Preparing the youth for service
Over the last several months, the focus of the teaching during the youth lessons had been to show how the whole Bible points to Christ. We considered Jesus as the greater Adam, the fulfillment of the law, the prophet and the fulfillment of prophecies, the King of Kings, the perfect sacrifice, the Good Shepherd and many other things. These lessons helped the youth to get a larger perspective on many of the Old Testament stories that they had first learned about when they were children and hopefully gave them a renewed appreciation for the work of Christ. Several weeks ago however, we decided to switch our focus to something very practical, the theme of service. The reason for this choice is to help prepare the youth to grow in their desire to serve in general, but also with the particular focus on serving others during the English camp.
The English camp, as many of you know, has been a wonderful tool for evangelism as well as a practical service to the community of Ostrava to help people grow in their English language skills. People from CB Poruba invite friends, family, coworkers and classmates to come to the camp and it creates an environment that is great for relaxation, deep conversation and fun. Although my home church from Pennsylvania leads camp, our short-term teams really only serve alongside the CB Poruba church. Because of this it is important that although the camp is used by many of the people from CB Poruba as their summer family vacation, they should still go into with a heart and mind prepared for service. This can be particularly difficult for the teens, because many of them have been coming to the camp since they were kids, so they are used to coming and just having fun.
The way that we have decided to help them prepare for service is by considering how Christ served others during his ministry. By considering Christ's life of service we can view it not only as the perfect example of selfless love, but we can also reflect on what his service meant to the people he served and what it means to us today. Hopefully by doing this the youth would be more prepared and have a greater desire to others in their everyday lives as well as during the camp. Would you please pray that the Holy Spirit would prepare all of our hearts to serve at the camp in a Christ-like way and that these young people who have enjoyed the camp so much over the years would be bold in inviting new people to the camp over the next two months.
Robert teaching the lesson
Barča sharing a deep thought or making a funny comment
Dancing or in the middle of a game of Ninja
Who knows what Matouš is doing
Some lesson discussion
The English camp, as many of you know, has been a wonderful tool for evangelism as well as a practical service to the community of Ostrava to help people grow in their English language skills. People from CB Poruba invite friends, family, coworkers and classmates to come to the camp and it creates an environment that is great for relaxation, deep conversation and fun. Although my home church from Pennsylvania leads camp, our short-term teams really only serve alongside the CB Poruba church. Because of this it is important that although the camp is used by many of the people from CB Poruba as their summer family vacation, they should still go into with a heart and mind prepared for service. This can be particularly difficult for the teens, because many of them have been coming to the camp since they were kids, so they are used to coming and just having fun.
The way that we have decided to help them prepare for service is by considering how Christ served others during his ministry. By considering Christ's life of service we can view it not only as the perfect example of selfless love, but we can also reflect on what his service meant to the people he served and what it means to us today. Hopefully by doing this the youth would be more prepared and have a greater desire to others in their everyday lives as well as during the camp. Would you please pray that the Holy Spirit would prepare all of our hearts to serve at the camp in a Christ-like way and that these young people who have enjoyed the camp so much over the years would be bold in inviting new people to the camp over the next two months.
Robert teaching the lesson
Barča sharing a deep thought or making a funny comment
Dancing or in the middle of a game of Ninja
Who knows what Matouš is doing
Some lesson discussion
Sometimes I feel like I'm at a zoo
Last weekend our Youth Revolution group took some time to just have some fun and spend some time together. We had wanted to have a youth retreat during that weekend, but we struggled to find a good place for the retreat until about three weeks before, so we decided to just have a day activity instead. Our destination for the activity was the Ostrava Zoo. The first year that I was here we went as a group so almost three years later it seemed like it would be a nice activity to have once again. Although it was a busy weekend for several of the youth who might have otherwise attended we still managed to get a group of 9 people together. The day was great! Several teens who we haven't seen in a while decided to join us. The weather was perfect with warm temperatures, but also a steady breeze. After several hours at the zoo we continued our time together by grilling some food and enjoying a meal together. Although I didn't bring my camera to the zoo, I did take a picture of some cute otters on my phone for you to enjoy. In about a month, we will have another day just focused on fun and relationships when we go bowling together. Pray that we would once again have some people who haven't seen in a while join us as well as maybe having some new people come and have some fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment