Camp Wed. Afternoon

CAMP • 6.25.08

Between The Lines

Yellow Swarm and Green Machine participated in Between the Lines “This is a day filled with sport based relay games with a point system. The games are all nice competitive team building games all about friendly competition and having fun.”  – Clay Austin, Recreation Leader of the Green Machine

Blue Crew and Red Rumble went to Adrenaline Rush. They competed different events like the timed puzzle relay, blongo ball, rip tag flag, bounce course, power ball and many more.

For rip tag flag everyone started out with a flag on their arm. The students ran around trying to pull the flag off of the other teams arms. Once your flag was ripped from your arm you had to sit down and you were “frozen”. If a student lost their flag someone on their team could come un-freeze them by giving them an extra flag. The team with the most flags at the end of the game wins.

Camp Wednesday Morning…I got Youth Minister of the Day

CAMP • 6.25.08

The Time Has Come

Celebration started with the early bird special and Matt dressed as a parrot leading the students in a high-five frenzy. Kristian and the band then led the students in “The Time Has Come” and “Happy Day”. Then they sang “All Because of Jesus” a powerful song that declares our freedom in Christ.

Then the Missions Site Coordinators came up on stage and lead their teams in performing their cheers for the first time in front of everyone. The students were very enthusiastic about their cheers and the gold rush received the Spirit Sledge.

After that the Rec. Leaders ran up to the stage waving their team flags proudly. The Rec. teams got to perform their cheers with their leaders too. Then the Blue Crew received the Spirit Stick with honor.

“The Wire” segment was next, where Tasha and Sasha announced the funny stories that the students had turned into their mailbox earlier. The students then got to see what Brody did with the antique vase from yesterday. By the most applause they decided that he would try to duck tape the vase back together. His date’s father soon discovered his horrible duck-taping job. The students have to wait till tomorrow to see what Brody will do next!

Then it was time for “PSA with the PA” where Jake Brantley announced that just because students play guitar hero on expert does not actually mean that they are musically gifted.

Next 7 came out for the “Virtual Virus” and shared many of the different ways that duck tape can be used. There is even a scholarship contest for students who make duck tape prom outfits. For more information and pictures you can go to Stuckatprom.com. James Lee from Northview Baptist was named the youth minister of the day.

Neil led the students to the passage about Mary and Martha in Luke 10. He talked about how knowledge is about what you know but wisdom is about what you do with what you know. God confides in those who know him. He has a lot to say to you and asks who he can extend trust to. He challenged the students asking them who is willing to live in light of what God tells them instead of what everyone else around them does.

Then the camp director Bo Behenna came up and announced that ultimate frisbee, hanging with the techies, a call to worship, and creative arts will be available for free time options today.

Camp Tuesday Night

CAMP • 6.24.08

Superior Gender?

Both genders were extremely excited running into the auditorium for Late Night tonight. Tonight was a guy vs. girl battle to see who is superior. For the first game several students were picked from the audience and asked questions that the other gender would be more familiar with. Questions like, “What does the 8 in v8 engine stand for?” and “Who is most likely to wear point toe shoes?” The boys dominated in this fun game.

Next there was a video discussing the proper way to say “pant”. It was a heated comical debate on whether it is “pant” or a pair of pants. Then it was the highly anticipated time of the night- king and queen of late night! The students watched as the King and Queen of late night Kayla Carter and Rex Roby were crowned in all their splendor.

Students then played formal frenzy. In this fun game the girls got to dress one girl up like a boy going to prom, and the boys got to dress one boy up like a girl going to prom. It was a close race, but the boys pulled it off and their team member looked the best!

The girls let out an “awe” as “Ten Seconds with a Puppy” played. As the students entered several were handed a sheet of paper with a letter on it. Both teams had to spell out something with all their letters. The girls won spelling girls rule and boys drool.

Next came the short video “Can Rush Defeat it?” In this video Rush, in his nice suite, was wrestling a pro wrestler. After several attempts Rush finally was able to defeat the wrestler!

At this point the girls were ahead so questions were read and each gender had to be the first to hit the buzzard and answer correctly. If they did not answer correctly they were eliminated and left the stage. The girls took the victory in this fun game.

Then the students got to watch a video of everything they had done at Student Life Camp so far. The actors calculated that with all the games off stage added it was a tie! So the king and queen of late night played paper rock scissors, and the boys came out with a victory.

Camp Tuesday pt3

CAMP • 6.24.08

Sin Managment?

The worship service tonight started out with AT2AP actor Matt, portraying Peter the disciple. He described his call to Christ, and how it cost him everything. It wasn’t an easy call at all. That yes, he was the one who walked on water, but he also almost drowned. He made plenty of mistakes and was even called satan to his face. The call of Christ demands everything, and once you are His -your life is transformed. It is not an instant process but takes time, a lifetime. As the skit ended Matt left the students to ponder on what they will do with the call.

Kristian Stanfield and his band came up and led the students singing “Wake Every Heart” declaring the Lord’s mighty power. They continued worshiping singing “Faithful”. Then Kristian explained how his son, Isaac, inspired the next song.  He shared how he has seen a lot and ceased to be awed by anything around him anymore. His son on the other hand is in pure wonder when he looks at everything. As he started watching his son exploring, he realized how far he has gotten from wonder when he looks at God. Then it hit him how there is nothing else that he could live for. He started formulating the next song out of a Psalm. The students all joined in singing the beautiful song “High and Holy”.

After that Shara portrayed Mary Magdalene, a woman transformed by Christ. She was suppressed by seven sins, and is a living testimony of what it means to be free. She went into her story and told the students that no matter who they think they are He offers a chance to be made free!

Ashley portrayed a Christian that follows Christ wherever He goes. She talked about victorious studying His word daily. That she will continue to follow Him for the rest of her life, because she is a Christian. Her monologue talked about how she clearly knows who she is in Christ. She left the students with the question of “Who are you?”

Neil took the student to Romans 5 and talked about how Christianity involves death. Christianity is not what we profess to believe but how we live. How we live reflects our beliefs everything else is just spiritual gossip.

He continued asking that if we see people in need and close our eyes who are we? If the life of Jesus is not being reproduced in us something is wrong. We wrongly preach a gospel of sin management and Heaven. The Bible says that we died to our sin, and we should be living a new life. The narrow way involves life.

Furthermore he shared that we will be eternally bored until we come in that place where we walk in the Spirit. What makes death bearable is that life is available. The Christian walk is not just sin management. At its core Christianity is simply doing the will of the Father. It is all about a death that produces life that leads to understanding. He left the students challenging them to question if they have ever really died to themselves.

After Neil finished Kristian came back and led the students in singing, “I need you”, a song he wrote about Jesus bearing the wrath of God for our sins. Then the band joined him on stage and everyone sang “ How He Loves” to close up the night.

Then the camp director Bo Behenna came up and dismissed the students to church group time.

Camp Tuesday Rec

CAMP • 6.24.08

First Day of Rec!

It was a beautiful 90 degree day here in Ruston, the perfect day for recreation! The Blue Crew and Red Rumble were very excited to get to cool off going to “Soaked”. They competed in several games including assault, the amazing water relay, battleship, pipeline, capture the ring, sling shot retrieve, water mafia and family group leader shootout.

The students loved family group leader shootout. In this game the students got the opportunity to get their family group leaders soaking wet by squirting them with long water soakers.

Another game that the students loved was water mafia. This game was based off of the popular game mafia. Students had cups full of water and when they splashed it on someone on the other team they were out and had to sit down. One student on each team was the doctor and could save their teammates by tagging them. The object was to get the other teams doctor splashed with water.

The Green Machine and Yellow Swarm participated in Adrenaline Rush today. They competed different events like the timed puzzle relay, blongo ball, rip tag flag, bounce course, power ball and many more.

In the timed puzzle relay students had to put on a blindfold and crawl in ithe middle to get their color puzzle pieces. Then the students had to crawl back and let the next student go. Once the team had all their colored pieces they had to match them all together and make a rectangle.

Camp Blog Tuesday

CAMP • 6.24.08

Cultivating Deep Roots

By now the student’s have been challenged to evaluate which path they are on. But what does life on the narrow road look like fleshed out? A life in the way is rooted and founded in Jesus as we continue in this path.

In family group today students were challenged in Colossians 2:6-8 to continue to live in Christ, and watch out for hollow and deceptive philosophies. The church in Colosse was infected by worldly teachings infecting their view about Jesus. Paul encouraged them to go back to what they knew about Jesus, to go back to the roots of their faith.

