Camp and Growth

Tomorrow morning after worshiping with our church, Amanda and I are taking our High School Youth Group up to Forest Home Summer Camp at Lakeview. And man, we are excited!

I always find that camp is just so good for high schoolers and for people in general for that matter. It's a natural place (no pun intended) for real growth and for asking tough questions about faith, life, and everything else. What happens is as we go along through life caught in a routine we tend to get hardened, set in our ways, numb, and eventually we may become unable to change and genuinely question our presumptions. Faith itself becomes routine... and faith in a crucified Christ should never be routine. What camp does for kids is it pulls them from their routine and offers them space to really soften up. It gives them a chance to really ask tough questions about their faith and their identity. It actually forces them to look at themselves without the guise of the "everyday" things that usually surrounds them.

We should always be on the lookout for ways to get outside our routine, indeed to get outside ourselves, long enough to rethink things and to see things how they really are. This can happen through connecting with something outside ourselves, perhaps a place or even a story. I think this is what the seasons of the church can do. Take Lent for example.

Lent takes us outside our routine, offers us an alternative practice, and therefore gives us space where we can come out completely different--renewed even--if we are willing to intentionally take advantage of it. By connecting with the story of God's life in the world, we can perpetually discover who God is and who we are. Thus we can perpetually change and become more authentic in our faith.

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