new church life: september/october 2016
I heard this quote some years ago, and quite like it. As a preacher I’m well
aware that for the most part people are not going to remember what I say. It’s
not just my words we forget; statistics are shocking as to how much we forget
in just 15 minutes. But I think Maya Angelou is right: we do remember how
people make us feel.
I think it’s true with events too. We don’t always remember all that much
of the content presented at a camp, but we do remember the friendships, good
feelings and the food! While this camp was just a weekend, we hope all who
participated had a good time and left with good feelings toward each other and
the Church.
The good times started with pizza, followed with a camp fire. We did tell
some stories. Some were tall tales, others made you groan with the punchline,
and others illuminated the Lord working in our lives through various ways.
We finished with some of the chapters of C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.
Saturday opened with a worship service on the theme, “A letter to me.” We
read in the first chapters of Revelation that the Lord writes letters to the seven
churches, giving them kudos for the things they do right and offering pointed
criticism for what they could do better. So we tried to write letters to ourselves
thinking about what would be said to us.
The Rev. Julian Duckworth explored what June 19th means to us, and
offered a reason perhaps why the disciples were sent out on that date. This is
just before the longest, lightest day in the northern hemisphere, and so may
have served as a symbol that the Lord has provided us with greater light and
clarity, but with more light still to come.
Our other morning session was “New Church vs. Old Church.” We
compared 12 distinctive differences between the Old and New Church,
divided into three teams, and played Pictionary to hit on a key distinction. The
children were all too eager to do the drawing, and all the teams did very well
in guessing 11 of the 12 categories correctly.
In the afternoon many took the opportunity for an extended bush walk.
That evening we played games. Every Australian camp has a tournament
of sorts, usually table tennis where some talented soul from Canberra or
Melbourne plays in the finals. To maintain the tradition, but making the
championship available to a wider pool of people, we had an “Ultimate Plinko
Tournament” – based on the U.S. TV show, “The Price is Right.” There’s no
skill, just luck.
Our tournament was rigged so that every child won in the first round,
but Murray Heldon vanquished them all and took home the Ultimate Plinko
Tournament Championship trophy. He received this with great humility and
thanked his trainer and all the little people who helped him get to this glorious
pinnacle of life.
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