mr*crowder

It’s been a long summer.

I’m standing on an open recreation field at a campground up in the mountains near Lynchburg, VA. The rec field is essentially an afterthought, or perhaps a really cool thought, because it’s in the large chasm almost directly below the cafeteria facilities (and far below the rest of the camp). If you look anywhere but up and to the Northeast, all you see is mountains, trees, and space. Looking in the aforementioned direction will alert you to your more immediate surroundings (i.e. the campground). 

We started with a training camp in Nashville, TN. Then we traveled, stayed, and traveled some more. Southeastern Tennessee–Georgetown, Kentucky–Central Tennessee–Lynchburg, VA. I’ve taught two things all summer: 5th and/or 6th grade Bible study and archery. One of those things has been a learn-as-you-go process. Bible study? That’s been easy.

The funny thing about camp is this: you get better at is as the summer rolls on; yet, you get more and more exhausted and apathetic towards doing camp. Towards the end of the summer, you’ve just perfected this slick routine that you’ve already done 6 or 7 times. The past couple of weeks have been hell–partly because I’m dog tired, partly because I’m even more tired of the shallow message we’ve been overcharging these kids to come to camp and hear. 

It’s the same thing, week after week. We simplify and moralize some complex Bible story to teach the kids to eat their vegetables, obey their parents, and be nice to their little brother or sister. We pound the “A-B-C’s of salvation” into their heads until they either zone us out or break down in tears of submission. How many times can you ask a 10 year old if she thinks she’ll go to hell when she dies? I lost count.

Today, I have an awakening.

We’re in the middle of this recreation field, in our designated square, playing some random game with a blow-up ball the size of Montana.

Ok.

That’s an exaggeration.
It’s the size of Rhode Island.

While we’re in the middle of this game which is essentially like soccer except the gargantuan ball can’t touch the ground, the sky opens up and rain floods the earth. Morgan, the rec director, comes over the bullhorn and screams for everyone to get their kids inside. 

I can see the looks on their faces. They’re ready to join the 1,000 other kids at camp and scramble up the hillside back to their dorms and the cafeteria. But not now. Not in this moment. For the next 60 seconds, these 30 tiny faces are mine. 

They’re hesitant, but they comply when I call them around the large pink ball. I ask what they notice about the ball.

“It’s big,” cries one kid.

Bingo. He was right. The world is big. HUGE. God is bigger. HUGER? Anyways….

Here’s what had been grating on me for weeks and I finally got a chance to speak into the lives of these kids for a minute while we’re covered in beautiful drops of love: God is BIG.

Does that sound elementary? Because it should. But how many times do we take kids straight to Jesus on the Cross when they don’t even develop a healthy concept for the God who made the world?

And that’s what’s weighed me down over the summer. Our curriculum is so geared to get these kids to the “point of salvation,” whatever the heck that means, that it skips over giving them a worldview of God as a Creator filled with love, mercy, and justice. And we wonder why kids/youth today don’t connect the God of the Bible, the God who came and died as a man, with the God who wants to save orphans and AIDS victims and sex slaves. 

I have to believe in and teach of a Savior-God who is bigger than just a personal, get me out of hell for free kind of God. I welcome and accept the personal salvation of Jesus Christ. But please, for the love of our kids, let’s stop making it the end-all be-all. It’s not the end, nor is it the big picture. It just helps me get oriented towards the Big Picture.