It’s been a while since I’ve been able to take enough time to write out what’s been going on lately. So here it goes…3 weeks in a blog that hopefully doesn’t turn out to be miserably long!
From June 6th to the 11th, Jody (my boss) and I helped staff a camp in Savannah called Power Plant. Power Plant is a fairly new camp put on by the North American Mission Board (NAMB). The point of the camp is to expose students to church planting (what it is, why it’s needed, and to help them realize that we’re all called to it in some fashion). Campers spend the mornings in games, worship, and training sessions focused on church planting and evangelism. After lunch, youth group teams head out to minister with their church plant. Each youth group is assigned a church planter to work with for the week. Some do service projects (picking up trash, painting, etc). Some put on VBS camps. Some do sports camps (basketball, soccer, etc). After ministering from around 12.30 to 6-ish, they eat dinner and then have the evening worship service called The Gathering. For the Savannah camp, Jody was the Ministry Coordinator (MC) meaning that he setup the connections between youth groups and church plants and helped with the ministry aspect of the camp.
That week was incredible!! The summer staff (Christi, Clark, Preston, Rochelle) were so much fun. The time I spent with them was so encouraging. After that week, I began considering applying for a position with Power Plant for next summer. The summer staff teams (there are 4) travel around a region of the country doing the projects in that area. They do an average of 5 projects throughout the summer. The problem, though, is that the training dates for the camp overlaps with Ouachita’s Biblical Studies trip to Israel and Jordan. At the end of the week I wasn’t sure which I wanted to do, if either of them.
The next week (June 13-19) was the church’s VBS. I helped with the 3 and 4 year-olds’ class. We topped out at 60 kids at the VBS, which for the size of the church was a really good turnout! The week’s lessons went through the story of Moses and related it to Christ. They went from the burning bush, to Pharaoh and the plagues, to the Passover, and ending Moses’ story at the Red Sea. The day after the Passover lesson, the kids learned the connection between the Passover and Christ’s crucifixion.
The day after the VBS ended 8 youth, Jody, and I left for Power Plant Atlanta (P2 ATL). It’s only a four hour drive, so it wasn’t that bad. P2 ATL was a little bit different of a setup than Savannah’s camp. There were about 150 participants. We all stayed in Georgia Tech’s BCM building. The girls stayed upstairs, and the boys stayed downstairs. There were about 60-ish girls in one big room. Let’s just say you get really close really fast. The other girls were a blast, though! It was actually surprisingly fun to stay with everyone together: it gave us a lot more unity when it came to worship services and such.
Our youth group worked with a church planter named Lloyd Owens who is planting a church named Peculiar Place in the Old Fourth Ward of Atlanta (where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up). He has such a vision for the future of the community and a passion to see the area’s upcoming generation change things for the Fourth Ward. His church hasn’t started yet, so we were helping him from the ground floor up. We went out into the community to do some service projects. We cleaned up around one of the city halls (Atlanta has four) to help Lloyd form some relationships with some city councilmen. Also, we cleaned around his house (picking up trash on the surrounding streets). He really wants his church to reflect his community, and for that to happen, the community has to be aware of the church! We also cleaned out some flowerbeds and weeded around the local YMCA. Through this, Lloyd was connected to one of the YMCA’s board members who is a Christian. This relationship is huge for Lloyd!! Hopefully God will bless it and provide more connections for Lloyd.
I think the kids (6 girls, 2 guys) learned a lot this past week. The training sessions were amazing, and they were delivered in a way that was relevant and engaging but challenging at the same time. Please pray that the lessons they learned will be brought back to Pooler and used to minister to the community here! There are people who live right across the street from Rothwell who don’t go to church anywhere. It’s time to reach out persistently to those in this community in order to reach them for the Kingdom. Something one of the speakers said really stood out to me: “Don’t give up on them, because someone didn’t give up on you.” Even though they’ve been invited before, it takes more than once and more than just Sunday services. We need to be persistent.
Also, going back to applying for Power Plant next summer. I'm really praying about it. God's been showing me that He deserves control over every aspect of my life, including my summers. Even though the trip to Israel is a dream of mine, Jerusalem will be there later. Power Plant is a quite smaller time window. Besides, not going to Power Plant could have some huge eternal consequences for someone. I'm not willing to chance that.
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