Thank-you for all your prayers this week. Camp was absolutely amazing. I preached 7 sermons in 7 days. At 50 minutes a talk I was wondering if the campers would get bored but they kept engaged the whole time. The Spirit of God was obvious in that place and at several times tears came to my eyes as I watched the spiritual enthusiasm and commitment of these young people.
On Tuesday night a whole group of the older campers huddled together, prayed and sang for an hour after chapel. On Wednesday night all the older campers were gone on a missions trip and I spoke just to the younger grades (6 through ??) We did the Gospel presentation where I set up a plank that spans the gap between the life lived by ourself and the one given to God (where Jesus carries us over by faith). Three campers gave their life to Christ and another seven or so rededicated their lives. And that was only half way through the week.
I was blown away by the campers. What a bunch of great youth people! At several points I was getting ready for chapel and they would just walk up to me and start praying for me. Talk about a blessing.
I will be putting the sermon notes online later this week once we get our stuff all packed up for Belize. You can see them at http://www.authenticwalk.com/sermons/camp2005/
I would love to have some of you campers from last week leave a note saying what God did in your life at camp.
Chris
4 comments:
I was one of the campers that sang and prayed after Chapel on tuesday night! It was totally amazing! Before i came to camp i was so tired of fighting in my spiritual walk! I was continuiously attacked from the devil over and over....from being told that i was useless to caring the burdens of frineds that were rebeling against God...or being hospitalized because they were having visions of demons. But on Tuesday... God just really spoke to me and told me that i need to continue fighting cuz the battle was far from over...and those with me/ around me at the picnic talbe would be there to help me! Then on Friday i went and prayed in the laberenth! WHAT AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE.(by the way i want one for my room!!!!) God told me that i needed to fix my eyes on him if i wanted to grow in him more...and that i needed to get rid of some of the distarctions in my life. He also brought me to a passage in the bible: Lamantations 3! It talked about restoring hope! That really incouraged me because it felt like i didn't have any left!!! Now that i'm back at home, Me and some friends have gotten together and have decided to hold each other accountable for things and will meet every sunday 1/2 hour before our church starts just to pray for each other!!!! GOD IS SOOOOO GOOD!!!!
Heidi F.
hey chris this is blair the one who you talked to after i walked the bridge. I just wanted to say how much it made a impact on my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blair
Camp was soooooo amazing!! Though I wasn't fighting any spiritual battles recently, I was struggling emotionally. During the fist couple days of camp as a first year Varsity, I thought that the other older campers wouldn't accept me, but I was completely wrong. I knew that a lot of them were struggling inside too, but God still used them to speak to me. They were encouraging and they constantly pushed me to do my best.
Not only did God speak through the other Varsities, God also spoke to me through Pastor Chris and Cory. He spoke on living authentically and how important it is to chose the right path to walk. It made me reflect upon my own life and challenged me to do more for God.
It really touched me that Tuesday night. I was not singing outside with some of the others, but I was inside where all the counsellors put their hands on us and prayed for us. It touched me to see so many people gathering together, praying. After they prayed, I felt all my fears of the next day melt away and was really excited to go and spread God's love with my friends. It really encouraged me too when my cabin counsellor told us on Wednesday night that the manager at the Dairy Queen in Princeton that we went to questioned our actions. I thought that was really cool, because we've been told that we wanted to live a questionable life, that people would want to know what's different about us. People actually stopped to listen to us sing on the steps of a building!! It was so amazing the things that God did on that trip. Who knows? Maybe because of our singing people actually wanted to learn more about God!
On Friday, I too walked the labyrinth. It was such an amazing experience! To tell the truth, I wanted to sit in the centre forever and never leave. I could hear God calling out to me as I was walking through the labyrinth. Then as I was walking out, I could sense someone walking beside me. It really encouraged me, because as I was walking out of the labyrinth, it was to symbolize going back out into the world. And sensing God walking with me as I was going out comforted me, knowing that God would be with me every step of my journey.
All in all, camp was an amazing and enriching experience, and I feel much closer to God now than before I went to camp.
THANK YOU GOD FOR YOUR COUNTLESS BLESSINGS DURING THE WHOLE WEEK!!
Crystal L.
Ya, I was also one of the campers who worshiped on the Tues. nite - it was really awesome! One of us would start singing a chorus, and the rest of us would join in - quite a few times, i would be thinking of a song, and someone else would start singing it. YOu could really tell God was there!!
Wed. us older campers... we also had an awesome time... it was cool.. we sang all the way from penticton to princeton, and then all our voices were still "alive" when we got there. we went into dq and afterwards were able to sing amazing grace to the staff.
then while we were walking around princeton, as we were standing on the steps for group pics, we started singing amazing grace again, and ppl were coming out onto their lawns and coming out of restaurants, and stopping in their cars on the road to hear us... it was awesome!!
I know that during the week my confidence went soo far up, because of my security in God - in the middle of the park/ vancouver ferry terminal, some of us started singing songs ( like here i am to worship etc) and after we were done a song, this family asked us "do you know i am a C?" and we we like "sure" and started singing it - really loud. but that was really a blessing to me, being able to have other people notice.. acknowledging that they realized that we were christians, and that they were too... it was really cool. we also started singing "breathe" from the ferry dock before it left, and 2 guys who worked with the ferry noticed and were listening to us to. it was really awesome, because i'm usually too shy to sing that kind of songs out loud, but through camp and God, I wasn't afraid to do it, and i was really blessed by that!! Thanks Chris ( and Cory too of course!)
---->Elizabeth
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