Day Four (Wednesday Dec 30)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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