On 24 March, we had our Camp Service at the Chapel Street Centre. This is a service led by the people who were at our annual Church Camp, which was held in February at the Waipara Riverside Campsite.
At church camp, the campers plan and lead the worship service on the Sunday morning. Everyone pitches in and does something to contribute to the service. We choose which group we'd like to help with... it could be the team who cleans and prepares the hall for the service, arranges flowers, or the group who chooses the bible readings, prayers and leads them. There was also the drama group and the music team. We each have about 30 minutes to plan and organise or practice, then after morning tea our service begins.
We then re-create the service for the rest of the congregation, which was what we did on March 24th.
BRAVE
Our theme for camp was
BRAVE. Bravery is not the absence of fear… it is moving forward in spite of it.’
There are awesome kinds of courage, and everyday kinds of courage that ordinary people show all the time.
At camp, in teams, we faced a number of challenges… some that required us to do things outside our comfort zone, to try new things, to reach out to help someone else, and to trust our teammates.
There was the traditional camp waterslide and flying fox, and other challenges saw us tackle obstacle courses, melt ice with our bare hands, and collect coloured balls whilst blindfolded -following the directions from our teammates.
In our concert on the Saturday night, many of our campers overcame nerves to perform an act to entertain the rest of us. There were dancers, singers, musicians, a karate item, jokes and skits. Who could forget the Invisible Bench Skit?
So, our camp and our worship service was a celebration of the moments, big and small, that bring out the hero in each of us, where we shine the light of God's love, and live in Jesus's way.
