d:camp05|spirit

That’s what been consuming my attention since the middle of last week.. so no blogging, no real anything apart from just digging in and getting the job done.

We took less people away this year, but it was a much better mix of crew I felt. There was less posing and falseness, and the Spirit was gentle but very powerful. My youthband did soo awesome; I was just incredibly moved. Lots of good things that feel like lasting fruit happened.

I really enjoyed the crew that I was working with, from the guys doing games to the kitchen crew, to the band, and the various people who contributed from dance items to reading poems in our opening rituals..

There was a moment of real lowness on the Saturday afternoon.. I missed my friend Luke who would ordinarily be running camp with me, but there was something satisfying about the singularity of direction. Everything was cohesively knitted together.. exactly the same sort of strategy that I would like to see in place at Easter. There were some large criticisms from people that disappointed me but they did an about-face on the Saturday night which was also very cool.

Things That Intentionally Made The Camp Better

1. Prayer Partners
I rather randomly split the campers, young adults, leaders and crew into two halves and then paired them off, and scheduled three times over camp where they talked to one another. I trusted God in the pairings.. some with young adults with teenagers, others were teenagers with teenagers.. but I haven’t heard anything but great stories about how the Spirit of God was at work in the randomness of an Excel spreadsheet.

2. Opening Rituals
Every year I think about this more and more.. that the way you bring people into an experience and the way you close it (more later), becomes vital to setting the tone and direction of the camp. Previous years, it’s been a cleansing ritual.. this year it was a thanksgiving ceremony with lots of praise and worship songs, poetry and prayer readings from various people within the community, and a dance. It was very special.

3. Happy Sacks
Once again, these were such a hit. This year, on advice, I used brown paper bags and pegged them with yellow (happy) pegs on a loop of string down one wall of the main room. Over the weekend I filled them with treats at various points, and people wrote notes and thankyous to significant people. One girl came to camp with verses already written to put in them.

4. Intentionally Saying Thank You
With there being so many young adults there that aren’t directly involved with the high school groups, I wanted to really push and encourage intentionality within the older community there. I used the image of a spiders web, how each strand interlocks with so many other strands, in all directions, creating a web that very little falls through. At each gathering point with the leaders, I handed out treats as well, making sure that they felt valued and heard.

Feeling Finnish
I’m going to the Finn Brothers tonight at the Civic. Yayness.