Senior High 1, 2010 Programs - Wednesday

Part 4 of the series, see the end of the article for other installments.

Wednesday

One of the advantages to having done programs for several years is that if something really works, after 4 years you can use it again because the campers turn over after 4 years.

This program was a modified version of one we did back in 2006. Again, the overall theme for the summer camps in 2010 was Faith Alive. So I had this progression of things that brought to mind for me. What is it we really believe in, what's the story? Getting that down was important, but the next part was to move into how to be ready to listen for when God calls to you.

So we started the evening talking about mediums and messages, and what mediums God uses. We looked at some examples from the bible, dreams, audible voices, angels. And we looked at some of the ways God speaks to us today. The written word, through the Spirit.

And how to know if something really is a blessing, Proverbs says that there are no sorrows attached to the blessings that come from God.

And God speaks intuitively sometimes. The best example is from Acts when the disciples were trying to come to a decision on how to admit the Gentiles and they made a huge, binding decision on the basis of "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us."

I told some stories of how God has spoken to me, and to some of my friends, and then I asked some counselors to share how God had spoken to them, with no idea how incredibly powerful that was going to be. Wish I had a recording of it.

Ways to Pray

We then broke into groups to learn some spiritual disciplines and practices that campers could use to discern the voice of God in their lives: lectio divina, ignatian method, journaling, centering prayer, examen, breath and body prayers, etc.

Silence

Here's part that we did in 2006, as they returned, we had reset the room again with no chairs, facing the wall on the side where we projected a guided mediation built around Rob Bell's Noise video, part of the Nooma series. This is actually the 3rd time I've used this program. The first was part of a service I used to be a part of in Memphis called The Door.

Using Keynote, I took the Nooma, embedded it into a presentation file and built some extra stuff at the beginning and end of the video that goes along well with the video.

The main idea of the piece is that we don't live lives that demonstrate that we want to hear what God has to say to us. We are constantly surrounded with noise (in fact, I have the New Pornographers blaring in my ears as I write this). It's the perfect concept for a video at camp, where we ask campers to come and unplug for a week. I am usually the one at the beginning of the week telling campers that there will be no iPods in use during the week, ironic considering how attached I was to music in high school. I was that kid who couldn't stand to be apart from my music.

The whole presentation is about 80% silence. Rob introduces the video with a setup like he's watching TV and talking through the TV, and then at one point, he just shuts it off and there's dead air for several seconds before words start appearing on screen. The rest of it is just words to read silently, including what I added on.

One of our veteran counselors, who has been there doing camps since the 70's told me after the first time we did this that he never would have believed that 120 teenagers could sit for 45 minutes in complete silence, but they did it.

After our announcements and offering break, we moved into our closing, which I found in an online posting from a Dothan, AL church.

Closing

I first heard of this on an internet message board, and I've used it 3 times and it's been very powerful each time.

It's pretty simple to pull off, but if done well and in the right setting, it's really an amazing illustration of the truth that we always have access to God, we just aren't aware of it most of the time.

You take a sheet of clear plexiglass and suspend it from the ceiling in front of a window. It doesn't need to be right on the window, but about 5 feet away from the window.

Then you project an image onto the plexiglass. The result: nothing. There's nothing behind the glass to reflect the image back at you. You need a clear window too, not one with a screen, that will reflect some of the image.

Now you have a canvas that you can paint something in with white tempura paint. We had 3 dancers and some good Sigur Ros music to make it dramatic I had worked with them ahead of time and shown them about where the eyes should be, so they try to paint in the eyes first. It's really a wow moment when you realize what they're doing. So as they paint, more and more of the image is revealed.

It's a powerful way to communicate that there are more things going on than we can often perceive.

Here's some images: