Comments on: Help I’m Speaking @ Summer Camp: Part 1

By: PHSYL

PHSYL — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:36:10 +0000

Say-So is a tradition at many YL camps during the last club of the week. Usually the speaker gives the students who met the Lord the opportunity to stand and say their name and a sentence describing their decision (i.e. This week I began a relationship with Jesus). It is based on Ps 107:2 which says “let the redeemed of the Lord say so” (NASB/ESV and others).

By: Logan

Logan — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:43:21 +0000

I’m a WyldLife leader, and currently we’ve only had it in our area for two years, but I’m slightly confused as to what the “say-so” talk is exactly…

By: Ame

Ame — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:18:41 +0000

PS – I was thinking about your desire/conviction to talk about more about following Jesus – I wonder if you could begin to weave that in, even during the Person of Christ talks? One of the things about Jesus is that a lot of people wanted to be around him, his disciples hopped up when he invited them to follow him, what did that mean for them to follow him (give up their lives/plans/everything), what kind of person must Jesus be for these people just to want to be with him, to be like him and learn from him? Just a thought

By: Ame

Ame — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:15:03 +0000

Oh, I am with you about the “role play”/”real life” – that is another thing we worked really hard on last year! First of all, I would move for the mission of YL to forever ban the words “role play” – anything that would make kids think that this stuff is made up or manipulated to prove a point.
So here’s what we did (I have a ton of stuff I could email if you’re interested For Real Life, we started with the philosophy that we a) wanted this to be NOT cheesy, lame or pretend b) we didn’t want confusion about the folks up front and whether they were pretending to be or answering questions as if they were in high school, but just to be who they are and c) that we wanted to tell stories and tell them well about our journeys in the hopes that kids would identify and hopefully be led to move to the next step in their journey towards or with Jesus – we had 5 folks as normal. We just presented them as 5 people that you are going to get hear bits and pieces of their story over the week. We did coordinate with the speaker, but instead of their reflections being about the talks (i.e., “the speaker Frank, made some good points…” or “I don’t believe what he said…”, or “gosh, I never turned my back on God”, etc) we just had them tell snapshots from their life. For each session of Real Life, we had them tell two 1-minute stories, just jumping into the story telling, no cheesy set-up. The speaker and the head leader on point for Real Life introduced it each time and helped paint the picture of where we were going with this. We did give them topics – for the first round, they told 2 1-minute stories on their earliest view of God (positive and/or negative) using specific stories. Second round they talked about the darkest, lonliest, emptiest times in their life and their view of God in those. Lastly, they talked about 1. moment of meeting Jesus and 2. how their lives look different now, how things are redeemed, and how they are still waiting for redemption in some areas (NOT leaving them with the picture that once you start following Jesus, life is rosy and perfect, what a disservice that is to kids!). We didn’t have them pretend to be in high school, they just told their stories as they are now. They did all the story-telling live (no thought tapes). To introduce them on the first night we did a short video with pictures and some “fun facts” woven between pics to give a picture of their personality. We still had kids interact as normal, but we did that slightly differently too and let them know ahead of time what to be looking for.
SEMINARS: On Day 2 right after the vball tourney, we had a campaigner seminar (we did not announce from up front, but sold it hard with leaders to get the “right” kids there). We had them share who it was that told them about Jesus, talked about the bleeding woman and the easily overlooked part that “she had heard about Jesus” – meaning someone told her about Jesus, doesn’t say who it was, but someone pointed her toward Jesus. We challenged them to think that that is their role this week, that camp is really for their friends who need to see Jesus. We had them go around and share the name of a friend in their cabin that they were going to pray for and help point toward Jesus that week, had them share how they could do that. Told them about the Say-So at the end and gave them the vision, “what would it look like if the friend you just mentioned stood up?” Then ended in praying for their friends and the week.
Day 6 just before lunch (it was outdoor lunch), we had the questions seminar with a panel of 4 people including the speaker. We met before hand to divide up topics that each person on the panel would take – i.e. theological questions or questions about salvation to the speaker, one person take morality issues/questions about how to live as a follower of Jesus, one person take questions about church/how to grow/other religions, one person take “how do we know” questions, how do we know the bible is real/true, etc. Then had kids write down questions and turn into one of the panel who sorted out all the questions and gave them to appropriate person – while kids were writing questions the speaker started with some frequently asked stuff – If God is good, why is their evil in the world for example. Then we stayed around during the outdoor lunch in case kids wanted to talk more with a specific person.
Day 7 – we met at 8:30 and did a Following Jesus walk around camp for folks that began a relationship that week. We had a bunch of the AT help with this. Speaker met them at a designated location, gave bibles and devotional, then led them around camp to talk about what it was like to follow Jesus – at each “station” they were met by wc bosses/program/ss, etc that talked about a specific part. They ended up in the dining hall where the summer staff and wc greeted them (just after wc/ss breakfast) and talked about community/body of believers/church.
Day 7 – After brunch, we had a time of “Optional Worship” where anyone who wanted to (campaigners from Day 2, new believers from Follow Jesus walk, etc) could come and spend some time just singing worship music, and then we had a panel of folks again that challenged them on topics as they went back home – ie what it means to really “follow” someone to do what they do, personal time with the Lord (what that looks like), what does “worship” mean? (not just singing, but giving your whole life to Jesus, everything we do), etc.

