Sorry for not posting about weeks six and seven, but the end of camp was a busy and crazy time so having time to write was difficult. Over the next couple weeks or so I will be wrapping up this blog about my summer and sharing what and how different elements of camp impacted my life beyond the summer. The first way I am going to do this is by going through our bible study and sharing how God used the bible studies I taught every day all summer to re-shape and mold me.
I waited on the bible study packet with great anticipation in the months leading up to camp. I was anxious to see what the Lord was going to do through this bible study, so I was obviously on the edge of my seat waiting to see what scripture I would be teaching. So, the day camp and I opened the packed. The first scripture passage I came to was Day 1 where the theme was Love and the scripture was the entire book of Jonah. What a bummer--a story I've heard a million times and a story my students have heard a million times, right?
I will admit that because I knew the STORY well, I just skimmed over the commentary and scripture but during my skimming some things I had never thought about popped off the page at me. First, why WAS jonah so against going to Ninevah? Yeah its a bad place, yeah they hung captured heads after a victory in war, but was that the WHOLE reason? The answer, I discovered, was no. The commentary pointed out that the Hebrew people were extremely nationalistic; they believed that they were set apart and the reason Jonah didn't want to go was because he didn't want anyone else to be shown God's mercy like his people had and he knew as he says in Jonah 4:2-3 its the REASON he fled. The point of this in bible study was to make the students search out who in their communities, in their lives, in the world, that they have prejudice against, who is their Ninevah? who is MY Ninevah?
The fun question that I liked to ask my students each week was,
"So guys, what do you think the consequences of Jonah's disovedience to the Lord were?"
Their answer was the same each week: "being swallowed by a whale".
I asked, "was it?"
someone usually stuttered, "I......don't know"
From really reading I discovered that despite the conclusion I suspect most of us have that being swallowed was a consequence, it was in fact Jonah's saving grace. If God hadn't sent that whale, Jonah would have be engulfed and swallowed up by the waves.
The final big thing that I took away from this study was Chapter 4 of the book. In Chapter 4, Jonah throws a serious temper tantrum and to be honest I can't remember ever truly reading over chapter 4 before camp. The end of Jonah's story is a lot different than what I always learned as a kid, it does not end "and they all lived happily after." In fact, it ends without us knowing what happens at all. After Jonah throws a temper tantrum, God causes a vine to grow up and give shade for a brief time before causing a worm to eat it up. I knew that part of the story but what I didn't remember was HOW God used this to prove a point. Jonah gets mad about the plant being gone so God asks if he really has a reason to be angry. When Jonah says yes, God slams him by saying if you think you have reason to be angry about this plant you didn't create, this plant you only had for a brief moment in time, then why shouldn't I have compassion on Ninevah, a city I created of 120,000 people? And then the story ends. We don't know what Jonah says, how he responds, but we are left with God's lesson to him.
A quote from the monologue my great friend and roommate for the summer John Sickles performed every tuesday night sums up what i pulled from this lesson all summer long it says "God loves everyone, not just our friends". When are we gonna wake up and realize God loves that homeless man standing on the street corner, that prostitute, the people in China, our worst enemy, just AS MUCH as he loves us?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Every Week is Different
Well, week 4 has come and gone and I can't believe that in the midst of this week we passed the halfway point in our summer with students. God has done amazing things in the past 4 weeks and I am just a little, ok a lot excited about what He is going to do in the last three weeks here in Nashville.
The week started off with a lot of promise, a high energy opening celebration got our hopes up that this was going to be a great group of students, who were energized and ready to go. As the week went on, though, their energy level began to drop drastically. Every AM Show was a challenge to get them awake and energized, and for my group that energy never really came. We do a lot of activities in bible study to get the students awake and active and this week nothing seemed to engage the students in my group. I pray that God spoke to them and worked in them somehow through the week of bible study.
Ministry site this week was the strangest of the summer so far. It started off normal enough, rough at first to try to get my students engaged with the kids at the center which is normal. The first couple of days I enjoyed spending time in the pool with some of my students and it was really great to get to invest in them each afternoon in the pool, but I realized that this was attributing to them being engaged with the kids so we started to split up in the afternoons. For the rest of the summer, I'm going to do a lot of encouragement the first night to prevent clusters of students throughout the week so that more ministry can be done.
Thursday at site was the most stressful, but one of the most rewarding days of my life. The morning went on as normal, but as we walked out of lunch there was a commotion at the end of the hall. I walked towards the commotion and when I looked out the door, I saw a girl laying on the ground after being tackled and a gun laying on the ground a few feet away. I immediately got my students and adults into the gym with instructions not to let kids leave the building. I then tried to herd the kids on site into the gym and away from the door. The kids were very resistant to this and started to hit, kick and push me as they ran back to the door. My nerves were on edge throughout, but we did eventually manage to get them all into the gym as the center went on lockdown. Even once they were in the gym they kept picking sides and I was afraid for a while a riot was going to break out in the gym. Finally we headed to the pool which did cool off the situation a good bit, but at the pool we had some things stolen which was a rough thing to handle.
The week finished up nicely at site, though. On friday, a new staffer was brought into the center and apparently a lot of structure is soon to be put into Easley which will make the last three weeks there a lot different than the first four. I will actually get to plan and assign some of my students to different tasks in the center which will be fun. I will miss the staffer that this new one replaced, but if it means structure than I will take it. I do think that the non-structure that I dealt with taught me a lot and taught the people there with me a lot as well. It taught me to roll with the punches and that ministry doesn't have to happen in the confines of a structured environment. I am really excited, though, because having structure means that a lot more intentional ministry will be possible because kids will be stuck in rooms with my students for an hour at a time which will be wonderful.
All in all i had a good week and look forward to making some changes and making the next three even better.
The week started off with a lot of promise, a high energy opening celebration got our hopes up that this was going to be a great group of students, who were energized and ready to go. As the week went on, though, their energy level began to drop drastically. Every AM Show was a challenge to get them awake and energized, and for my group that energy never really came. We do a lot of activities in bible study to get the students awake and active and this week nothing seemed to engage the students in my group. I pray that God spoke to them and worked in them somehow through the week of bible study.
Ministry site this week was the strangest of the summer so far. It started off normal enough, rough at first to try to get my students engaged with the kids at the center which is normal. The first couple of days I enjoyed spending time in the pool with some of my students and it was really great to get to invest in them each afternoon in the pool, but I realized that this was attributing to them being engaged with the kids so we started to split up in the afternoons. For the rest of the summer, I'm going to do a lot of encouragement the first night to prevent clusters of students throughout the week so that more ministry can be done.
Thursday at site was the most stressful, but one of the most rewarding days of my life. The morning went on as normal, but as we walked out of lunch there was a commotion at the end of the hall. I walked towards the commotion and when I looked out the door, I saw a girl laying on the ground after being tackled and a gun laying on the ground a few feet away. I immediately got my students and adults into the gym with instructions not to let kids leave the building. I then tried to herd the kids on site into the gym and away from the door. The kids were very resistant to this and started to hit, kick and push me as they ran back to the door. My nerves were on edge throughout, but we did eventually manage to get them all into the gym as the center went on lockdown. Even once they were in the gym they kept picking sides and I was afraid for a while a riot was going to break out in the gym. Finally we headed to the pool which did cool off the situation a good bit, but at the pool we had some things stolen which was a rough thing to handle.
The week finished up nicely at site, though. On friday, a new staffer was brought into the center and apparently a lot of structure is soon to be put into Easley which will make the last three weeks there a lot different than the first four. I will actually get to plan and assign some of my students to different tasks in the center which will be fun. I will miss the staffer that this new one replaced, but if it means structure than I will take it. I do think that the non-structure that I dealt with taught me a lot and taught the people there with me a lot as well. It taught me to roll with the punches and that ministry doesn't have to happen in the confines of a structured environment. I am really excited, though, because having structure means that a lot more intentional ministry will be possible because kids will be stuck in rooms with my students for an hour at a time which will be wonderful.
All in all i had a good week and look forward to making some changes and making the next three even better.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
