PYV 2018 Summer Camp – Day Three

It’s really easy to lose track of time at Summer Camp. So while we know that it’s day three at camp, we forget that it’s Saturday. More importantly, the weather has changed and we are enjoying a much cooler day today with a bit of gentle rain and grey skies. Fantastic.

At our leaders meeting it was my turn for the morning devotion. The quality of Jesus that I focussed on was his ability to mix with the sinners in his society. We might find ourselves far too comfortable in our Christian bubble.

Our worship session today included a testimony from Sarah, one of our leaders. I have no doubt that hearing the testimonies of Christian people is really important for teenagers and Sarah’s words today were very encouraging. We also heard about God answering prayers in unexpected ways from Courteney – unexpected but better.

Then we heard a story from a Pharisee named Simon. Apparently he invited Jesus around for a meal to check out if he was really the Messiah. While they were eating together a woman came into the house – the kind of woman that Simon would never invite into his house or even talk to in the street. But Jesus didn’t mind her coming in, touching his feet, and then pouring perfume over him. Simon was incensed! After all, he was a really good person and believed he deserved the attention of Jesus. But when Jesus talked about forgiveness, it seemed as though this lady was the one who was getting the attention of Jesus.

The wonderful truth of Jesus offering his forgiveness to all manner of people was made clear to the teenagers at camp today. It’s a truth that we need to keep hearing. Maybe this is something you can talk about with your family when they get home from camp.

Our thanks to Simon (aka Toby) for sharing his story with us.

After lunch we had our first session of workshops. I’ve already written about what the workshop topics were going to be, and I hope that what your children are hearing in these workshops will be talked about when they get home. I was leading the workshop on worship and here we considered many of the things that are a part of normal community worship and how differently our various churches do them. Do we sing four songs or six? Use an organ or other instruments? Collect the offering during a song or separately? We thought about what other churches do in their worship and considered what the Bible has to say about worship – a topic that is more difficult than it first seems.

I’ll talk to some campers and say more about the other workshops in a later post.

A cool dinner table

Al Fresco

Part of the local wildlife

We are finishing the day with a couple of movies and snacks. And the room has finally cooled down. (I'm currently watching Camp Rock. There's two hours of my life that I'll never get back again.)

Thanks for continuing to pray for us all. God is working amongst us all.

Sometimes you just have to be heard.

Just part of the YouthMETRO team