Things We Learn at Summer Camp

By the time you’ll be reading this, I’ll have (hopefully) survived Summer Church Camp! None of our youth were going to camp at Caney, so I decided to accept an offer to serve as a counselor at Lakeview Church Camp in Texas. It’s a family affair this year. My brother is a youth minister at a large Methodist church in the Houston area, and he is serving as the camp director. He asked Sione and I if we’d like to serve, and bring kids from our churches (or just Johnny & Poni), and after checking w/ERUMC youth about their interests, we decided to take him up on the offer. You may be asking, “Why in the world would anyone do such a thing!?!?!?”
Here’s why… to learn. Don’t you learn things when you hang out with young people? (sometimes, what we learn, we’re not really sure we WANTED to learn! And some things, we wish we HADN’T learned!) I hope to learn more about today’s young people, and “what’s new” with them these days. I hope to learn what other churches are doing in their youth groups and to minister with and to youth and their families. I hope to learn more about my own giftedness where youth are concerned, and I hope to translate all of that into ideas for our ministries at ERUMC.
Now, when I went to Summer Camp the first time, I learned that some people are pushy about trying to get other people “saved”, and that if you pee in the pool, something happens to your bathing suit and everybody knows. I never did really see what they were talking about, but I believed them, so I made sure not to make that mistake! I also learned that I’m an excellent shot with a 22, and a bow, that riding horses at Pappaw’s is more fun than camp, because we can make the horse run at Pappaw’s, and I think scarey stories around the campfire are stupid.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons we learn at Summer Camp, is how much we love and miss our family. My first time away at camp, my big brother was on the other side of the camp with the boys, and I pined for even just a sight of him. I think I wrote my mother and father every single day. I remember crying myself to sleep on my bunk in the “Sunshine Cabin”. Being shy, as I was, perhaps I wasn’t quite ready for camp, but I’m glad I had those experiences. I think Summer Camps helped me grow up and figure out who I really was. I discovered things I liked about myself, and learned things maybe I wanted to change about myself.
What about you? What helped/helps you learn those things about yourself? What kinds of things help us as a church to know what we like and what we maybe want to change about ourselves? Like at camp, we may find out things about ourselves that others don’t really like… and it may be important to us as a church to know what kinds of things we could change.
I’ll let you know what I learned! See you at church!

Young Clergy?

Well, I don’t consider myself a “young” clergy person. At almost 46 (next month), I qualify as middle-aged, but I continue to be included in mailings and groups with the title “young” attached. This is a good thing, right? It means I’m perceived as one still clinging to the energy and attitudes of youth. Either that, or I’m perceived as immature. Actually, that’s probably the more accurate assumption. Regardless of the perception (accurate or not!) I’ve been participating in a group on Facebook called “UMC Young Clergy”, and praying daily for 40 days during this season of Annual Conferences. We are praying for the United Methodist Church to be renewed, revived, and refreshed. We are praying for a return to the scriptural understanding of the church and her mission. We are praying for an evangelistic flame to burn in our ministries. We are praying that we become again a church that cares more about others, than ourselves… a church that reaches out to the lost with hearts and hands that love like Christ loves. We are praying that we become a church that boldly addresses justice and stewardship of the Earth and its inhabitants, and actually stands up and leads the way in acts of mercy and loving-kindness. We are praying that our whole denomination will begin to re-think “church”. We are asking… do we really have ‘Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors’? Really? I wonder. We have been working at opening our hearts, and opening our doors… now it is time to open our minds to a new understanding of Christ’s definition of “CHURCH”.
Here is a portion of one of our daily prayers. You might wish to join us:

Gracious God, we confess to you that, in so many ways, we have fallen short of who you would have us be. As individuals we allow ourselves to become wrapped up in our own wants and desires, we become increasingly concerned about our own security and future, and in pursuit of our own comfort we turn a blind eye to the pain and injustice suffered by others.
Corporately we have failed to live your calling as well. In many cases our churches tend to perpetuate the status quo because it is safer, because it is comfortable, because we want not to rock the boat.As United Methodists in the United States we are aware of the ways that our brothers and sisters around the globe continue to make disciples in radical and risky ways... Forgive us, God. For our self-centeredness and shortsightedness, forgive us. For our complacency and maintenance of the status quo, forgive us. For the ways in which we have failed to live your call, forgive us.God, we know that you love us, as individuals and as your church, exactly the way we are. Yet, at the same time, we have a sense that you don’t want us to stay that way, that you have a greater hope for us, that you are calling us into a future beyond what we can imagine. Open our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and our spirits to who you are calling us to be. Amen.
submitted by Rev. Jeff Clinger, Kansas-East Conference

Is your mind open enough to re-think how we “do” church? See ya in worship!