I brought my bright blue pair of Nike running shoes to camp this year. For some reason, outlandishness makes you seem…okay to them! If I wore a bright orange tee shirt that said “I’ll shave my head for a quarter”, I’d probably feel normal. For some reason at camp craziness kind of has you going with the flow. It also makes you an acceptable person to talk about questions of faith, and doubts about God. A conversation I had with one of the campers today followed along those lines. She saw my shoes and let me into the inner circle of sitting at her lunch table…and then she said, “Would another one of the counselors tell their story tonight? I really liked it when Andy shared his story at campfire last night, and also when Julia shared hers the night before. It was good!” I nodded, and then I asked her, “Do you have a story to share?” “No. I don’t really feel that God is close to me.” I pursued it a little bit, without any “theologizing”, or “here’s what’s wrong with you.” “When I’m having a problem, or feeling lonely and I pray to him I just don’t feel that he hears me. It never seems to help.” I nodded again and encouraged her to say more. “I just don’t pray much anymore, because I don’t know if God really cares. It just feels like he’s always so far away.” And then she looked at me and said, “Okay! Staring contest. First one to smile or look away loses.” Yes, I know, that’s pretty random, but that’s how it is with middle school students quite often. A glimpse of their thoughts about God, and then to a staring contest. The young lady, like many others here, are at a time in their life when a relationship with God, or lack of a relationship with God, is often described in “feeling terms.” They may have had all the Sunday School answers, and know Biblical facts. And now they are in a transitioning phase when their emotions are going bonkers. She hasn’t sensed God wrapping his arms around her so does God really care? It’s a pivotal point in faith development. Can I doubt God and not be struck by lightning. Well quite frankly, the disciples of Jesus did. Tucked neatly right after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and before his great commission at the end of Matthew, there is a verse that says when the disciples “…saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.” (Matthew 28:17) If doubting and asking the why questions is something the disciples of Jesus dealt with, I think it’s a safe bet that a middle school student will deal with it. The question…another one…is whether or not the adults are willing to let the doubts be expressed and grappled with?
Posted tagged ‘middle school’
Reflections of a Middle School Camp Pastor, Day 4
July 19, 2012Reflections of a Middle School Camp Pastor, Day 3
July 18, 2012WORDS FROM W.W. July 18, 2012
Mid-week with middle school students is a trip! They’ve come to the point where they are sometimes bluntly open with you, or humorously entertaining..even though they aren’t quiet aware of it.
For example, here is a sampling of conversations I have had at the meal time table with some middle school students. Let me qualify this with two statements. This is not verbatim, but also there is not necessarily a flow to the conversation. The lack of flow is part of the fascination I experience in working with middle schoolers.
ME: So what has been the best thing about this week so far?
“Going to the nurse Sunday night! We talked about Harry Potter for like ninety minutes.”
“Harry Potter is cool. Some people don’t like Harry Potter, but I love him!”
“Like that one song we made up about him!”
“I love that song.” (Starts singing it.)
“I can’t remember that one verse we made up.”
“Isn’t Bobby good on the guitar?”
“Yes, and he takes his shoes off.”
“I got a new pair last week at Target.”
“Shoes?”
“No, socks.”
“I saw the greatest pair of socks at basketball camp last month. They were Superman socks, with like a little Superman cape on the back of each one.”
“Oh…have you seen the Spiderman movie?”
“No, but there was a spider above my head in the cabin last night. Freaked me out.”
“Do you think God created spiders?”
“Why would he?”
“Spiders are scary. I hate things that creep around in the dark when I can;t see them.”
“Do you think God can see spiders in the dark?”
“Probably. I think God sees everything.”
“He doesn’t need a flashlight. His eyes are like headlights.”
“No they aren’t!”
“Then how does he see things in the dark.”
“He just does, because he’s God.”
“Oh! You know something? I hate peas!”
“Amen to that! Especially when my parents mix them in with carrots.”
“I don’t understand why God gave us peas!”
“Some things are just unexplainable.”
“That’s for sure! Pass the salt please!”
Reflections of a Middle School Camp Pastor, Day 2
July 17, 2012WORDS FROM W.W. July 17, 2012
Yesterday we climbed a mountain! Last night we struggled with the pain!
Not the pain in my knees, mind you, but rather the pain in the lives of middle school students. I had encouraged them to write down questions they had for God about something that troubled them. The responses gave me a view of the landscape of heartache and doubt that “recently-turned teenagers” deal with.
And, troubling as it sounds, a sense of cynicism towards the workings of God. They are troubled by, what they perceive, as God’s inactivity. Where was the Almighty when they felt picked on? Why did he create life and then allow someone close to them to die? Why pray if God is going to do what he wants to do anyway?
In essence, they are open to asking questions that my generation was afraid to ask, although we may have thought them! My generation got structure in Sunday School and youth group (which were good things). We dealt with “when, where, what, which, and how.” What we seldom dealt with, however, which the middle school group is willing to, is “why?” We had the Biblical numbers down…”forty this” and “twelve that”…but time seldom allowed us to get to the why.
Our Associate Pastor, when I had gone off to college was a guy named Jerry Heslinga. When I would come home on break, or for the summer, I would love to be involved in discussions or Bible studies with Jerry, because Jerry was not afraid to take the “why road.”
Now I gladly am leading…or perhaps being led…by these middle schoolers down that same road. It’s a pathway that does not guarantee answers, but encourages the searching.
Last night I was ready to launch into a presentation on Joseph’s journey from the pits to the heights, from the dungeon to exactly the place God wanted him to be in.
BUT…a few of the campers were dealing with something last night, a loss in their own lives, and I sensed that what I was to say could keep for another day. I turned to one of the counselors, a great young man about 22 named Bobby Cody. I said, “Bobby, come here.” He came to the front of our meeting area and I simply asked him “Tell us why you love Jesus?” For the next five to six minutes Bobby shared from his heart to a group of kids, who were focused on what he was saying.
Which describes something else about this coming-up generation. They aren’t afraid to ask why, but they also want to hear the truth, and about the Truth, as it is being experienced and lived out of someone’s life.
Words from WW Blog 