"...I'm aware that they teach and form me."

Hi Everyone! We’ve completed our first week of camp and are well into our second session. It’s a joy to see how our campers have grown over the year. Every summer I’m reminded why we do summer camp. It’s a tremendous honor and great delight to be a part of the spiritual formation of children. And in truth, I’m aware that they teach and form me. For session one, I had the honor of speaking into the lives of our campers during our evening worship. We studied Jesus’ actions in John 1 .

God invites us to "walk with Him."

The first night I gave each child an envelope with an enclosed invitation with their name saying that they were invited to “Walk with God.” We talked about how God had created the world and called it good and created humankind in his image (the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a holy community of Three-in-One). I invited the children to look for God’s goodness. Each night I asked them to describe something they saw or heard or tasted that day that reminded them of the goodness of God. It was a good exercise for me as well, to give thanks to God for the sound of birds, for the visual of a honeybee gathering pollen, for the taste of chocolate on my tongue, all reminders of God’s goodness and good intent towards me. The children gave amazing examples each night: the sound of laughter, worship, the sight of our new beautiful cross by the lake, the gift of friendship, the taste of chicken. One precious soul said he was reminded of the goodness of God when he ate a tater tot, saying it reminded him of taking in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and “it was soooooo good.” I’m going to continue to soak in the wisdom of these children with a smile for some time.

We also discussed how the enemy of our soul (also God’s enemy) did not want us to be friends with God, and so deceived Adam and Eve into thinking that God was holding out on them, that God did not have their best interest at heart, that God was not good. We discussed the analogy that it would be similar to our invitations being intercepted and replaced with the wrong information or being convinced that the Sender of the invitation didn’t really want you there or didn’t really like you or that the event was really not that great. It’s the same temptation we have today, to not trust in God’s goodness and love for us, so that we disregard his invitation and boundaries, and go our own way.

But God, determined to show us his love and good intention, comes to us in the flesh and walks among us in the person of Jesus Christ to show us exactly what he is like…a God that loves so much that he is willing to die for us; a God who is able to give us life as he takes up his own life again in power, in his resurrection. As we continued to look in John 1, we saw that Jesus gives an invitation to the disciples of John the Baptist to “Come and see.” We discussed how God also offers us the invitation to “Come and See,” to see his goodness, to see his love, to see that he is trustworthy and true...And that Jesus offers another invitation, “follow me.” It’s one thing to come and see and believe. It’s another to follow. And ultimately this is the invitation that Jesus extended to his disciples in John 1, and to us today —to follow.

Jesus says, "follow me."

What does it mean to follow Jesus? I believe it is first to “come and see” his goodness and believe. Then it is to take on his identity, the identity that God the Father proclaimed over the Son in his baptism, “Beloved Son, in whom I delight.”(Matt 3:17) If we are “in Christ” this is our true identity. (Gal 3:26-27) This is the truest thing about us, that we are God’s beloved daughter; God’s beloved son; God’s beloved child. With this identity our following becomes an outpouring of our love for God and a reflection of the love relationship we have with God, just as Jesus’ ministry was an outpouring of the love relationship between the Father and the Son.

Being “in Christ” is living a life empowered by the Spirit, grounded and rooted in the love of God with an identity as God’s beloved, while partnering with God in the repair and restoration of the world. (Eph 2:10; Eph 3: 16-19) And Jesus shows what that kind of life looks like…washing people’s feet, lifting up the lowly, touching the untouchable, ministering to particular people in a particular place and particular time. The life of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels is not abstract. We have very tangible scenes of Jesus ministering to real people with real needs. I asked the children last week to think of tangible ways that they might partner with God in the repair of the world. They replied with beautiful examples of how they might be agents of God’s love: being kind to their baby sister; sitting with the person that always sits alone at lunch; helping their mom before she asks; being a good friend; having grateful hearts.

Again, I was reminded of the great honor it is to be a part of the spiritual formation of children at camp and how much I learn from them. Jesus said unless you become like a little child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:3) I’m going to continue to hold in my imagination and heart the laughter, smiles, worship, and earnest words of these children and let them be my guide for what it looks like to follow Jesus with wonder and gratitude and humility.

What have you seen or heard or tasted today that reminds you of the goodness of God? Let it simmer in your imagination.

We still have a few openings for session 3 and session 4. If you are interested in King’s Camp you can find us at www.kingscamp.net