Creating Space: Day Camp with YL Tustin

-
Thank you, Kelly McGill, YL Tustin, for this great reflection!  Thank you for creating new opportunities for your friends to experience camp in creative and thoughtful ways!

This summer with YL Tustin (California) Capernaum, we grew in all kinds of exciting ways! We teamed up with a nearby Capernaum area to create a local space where our Capernaum friends that cannot attend week-long camp at Lost Canyon could be known, loved, and hear/experience the Gospel. 

This summer, Beach Cities and Tustin Capernaum put on our first ever day camp! We had 50 Capernaum friends that joined in the fun. While planning day camp, we thought that this would be an incredible opportunity to invite some of our Capernaum friends to be a part of our day camp Leadership Team. We had two of them, Cole and John serving on our Program.

Cole and John loved having the opportunity to lead our Capernaum friends, make them laugh, and serve Jesus in a new and exciting way. John told us that he cannot wait to be on the leadership team in the future and he hopes to go on Summer Staff at Lost Canyon next year!

During day camp, all of our Capernaum friends heard the story of the bleeding woman and learned that they are not alone in their lives, that they have a Father that loves them deeply, no matter what!

Our Capernaum friends had the opportunity to write on mirrors about how Jesus sees them. Our friends wrote: Loved. Beautiful. Accepted. Friend.

It was an incredible two days celebrating our friends’ identities in Christ. Some of them learned about who Jesus is for the first time. One of our Day Camp volunteers, Heather, said her favorite part of Day Camp was seeing kids and leaders of ALL abilities on stage at all times.

Our friends participated on stage with program, worship, leading games, and group prayer. Seeing the body of Christ at day camp participating in hearing, experiencing and processing the Gospel in an accessible way is something that we will never forget and cannot wait to do it again next year.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas/Winter Club Game Ideas

-
Image
  Mixer Q-tip war: Split room in half with tape down the middle. Pass out straws and Q-tips (make sure you test that the Q-tips fit before hand). You will shoot the Q-tips across the line via placing the Q-tip in the straw and blowing. Keep this going for a while and then stop the music and pick a winning side (one with the least amount of Q-tips). 12 days of Christmas: divide the room up into 12 groups (numbers in group vary based on size of club) Each group is a day of the 12 days. Give them some time to think of a motion/dance move that represents their day. Then perform the whole song! Dice Doubles: Have prepared a gift (candy from dollar store goes over great!). Wrap it in MANY layers, including tape! Sit the group in a circle. If you have more than 20, it’s best for multiples circles to play the game. Place the wrapped gift, gloves, a Santa hat and dice in the center (from playing this game with Capernaum many times, I’ve actually learned that one dice with each side
Read more

Great Visual for Club Talk on Sin

-
Image
During club recently, Katey and her friends were talking about sin and the cross during their club talk. They created this great visual that ended up being so helpful for their friends to understand how sin effects us and how the cross offers us such a beautiful way to live instead! They had 5 boxes- one large box named “SIN”, one large box named “GOD”, one medium box named “ME”, one tiny box named “SIN” and one tiny box named “GOD”. They explained how God created us to live in perfect relationship with Him where we live in Him (put the “ME” box in the large “GOD” box) and where He lives in us (put the tiny “GOD” box in the medium “ME” box). Then, take everything out. They then explained how because of sin (with explanation of sin) it looks like this: put the tiny “SIN” box in the “ME” box and then put the “ME” box in the large “SIN” box. They explained how there is nothing that we can do on our own to get sin out of us and there is nothing we can do on our own to get ourselves out
Read more

Valentine's Day Club

-
Image
Mixer Couple Match-up: You will need stacks of two different colored sticky notes (let’s say one green stack and one pink). You will write couple pairs that your friends know on these. For example, on a green write Minnie Mouse and on pink Mickey Mouse. Place the pink on the backs of your friends and greens on the back of leaders/buddies…no cheating! Don’t let them see who is on their back. Once everyone is ready inform them that they are to find their “couple pair.” They will do this by walking around the room and having friends describe their character WITHOUT saying the name! Once you know who you are you can find your pair. The reason it’s important to have the buddies and leaders be the matches is so they can help their friends out! Once you find your match sit down! Game Heart Target: Place heart shaped paper on the floor, walls, or wherever you want. The person playing the game will be handed a balloon, not tied off! They will release the balloon trying to get it to land on one
Read more