Of course, none of this is perfect, and has much room for improvement, but we did get some good feedback from leaders about it.

What did you like about the “old school” seminars? What are your “not-so-good feelings about real life/role play?

Thanks!

By: PHSYL

PHSYL — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:44:17 +0000

Everyone, thank you so much for these comments! Keep them coming!

@ Alan Nadler – I do feel like while we have them at camp it is an incredible opportunity, and I want to make the most of it. I agree that it can set up leaders for some important conversations. My philosophy of camp is leader-centered. My job as speaker is to be clear about the gospel set up conversations with leaders. My plan is to talk about the flow of the talks at the first leader meeting.

@ John McEnery – Thanks for your comments. Yes, the leader conversations are what I hope happen. Some leaders might need more help then others. I will think about how to set leaders up for their one-on-ones more.

@ Tom – Yes, I see the sin talk as a person of Christ talk. Previously in YL it was more of a theology talk. I see more speakers incorporating Jesus into the talk, which is a good thing. I typically talk about the Rich Young Ruler and how Jesus interacted with him. I spoke last summer at a Wyldlife camp and we did 7 talks in 6 days. WL camp is tough. Thanks for your faithfulness leading.

@ Chris – In the past I have the leaders stand up at the “Say So” talk and I describe what it looks like to be a Christian while they look at their leaders. I will be mentioning sin explicitly, I always have in the past, I’ve seen speakers try that too I have not seen it work, it usually adds too much confusion.

@ Jason – Thanks for your comments. Previous to speaking I had done program for assignment for about 10 years, so I appreciate your concern about the schedule. I told my team about this flow about two months ago, so we reworked the key program elements. I am concerned that night 3 is early for sin. Recently I listened to all of Rayburn’s camp talks at Frontier from 1961, it was interesting for many reasons, but one interesting part was that he spoke of Jesus and sin often, not just keeping it to one talk. Obviously there is a lot different today. But I also see Jesus’ initial proclamation is to believe and repent in the very first chapter of Mark. All that to say, I’m with you… I’m not 100% sure about the timing.

@ Marcus – See above about the program element. I really like you cluster’s ideas about alternative Say-So. Has anyone done that? Any feedback?

@ Ame – Great comments and I love rethinking through the “why”. I haven’t yet posted my thoughts about what I would say in the last talk, but one major element is Jesus’ call to follow. I’m right there with ya. What kind of seminars did they do? Another thing I haven’t posted is my general not-so-good feeling about most “role play” / “real life” / or the various variants. I liked the old school seminars from years ago but I would like to know any that are working today. Tell me more.

