Camp was Awesome Part 2

Okay, guys. Camp was awesome. I already told you that. But here's some highlights. 8 Reasons Why This Year of Student Life Camp was the Best:

1. "My personal favorite, the funky chickens", was definitely the best family group (and certainly had the best name) and we did deserve to get Family Group of the week, but we know that our Rec leader had to pick a different group because he'd already picked us for Family Group of the day. It's okay, Todd Haymans, we sort of understand. Rebekah, Kyle, Ian, John, Leah, Jessica, Lerah, Anna and Jenna are awesome. At recreation, we decided we would be the "funky chickens" and so we started screaming the funky chicken dance during Rec and even though we didn't win many games, our FG was really awesome and we were so enthusiastic.

2. After church group time, all the family group leaders, student leaders and Paul (of course! Nobody even thought twice about the fact that Paul was there. It was like, duh!) prayed for a long time about the youth group and stuff, and that was good. It just got us in praying mode, and the whole rest of the week we were all praying all the time and that was really cool. Paul would just come up to me randomly and say, "Calyn, we need to pray for ____." and that was neat.

3. Louie Giglio is the most incredible speaker, EVER. Except for maybe Erwin McMannus. I think they tie. He amazed me the whole week. At morning celebration we had astronomy lessons with Louie. (Jake, I thought of you so much. You would have LOVED it.) He showed us all these pictures from the Voyager and the Hubble space telescope. Honestly, space has never really been my thing, but Louie had me hooked. He showed us pictures of nebulas and galaxies that were 31 million lightyears away. I mean, a lightyear is 5.8 TRILLION miles away. I don't even know what kind of number that makes. How the heck do we have pictures of these things??? Then, we got to listen to sounds that starts and nebulas and things make. Did you know they make sounds? We got to listen to the recording of some nebula. It made this clicky noise constantly. And they all make different sounds. So it's like this chorus of the universe. LIke, God has a freakin' star choir. All the time. 24/7. Or I guess they don't really have days there. So, like, infinity/infinity. yeah. Anyway, it just reminded me of how big God is, and how incredibly miraculous it was that he came to earth, our insignificant, meaningless little planet, to die for us. It didn't make sense that He did that before, but it certainly makes even less sense now. I mean, why would God even give us the time of day, you know? If we could shrink our solar system into the size of a U.S. quarter, the Milky Way galaxy would be the size of North America. And astronomers think that there are at least several billion galaxies in the universe. The same God who made all of this stuff is the same God who came to our tiny planet to die for us. Isn't that mind-boggling?



Check this out. This is the whirlpool galaxy. It's 31 million light years away. Can you believe we can get pictures of this stuff????



Look at this. This image is the core of a nearby spiral galaxy. The cross marks the position of a black hole that is thought to be 100 lightyears in diameter. The core is 1,100 light years across. That's 6,380,000,000,000,000 miles. That is insane. So, even before God created us (well, only a couple of days, but it's still before) He already had a cross in the sky. That's so cool.

4. Jenna is the best student leader in the whole world. When she taught Family Group, it was definitely the best day. We talked about the prodigal son, and a lot of the people in my group could really relate to that story, so there was more discussion.

5.Louie talked about our lives and he really gave me a new perspective on what it was like to be in God's will. He got some matches out and lit one and using Donald Trump as an example (louie is always so in tune with pop culture and that makes him really fun to listen to) talked about all the stuff donald trump has and all the famous people he knows and blah, blah, blah. And then, as they tend to do, the match went out. And Louie just kinda stared at it for a minute and then he tossed it, and was like, "Well, that's it. There's his life. It's gone now." Then he asked us to imagine a raging, eternal inferno. And he lit a match and he said, "Now, what happens when I throw this match into the inferno? It stays lit for forever." He described God's "will" not necessary as something that is all about us, but that God has this story already going and he wants us to put out lives into it. It's not always about our little lives and thinking it's all about us. God's already doing stuff, so we just need to join him. Kinda sounds like Experiencing God.

