pirate Ships to be judged, and for their Pirate sea-shanties to be heard. There are some very clever and creative people in this larger group. Do they have the opportunity to express that creative edge at church? (That’s a question for another time.)

While the activities were happening, I was sitting in on YouthMETRO. “What is this?” I hear you ask. YouthMETRO is a year long training program that has made a huge impact on PYV and, we believe, on the PCV. A group of people begin their training with an intensive week at Summer Camp. Here they enjoy a series of lectures on theology and then get involved in evangelism training. This training isn’t just practicing with each other in their own room. Instead, these future leaders are talking to campers and sharing the gospel. They are training by learning and doing.

YouthMETRO 2016

And God is blessing this. In God’s good grace, the first young man a couple of trainees spoke with understood the gospel of Jesus and gave his life to Christ. Hallelujah!

Today was a day with a different timetable and after lunch we returned to our study groups. This time we were preparing for the talk that would come later in the evening. This afternoon we talked about idolatry. You could read Psalm 115:2-8 if you would like to see what we were studying, and if you do, please also read Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5 and see how the NT describes idolatry.

Here is a list of things our study group suggested could become idols for Aussie teenagers:

Exercising; Food; Fashion; Rock bands; Self-image on Facebook and Instagram etc; Latest technology; Friends; Relationships; Movie/Game characters; Social position we might have; Clothing. And I’m sure many others things were mentioned in the other groups.

This lead us into the evening session where Andrew preached from James 3:13-4:10 with the title “Deal with your desires”. As always, it is our vision of God that impacts our desires. Earthly wisdom seeks self and views others as a threat. Wisdom from above produces good works and shows itself in gentleness to others. If our desires are connected to the state of our heart, and we need to deal with our desires, then we obviously need to fix our heart. How do we do that? We can’t. But Jesus can. So the talk tonight included a call to follow Jesus.

Over supper and evening activities, leaders were able to talk with camper who indicated they would like to know more about Jesus, and those who were ready to commit their life to him as their Lord. Praise God, lives have been turned around at this camp.

Please keep praying for our camp and all that God will do through each of us.

#pyvsummercamp15 #onceuponapyvsummercamp

PYV Summer Camp 2015 - Day 3

Andrew preaching to PYV

Day Three (Tuesday Dec 29)

As usual, the morning begins with a leader’s meeting. Here, one of our guests, – Rev Stuart Bonnington from Fremantle, WA – reminds us of the humanity of Jesus. How we need the forgiveness of God, and how wonderful that we can know we have his forgiveness.

Our prayer meeting today is focussed on youth ministry within our local churches. It is encouraging to hear people speak about their youth group with love and respect. But there are many churches who do not have any youth, or only one or two families with young people. So we prayed for these churches as well, trusting that God will use these churches to bring the gospel to the youth of their community. This is just one of the important aspects of a PYV Camp. It gives youth from small churches the chance to connect with teenagers from across the state and be encouraged in their journey of faith.

While I’m not a big fan of a cooked breakfast, the campers love it. So the hash browns and toast were a winner today. With good food in our stomachs, we went off to our study groups again to work through some questions based on last night’s talk. As were encouraged to rearrange our values in the talk, today we looked at just a bit of what the Bible has to say on “Being open-handed to the poor”. Again, for those playing at home, have a look at Deuteronomy 15:7-11 & James 2:15-17. There was some good discussion around this topic.

Blowing cups with balloons

Foil Towers

A time for personal devotion, then morning tea, was followed by the organised activities for today. And this time it wasn’t the pen thieves we were hunting. Today we were trying to determine the new name taken by Rumpelstiltskin. With a series of competitions and clues, they were able to work out that new name and so rescue the young child. Our activities team have done an amazing job in putting together activities that allow groups to work well with each other, use up some energy, and are a whole lot of fun as well. Good job team!

What is Rumpelstiltskin's new name?

After lunch we had our second session of workshops for the camp. Again, we have sought to put together workshops that are relevant to youth, and relevant to the life of the church. Today’s topics were: “Depression & Our Friends”, “Teenagers & Mission – Yes, they do go together”, “A gracious response to homosexuality,” and a repeat of “How do I know I’m a Christian?” Our young people have very good and important questions rolling around their heads, and we hope that these workshops have helped to answer some of these.

A workshop crowd

A couple of hours of free time to run around, or sit in the shade, or play other games, and then it is time for dinner. The dining room is a noisy and vibrant place when we are all together with our campers, leaders, YouthMETRO trainees, and some young children crowding in to the room.

In the evening comes what will be, for many, one of the highlights of the camps – our evening sessions. Tonight we heard a powerful testimony of God’s grace working in the life of a young man, we watched a video of some work happening in Croydon, and we opened our Bibles to James 3:1-12. From this passage, Andrew challenged us to sort out our speech. These verses of Scripture have much to say about the way we speak and how we use our language.

But importantly, our speech is also a sign of what is going in inside our hearts. “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” So if we have a problem with the language we use and the way we speak, then we have a problem with our heart. And we need Jesus to fix that.

"The mouth speaks what the heart is full of." 

Jesus    

The formal part of the night finished in our study groups catching up on some questions, or in my group, we wrote limericks and haiku to describe our battle with temptation. Then it was off to bed with the radio show entertaining us along the way.

#pyvsummercamp15 #onceuponapyvsummercamp