What a cool deal! A bunch of people (some jr high students from camp) all baptized and declaring new life in Jesus. And the student ministry band playing their guts out - guiding us in singing to Him.

Dig it.

It is amazing how old these jr highers make this man feel. Whew.

My back still hurts from something I did…they did - who knows.

Right before I left my hard drive in my laptop fritzed - which means I am missing some valuable information. I am in the process of rebuilding my computer “life” and scolding myself for not backing up more often. The biggest stinger is my 69 page Thesis (not yet finalized) was on the hard drive. Doh!

I am praying that someone can go Jesus on this thing and bring it back from the dead…for less than a bunch of money.

…on with the story.

At the beginning of the week we gave each student a white strip of sheet as a reminder of God’s story and a physical symbol of wanting to live within his story (based on a text in Deuteronomy where the people of God are encouraged to tie the words of God on their wrists, etch them into their door frames…). Then we talked about how we bear the image of God - and a large white sheet what placed out - and our small strips represent that we carry the imago dei with us. The night of the conflict these strips have gotten a little dirty due to wearing them through activities. That night we talked about the conflict between God and us - essentially we resist and rebel against the Creator God who longs for relationship with us. We went through the ten commandments and marked how each person has been doing keeping up with God. Each mark represents struggles.

They have had over 24 hours to process the conflict - with the sin in our life, how will we return back to God’s story - relationship with Him. Some of the students struggled with this. We processed as a group, how are we going to resolve the conflict. Answers ranged from across the board: “try harder not to sin,” “God will forgive us,” and more.

Why should God forgive us? How should he respond? He has provided so much and it pleases Him to be our Father and care taker…and we, in our sin, reveal that we think we can do it better.

And so God, in response to the sin/conflict in our life, sent His Son. He came into the world loving sinners and people far from God, he healed the sick, brought life to the dead…and how did they respond? They killed him. How do we respond to Jesus? Our sin reveals that we killed him.

And so while we were sinners, hostile to God, filled with mercy God sent Jesus to offer a way back into God’s story. But, this way back means we would have to face the cross straight on. The cross reveals two things. 1) The Cross reveals the horror of our sin. That the only way our sinfulness could be dealt with was for Jesus to take it upon himself with the torment of the cross. This should break our hearts - our self-centeredness and the death that it caused to God’s own Son should lead to repentance. 2) The cross reveals the unstoppable love of our Father in heaven…that we should have been left out of His story to our own wicked ends…but instead, God put into place a rescue mission to offer a chance to come back to Him.

So, we invited the students, if they have been trying to save themselves, try harder, work out their own salvation or just expect that God would forgive them because he forgives everyone to meet Jesus at the cross - perhaps for the first time. All that was asked was that they place their dirty strips on the cross as a symbol of what their sin cost Jesus and then take communion as a declaration that Jesus is the turning point, the nourishment, the climax of my life.

Then we sang our hearts out to Jesus for being our Marvelous Light, Our King and Savior.

Oh Happy Day!

Whew!

These last 36 hours have felt like three days. The students arrived and it has been non stop ever since. It is so amazing my capacity to forget what Camp is like…or I am just getting old and unable to keep up…no comments about that please =).

So, the theme of camp is “story” and we are talking about the story of God. The first night we looked at story and how most of our life is filled with stories. We watch them on screens and televisions. We listen to them within a song. We read them in books (ok, so not very many students read for fun these days - accept the Harry Potter Books). When we meet people, it is their “story” we are trying to understand: where did you come from, what do you like…etc. God has a story, too. Each good story has elements within it: Plot-Conflict-Climax-Resolution. These are the general titles of our sessions from here on out. And so many people just have a few snippets of the story and assume they know His story…or live confused, apathetic, or in-and-out of God’s story.  So, this week at camp, we are asking God and taking time to step inside of His story - and understand the Plot-Conflict-Climax-Resolution. Because when you understand His story it dramatically changes the way you live yours.

Day 2 started with a morning session - Plot: the “fence” of the story that contains the main idea, characters, and the intended goal. We introduced the three movies we will be using to help us understand these elements. In God’s story - we visited Genesis 1. We read about a Creator, a provider, and someone who uniquely created us in His Image (Imago Dei).  Our culture is always telling us that we need to look prettier, better clothing, insisting that we change our features to replicate the impossible. When we begin to understand Imago Dei and God’s story - when we look in the mirror and say “I hate X about me” in a sense we are saying to God “I don’t like the story you have written”. So, step one into God’s story is understanding that He created us (Psalm 139), that everything he creates is intended for good, and that He loves to provide and care for us.

Day 2p.m. we talked about Conflict. We looked at Genesis 3…where sin enters God’s story. We talked about how God created us and loves us so much - that he intended us for much good. But, we reject His story and set out to write our own. We looked at the 10 commandments and took a personal inventory of how we were doing…and no one made it out innocent…because no one is. When we reject God’s story, that means we have selected separation from God as our modus operandi. We cannot just say, “Oh, I love God” and assume he will just forget about the way we live. Sin=Conflict with God and His story. It puts us at odds with Him and ultimately leads to an eternity without Him.  And so last night the room was “intense” and filled with tension as they left trying to answer the question: how will we get back into His story?

…to be continued

So, it is my hope to make this a place where people can keep in touch with what is going on here at “the story of God” fusion camp 2008.