Cover Songs and What It Means To Be A Witness

For the last week I've been shadowing Tricia Lee, our children's director here at Grace Community Church. Tricia is amazing, the epitome of what a children's director should be. She loves her Lord, and loves children (a kid is a baby goat, as she says) and has one of the most encouraging hearts I have ever met. She is like a gushing mother to every person she has met. A typical Tricia Lee hello goes something like this;

"Oh, Lynda! How are you? Great, oh good, good indeed. Here's someone I want you to meet, his name is Blake, now, I know he may look like just a pretty face, but he has been so great to work with and even though I've only known him for a week he's been such a God-send. He has done....and....and he is so good at ....and I know I am embaressing him right now, but he is such a hunk and you should be friends!"

Not kidding, just like that. Everytime. I have never talked to this woman without her spewing out around 4-7 positive things about myself, someone next to me, or someone I had just met. Now THAT is someone to learn from!

Anyways, this weekend (Thursday and Friday) we held our middle school camp (5th-8th grade) called "Off the Deep End" which is held at Peg and John Yelverton's house on the May River (beautiful land, beautiful house, beautiful couple). Every year about thirty kids come up for two days for food, games, fellowship, dock jumping, sun, a couple Bible-based activities and a chance to hear the gospel for many of these kids come from single-parent homes or places where Christ is little more than an archaic symbol they cannot relate too (more on that later).

My job for the weekend? Plan praise and worship for both the staff worship sessions at 8 AM before the campers show up at 9 AM, and then plan worship for all the sessions with the kids. Also she put me in charge of the 7th graders (ALL RIGHT!!!) which meant going through the story of Joseph and Potipher, helping them construct a themed drama, and then preform it with them. Needlesstosay, if you've ever worked with 7th graders (especially boys) you can guess what this entailed.

Example? Ray. Ray was a 7th boy who I would risk my life on guessing he had AD-HD. He was climbing all over the docks, running around during group talks, constantly throwing walnuts at me, being loud and completely irrelevant during group talks, and even saying a couple not-so-Jesus-like words.

I love 7th grade boys. Seriously. I mean, this kid had SO much energy and potential. I can understand where many people would rather be about 90 miles away from this kid (as a couple counselors told me : ) ) but here's the thing; what an oppertunity to show someone with such potential to better the kingdom of God the love of Christ than to be his friend when everyone else was a little...well...perterbed with him. All I can hope is that he got something out of this weekend, then again, it's not about what I hope.

As for the group worship, Danae (a college girl from Lee Univ.) was my lovely and gracious co-capt. of music and what a blessing to have her. She always smiled, always laughed, and was drentched with the pressence of Christ. Together, we even wrote a song specifically about the theme of Off the Deep End (to the tune of 'sunshine go away today' by Johnathan Edwards) Though the kids may not have always enjoyed our worship, we for sure did : ) I was also lucky enough to have her as a co-leader of our smal group, which was a joy.

As for being a witness...two stories. The word for witness in the gospels is martus which is the word we get our english word 'martyr' from. So, what is a witness.

There was someone I saw who wasn't a witness. A Liberty University professor who came to speak about "chronological biblical storytelling" to these middle schoolers, a topic which was important (after all 2/3 of our world is illiterate) but needlesstosay, over the heads and attention spans of many of these kids. Indeed, since many of them were nominal Christians at best, it'd be like trying to teach a 8 year old how to do a 720 BMX rotation when he can barely even ride a bike, much less hit a half-pipe. I watched every kid slouch their heads and slowly fade into apathy, did they really need such a lecture with big words and a topic irrelevant to their lives? I mean, it is important to learn, don't get me wrong, but for someone from an "evangelical" college to think "hey, these kids will become Christ-followers if they can learn to tell academically correct stories!" well...it's one of the reasons i try not to call myself an "evangelical" Christian (I am a Christian who wishes dearly to preach the gospel with my life, but that means love, not academic superiority or moral majority). This man, who tried so hard to be academic and important-looking for these kids, also failed to ever love these kids, to talk with them, to witness Christ to them. He was very good at sitting away from the kids, listening to his ipod, and was VERY good at telling all these kids and parents "Come to Liberty University, where we are raising tomorrow's Christian leaders today" but as an academic lecture, it was an F at best. My favorite quote "Post-modern people hates books." Are you kidding me? While we're on such a postmodern bashing spree, can we remember that 5 minutes early this very man was telling these kids that the Bible should be analyzed how it "appears to them"...a closet post-modern? Also, he obviously did not know how to reach these kids (even though he teaches missions at an evangelical college) because he was so intended to use weighed theological terms and big words that he did not realize his archic language could not reach the fragmented ideology (thanks Nouwen) that all these kids had. It doesn't matter how much we talk about Old Testament sacrifices fortelling Jesus as our sacrifice because these kids have no idea what that means! UGH!

But these are witness to Christ...

-a girl who reached out to the outsiders, swimming with them, talking with them, loving them
-a married couple who took a group of introverted 8th graders, concerned about appearances, and had them entertaining us hilariously by the end of the camp.
-a guy about my age who, during a praise band's preformance, though nothing of dancing and screaming with joy, not caring who saw him praising his Savior, and you know what? Other kids joined in
-A fisherman who gladly took two days off of work in order to counsel, to teach, and to love these kids, even providing a few sharks to dissect he caught early that morning.
-Two women whose love for kids go deep enough where they spent weeks and hours planning this entire weekend, accepting that if God' s plan is merely to plant one seed, then it all is worth it.
-A young woman who, regardless of a fear of heights, jumped off the 12 foot dock into the ocean to make her new found friends happy.
-A company which donated all the food, good food at that...

And so many more! What a bright light that Christ shines thru those who love! It is ALL about love, for who wants to hear a stoic, academic gospel? Not me, for any good news that is not accompanied by love and joy is news that wouldn't seem so good. What a weekend! So pray for Will, an 8th grader who is having problems with his mom, Jordan, a 7th grade girl who may be having trouble fitting in, Ray a 7th grader with energy issues, Rayanna, a girl who began coming out of her shell, and so many more! And most of all, pray for college professors who, even with their degrees and evnagelical blessings, still have no idea how to reach these kids for Christ.

Have a great week, i'm off to the beach!

Love
Blake