First off I just want to say that this was my last year of camp; I'm old now and won't be able to go any more :( I think that was one of the reasons that it was so good. My camp was in North Carolina, this was the last year any of us were going to go there (next year my church is going to camp in VT). This camp is amazing, there were probably 1,000 or so campers there. Our speaker was John Goetsch; he's a professor at West Coast Bible College.
The theme of camp was "pulling down strongholds." As soon as I heard that that was the theme I knew it was going to be a good camp. We ended up talking about 3 particular strongholds but a lot of the stuff we learned you could apply to everything. In one day we had about 3 different sessions, a morning session, a evening session and what they call the "christian life seminar." I had a lot of favorite services because they all could apply to me, it was so crazy yet awesome.
We talked about 3 strongholds, the tongue, wrong friends, and laziness. Of course they were all really awesome to learn about but I think that the stronghold of the tongue hit everyone the hardest. Anyway, on to the sermons.
Probably the one I remember most and took the most away from was the service on Thursday night. Dr. Goetsch took his text from Daniel 1. He was talking about champions. He told us how Daniel was a champion because although he went through so much he was still all out for God. He told us this story of this boy who when he did something his Dad didn't like his Dad wouldn't literally take a belt to his back and rip up his back. He said that the boy made a commitment at camp to serve God and follow God, even though he knew what it would cost him. Dr. Goetsch saw that boy 9 months after he made the commitment to serve God and the boy was stilling serving God wholeheartedly, even though his Dad would beat him. That just challenged me so much. I don't have a bad family life, and I don't have tons of problems so what is my excuse for not serving God wholeheartedly??
The next one that stuck out to me was a lesson that was taught to us on the tongue. He took his text from James 3. He said that in this passage there is reference to the wicked tongue and the wise tongue. Something that i heard before but couldn't help but think about was that you never know what someone is going through, your words could influence them for good or bad. How do you want your words to impact them? Another thing that struck was when he said "your tongue can be used as a tool for satan." That's so true but i never thought of it like that. Something else that caught me was when he asked us if what we says matches us being Christians. I was just challenged to watch what I say because words are so powerful.
Friday morning he talked to us about laziness, that was a really cool lesson to learn. When my cabin talked about it we all were so stunned that laziness was a serious sin. Who thinks of sleeping in really late a sin? Or watching a movie when you have work to do a sin? One thing that got me also was the verse that says all sins are equal to God. Therefore, lying, laziness, stealing, murder are all on the same level.
While we were there they made us all memorize some Bible verses. All the verses had to do with what we were learning. It was so good because now sometimes I'll just quote the verses when I need a reminder of what God would have me to do. For instance when someone is saying something mean someone will be like "let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth." Or if someone is lying we'll say "lying lips are an abomination to the Lord."
One of the quotes that I took away from camp was "God has already lived your tomorrow." I thought that was awesome, there's no need to care about what is going to happen because it will all work out God's already been there.
Guys, my week was so amazing, that's not even half of the stuff that i learned there. I hope you guys don't mind that I sent this too you. I just thought we could all use a friendly reminder :)
Tata for now!
~D2
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