By: Ame

Ame — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:42:03 +0000

I love that there is this discussion going on! We’ve been talking a lot in our region about asking the “why” of what we are doing and about when we are preparing to talk asking the questions “Where are the kids we are speaking to?” AND more importantly, “WHAT QUESTIONS ARE KIDS ASKING?” I think one of the biggest questions on teenagers hearts today is not of the formulaic variety (i.e. “how” do I do this) but instead they are asking the questions – Does Jesus love ME? Can I trust Jesus? How do I know I can trust Jesus? Won’t he let me down like so many others have before? I think the questions kids are asking merit talking MORE about the person of Jesus, not less (in my humble opinion). One thing about teenagers today, dare I say “post-moderns” (as we know as YL leaders) is that it takes faith that will move mountains and tremendous perseverance to earn trust, but if you win their trust and answer those deep questions, they are loyal and will listen. This is our task when presenting Jesus – that he is trustworthy, and personal, and worthy of giving your life to. Do we really think one or two stories will suffice for our teenage friends? Yes, we need to challenge them more, and yes we need to give them a picture of what following Jesus looks like (I agree wholeheartedly), but my fear is that we start giving them the answers that WE want them to know verses answering the questions their hearts are so desperately asking. Do we really think they’ll be ready to follow Jesus if they aren’t sure they can trust him?
I hope that areas/staff/leaders take camp follow-up seriously and use that as a time to break down what it really looks like to follow Jesus. I agree with what a previous post-er said that the leaders are a picture of following Jesus for their kids. How can we set up leaders to be more intentional about inviting their young friends to follow?

What would it look like to use other forms of the message presentation more effectively at camp to challenge kids on a more personal level? In the YL camp sphere, one of the great things that we haven’t used well is the seminars. That is a great place (when time is spent on them and they aren’t all lumped together in a 45 min span) to really spend some time and make those excellent challenges to kids. Last summer we broke them all up, did them on different days, using non-traditional methods and the whole AT and even did one to challenge campaigner-type kids on Day 2.

Just throwing it out there! I love this, we’ve been talking about these very things for well over a year, so I’ve got a lot of thoughts/questions. What do you think?

By: Marcus

Marcus — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:39:11 +0000

I agree with Jason. You would have to get the program team on board to move the tableau so that it corresponds with the sin talk. Giving kids the opportunity to deal with sin while dressing up in a 50’s costume is a really great way to help them process. I love the idea, though. Sometimes we set up the Cross talk as if kids have never heard it… like it’s the best kept secret. Reality is that most kids know that Jesus was crucified, but don’t understand the significance of the resurrection. And Paul says that the Resurrection is key (Rom. 10:9). Great thinking… see how it plays out with the rest of the assignment team.

Also, I was dialoguing with my Cluster Leader about this: What about changing the “Say-So” and not doing it in front of the entire camp, but giving kids the opportunity to do that at their area meetings? I know way too many kids who stand up and say-so just for the attention.

By: jason

jason — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:12:07 +0000

great idea to think outside the box… however, yl camp, as we all know, is so much more about the camp itself, camper experience, camper/leader interaction, and most notably – the program. i won’t go into much detail here, but i think we all know what i’m talking about. think about the schedule and what is going on during camp before and after the sin talk as your original schedule is, then when you propose. i think you might want to give some consideration to the fact that camp isn’t “ready” for the sin talk at that point, given the program. things like tableau and the carnival are there for a reason, timed when they are timed, and are incredibly effective to have kids process their lives and the sin that are in their lives. just my thoughts…

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:55:02 +0000

As good as your idea sounds, I would keep it like it is and put the “give a picture of…” emphasis in the last talk before the Say So – and really set the leaders up huge to be that example for the kids. Keep in mind, camp isn’t about what you say so much as it is about the time kids are spending with leaders. A lot of value needs to be given to what leaders are expecting out of the camp they are bringing their kids to.

I have been frustrated to bring kids particularly to weekend camps and find that the speakers just sort of go off on their own. We had one speaker not even mention the word Sin. Crazy at a YL camp. When I ask kids to come to camp, I have some serious expectations of the assigned team.

Bottom line is you can’t say it all so you shouldn’t feel that pressure. I think the talk series as it is currently set up is tried & true excellence. It’s a tough call, though. If you’re feeling called to do something different, go for it. I would just be extremely, extremely cautious.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:27:20 +0000

I like this format, I dislike lumping resurrection/response into the same one. We focus so much on cross, but cross means nothing without resurrection, so we should spend some time on it. I think you’re right that it will present a little difficulty in first 2 nights with person of christ, but it’s definitely doable, you can even morph a little bit of person of christ into the sin talk. I generally work with 4 night WyldLife camps, and I always hate how much we have to rush through, but it’s the nature of the beast. I always spend the last night/last cabin time trying to explain what it means to follow Jesus, and sit there wishing I had a couple more days to really do it well.