6. Then he starts talking and he's saying, "have you ever been in that situation where you're with a group of christians, and they all start talking about what they're going to do with their lives and the first one starts and says, 'well, I want to be a pastor and I want to lead hundreds of people to christ. God's given me this great gift of teaching and I can't wait to use it.' Then the next person says, 'well, I want to develop sunday school curriculum and teach sunday school' and then the next one says, 'I want to be a missionary to nepal and preach to unreached people groups and lead them to the lord and put the bible in their language.' Then it gets to you. And you have a dream too. And it's burning just as much as that pastor, teacher and missionary. But for the life of you, you can't say it. Because your dream is.... to open your own hair salon. And you know that the moment you say that, the other three will say, "oh....that's....nice. okay...." But you love hair! I mean, you're passionate about shampoo! You love to make people look their best and curling irons give you goosebumps. You've already got a name picked out for your salon: A Cut Above. You love to converse with people as they're sitting in the styling chair and talk about anything and everything and you love giving highlights and trim-ups and everything to do with hair. Your dream from childhood is to have the best hair salon in your city. I mean, you'll charge an arm and a leg, but its only because you're the best. And your staff will be awesome. And you know with that money you make, you can use it for good. You fully intend on giving a much bigger percent than 10 to God and with the money you make in tips you can send that missionary to nepal. And while people are getting their hair shampooed and they're under the water, you're gonna be praying for them." Anyway, he started talking about Colossians 3:17 and how Paul said, "Whatever you do, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ..." And it was like God just stopped me and was like, "Calyn, just because you're passionate about something doesn't mean I don't want you to do that. I gave you those passions. And I may not spell out for you exactly what you need to do with your life. I mean, maybe I'll give you options. Maybe I'll let you choose. As long as you're doing it for my glory, that's what I've commanded." I felt like Louie was talking right to me.

Before worship on the last night, Nicole and Paul came up to me and were like, "Hey guys, we're gonna meet in the lobby and spend some serious prayer time for some people." So, I went and we prayed for about 30 minutes for all the people in our group that we were really burdened for, and I prayed for the people in my family group and everybody took turns praying for stuff. Most of us were sitting in the back of the auditorium for worship that night. Well, Paul and James and Nicole all have their heads bowed and I think everybody else was silently praying too, and Louie gets up there and he starts talking and then all the sudden he stops and just says, "You know, I really feel like there are people praying in this place. Like, I just feel like there are people in this room right now who are fervently praying for specific people. " We were like, "whoa."
In his sermon that night, he started sharing this story about how he likes golf and so when the movie "Bobby Jones" came out, him and his wife went to go see it. And when they got to the theatre, there was 2 couples behind them and this one, lone guy up in the very front with his neck cocked back just staring at the screen. Louie thought that was kinda weird, because there were 50 gazillion other seats in the theatre, but he chose to sit right in the front. Then the guy turns around and he just starts staring at Louie and his wife. Well, Louie started to get a little uncomfortable after a couple minutes of this guy staring at them. Then, the guy gets up, walks down the aisle, and sits down right next to Louie's wife. Things were starting to get a little tense, because the guy just continues to stare at his wife. Finally, the guys opens his mouth and says in an excited voice, "Are you in the movie?" Louie's trying to figure out, like, "am I in this theatre, or am I in the movie?" he finally realizes what the guy's talking about when he says hurriedly, "I'm in the movie! There's a part in the bar scene and Will Smith and Jim Caveziel come in and I"m sitting at a table in the back, and it's so cool, cause i"m in the movie and you'll see me and...." (You get the idea. Louie's much more entertaining than a blog. He was saying it in this excited voice and went on, and on, and on, and on.) Anyway, he eventually gets up and moves to the next couple and starts telling them how he's in the movie. Louie said he tried really hard to find the guy in the bar scene, but he never did see him. However, the guy turned around after the 30 second scene and smiled and had a big thumbs up and asked, "Did you see me!?" Louie said, "Great job!"
The next day, Louie was driving in his car and had this huge revelation (i wish I would get revelations like louie giglio... :0) and he started telling us about what we think about heaven. He said "You know, I know in heaven there's gonna be streets of gold, and mansions and elders and people singing halleluia and all of that, but we don't really know what heaven's gonna be like. I think when John was writing Revelation he probably thought his final writing on it was such a poor substitution for what he really saw. He was probably just like a teenager and said, 'It was like, like, ____, like _____ like uh, ____" because he didn't have words for the things he saw. But, I think, maybe when we get to heaven we're going to see a premier. A premier of a movie of "God's Story". And we're all going to be sitting there watching the movie. And it's gonna start with creation and Eden, and the fall, and God giving an animal skin to adam and eve and we're going to watch the dominoes of God's grace lead to a cross and then we're gonna see angels rejoice in a resurrection and then we're gonna see the church and martyrs and history and the 18th century and 19th, and 20th, and then, then when it gets to the 21st century, we're going to see ourselves in scenes of the movie. And all of the sudden, you're gonna say, "Hey! I'm in the movie! Wow, I'm in that scene!" And you're gonna see yourselves in scenes you had no idea you were in. You're going to see yourself in a scene in India where that lunch money you gave up went to send a missionary there who lead someone to Christ. And you're gonna see yourself in scenes where a kid in your gym class decides not to commit suicide because he remembers a kind word you said to him. And you're going to see yourself in scenes all over the world and you're gonna realize that you were in the movie. God's movie. "
I thought that was an incredible message. I'd never really thought about God's story being one big thing, you know?

7. Covenant College has a soft-serve ice cream machine. 'Nough said.

8. So many people in our youth group were really affected and changed by God this week at camp. It was so cool to be a part of it. Thanks guys for letting me come this week! It was awesome!