These roots are crucial for the Christian Walk. Just as a tree with deep roots grows into a big, healthy tree, so a Christian with deep roots can continue in Christ having a firm foundation.

Camp Tuesday Morning

CAMP • 6.24.08

Make a Choice

The morning started off with actor Matt Stimmel from AT2AP running through the surprised audience dressed like a parrot. As laugher began Matt announced that they were going to do stretches for the “Early Bird Special”.

Then Matt Mogle, the “rec guy” came out and explained about the famous Spirit Stick. This is what the rec. teams will be competing to get each week. The Rec. Leaders waved their flags as their teams cheered excitedly. All the teams were very enthusiastic but the Green Machine took the Spirit Stick.

After that Kayla Hawthorne explained how missions camp has the Spirit Sledge. She reminded the students that they are not in school and can get excited about camp! All the teams were loud but the Gold Rush won the Sledge this morning!

Next the celebration segment “the Wire” was introduced, where actresses Tasha and Sasha (AT2AP Shara and Ashley) have their morning news segment. Tasha and Sasha were decked out in bright colored crazy outfits with crazy pink and purple wigs. Every morning they will be reading news that the students have turned in from the week.

Celebration continued with a video called “Choose the Way.” In this video students are presented with a situation, what should Barron do? By applause students pick the best option, and find out what Barron will do the next morning. This morning Barron was going to pick up his girlfriend and broke her dad’s antique vase. The students got to decide if he should push it under the rug, or fix it with duck tape.

Then the morning continued with “PSA with the PA.” This is the time in the morning when the Production Assistant (PA) Jake Brantley makes humorous announcements to the students. This morning Jake announced that in the T.V. show the Hills, the actors are actually all robots, and everyone should stop watching the show.

Then three students were randomly selected for getting free stuff! After that Matt Stimmel came back on stage as a British man named 7. 7 does a segment called “Virtual Virus.” In today’s segment he showed several humorous church signs. There was much laughter as a church sign playing off of the popular movie and book series showed up reading, “God is the potter not Harry.”

John from First Baptist Church Meridian, Texas was named the youth minister of the day. Phillip was “sashed” with a black decorated sash and the students were instructed to give him a big high five whenever they saw him.

Next Tasha and Sasha sung their own special birthday song to the students with birthdays in the room. Everyone stood up and busted out their best moves for the thirty-second dance party.

Kristian Stanfield and his band led the students in singing “We Shine” and “Salvation is Here”. He then taught the student a new song called “Faithful”.

Neil talked about Joshua 24 how we need to throw away the things that are holding us back and choose who we will serve. Everyone was born worshipping something, just depends on what. Most of us were born worshiping the wrong thing. We need to make different choices if we want a different result. Neil left them asking what one choice can they make this week to change their lives.

After some short announcements from Bo, students were dismissed to go to rec, family group, or mission sites. The students left the room with much excited anticipation for the fun day to come!

Be sure to tune back in tonight to listen in live to the worship service. Just come back at 7 CST. and click on the link to the right of this page that says listen in live.

Camp Monday Night

CAMP • 6.23.08

Life in orbit?

As the lights dimmed, and the auditorium hushed a video was played challenging the students to rid their minds of anything that is distracting them. Then Kristian Stanfield and his band led the students in singing “Happy Day” and “All Because of Jesus”. They finished out the worship service declaring God’s mighty strength singing “Everlasting God”.

As the band left the stage a spotlight was placed on Matt sitting in a lawn chair. To his right was a big sign with many different paths pointing in all different directions. As the skit develops Shara kept traveling down different paths, then coming back and picking another one. Matt was to scared that he would make the wrong decision so he just stayed in his chair, developing theories. Ashley was searching for the right path to take. As she talked more to Matt she started eliminating the signs, eventually all the signs were gone revealing a new one- the way. As the actors peered down the road they saw a dark, long, hard path, and encouraged Ashley not to take it. Despite their urging the skit ended with Ashley walking down that path. This is symbolic of the Way that the students will be learning about this week.

Neil McClendon took the students to Jeremiah 6 for tonight’s lesson. This chapter talked about what to do when you come to the crossroads. The heart of all humanity is that we will not walk in the way.  Vs. 16 encourages the students just to stand and be still. We live in a generation that can’t get off our cell phones and turn off our I pods and just be still. God calls us to stop moving all the time.

God also calls us to look. So often church is all about socialization and not really transformation. God wants us to just get in- the destination is already set. Our hearts need to be in a constant pilgrimage. There are so many things that we have to close our eyes to truly see.

Vs. 16 also tells us to ask. God tells His people to take away from Him the noise of their songs because He is not impressed.  He wants us to ask where the God way is and to walk in it. This road is not ancient because it is old, but because God has a long established history of knowing what is best.

On the way the kingdom followers will be in the minority. Broad is the path that leads to destruction- it is like an interstate. Narrow is the road that leads to life. Neil continued telling the students that when they say no to what God says they are walking into bondage, not freedom. God wants us to experience His freedom. He also convicted reminding us that we don’t hate sin as much as we should.

Once we have seen a God-sized view of Him all we can do is ask Him to send us. So many around us are on an orbit taking a rotation on a familiar cruise of lukewarm Christianity. We need to stop that while we are at the crossroads and walk in the ancient path. Neil told the students that it was his responsibility as their camp pastor to ask them to stand in that crossroads and decide. He told them that he didn’t want them to go to church their entire life and never see God move.

Once you are walking in that way Scripture says that we will find rest for our souls. Neil closed out praying for the students as the band came back out into stage. He left them telling them that God is ready to show up.

As students reflected all across the room Kristian sang “Breathe” and “Everlasting”
Then the Camp Director, Bo Behenna dismissed the students to go to their church group.

Don’t forget to come back and join us in worshiping tomorrow night at 7 CST. Just click on the listen in live link to the right of this page and you can hear the service.

Camp Monday Afternoon

CAMP • 6.23.08

The Narrow Road

Family group is a small Bible study with around 10-12 other students and a leader. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to get to grow together while studying the Word in a small group setting. Today the students got to go to their first family group and learned about the way.

Society tells us that there are many different paths to take in life. In reality, there are only two possible roads to choose according to Matthew 7:13-14. One road is broad and leads to destruction. The other road is narrow, but few enter through it. The narrow road is hard and cost everything, but it leads to an abundant life in Christ.

Once students evaluated which road they are currently on, they were challenged further that the narrow road is not just a onetime decision. Choosing the narrow road is not just a ticket to eternity in Heaven, but a continual decision to die to self.  This theme will be discussed further as the week progresses.

Blogs from Camp Monday

Just finished up orientation here at La Tech. This is where students were introduced to the band, camp pastor, actors (AT2AP), camp director, and recreation leader, missions site coordinators and some rules for camp. Sprits were high when celebration started, and the students were introduced to Kristian Stanfield. Praises echoed as Kristian led the students in singing “How Great Thou Art”.  He shared with the students how he wants their direction to be clear this week, to go after the Lord.  As the worship segment wrapped up everyone sang, “Beautiful Jesus”.

Then actor Matt Stimmel from All Things to All People (AT2AP) began explaining the rules of camp. He was interrupted when Ashley Turner came onto stage running around with excitement.

Matt and Ashley were interrupted when the recreation (rec) director, Matt Mogle and his leaders enthusiastically ran down the aisles and introduced themselves to their teams. There are four recreation teams that the students are including Blue Crew, Red Rumble, Green Machine or Yellow Swarm. The students got to watch a short video explaining how they actually get to choose what they participate in for the three days of recreation.

Just as Matt started explaining the rules again fellow AT2AP members Ashley and Shara marched on stage. Shara introduced herself to the audience and got the Missions Site Director Kayla Hawthorne to come up. Kayla called forth her Missions Site Coordinators. Students cheered as the Purple Craze, Orange Nation, Silver Shock, and Gold Rush leaders introduced themselves.

Matt continued explaining the theme for this year The Way. Then Shara was trying to pick out which shirt she wanted to wear to school that day. Matt and Ashley found something wrong with every shirt that she picked up. They told her to simply pick the right shirt. This is what the students will be learning about this week- who is there to help them along the way.

After that Laura Hogan the student body president from LA Tech welcomed the students to camp. Matt got to continue explaining the rules with a little help from the audience. Students came up and helped Matt by reading off the top ten things that you might hear at camp but you shouldn’t.

Then the camp director, Bowen Behenna, laid down some more ground rules for the student and dismissed them to dinner. Students exited the auditorium full of excitement about what this week has in store!

Don’t forget to come back to the website for updates on your student! Starting tomorrow for the next three nights there will be a live broadcast of the worship service at 7 CST.