I've just returned from a week in which worship means dirt, sweat and bug spray. It means crickets and mosquitoes, sunsets and flashlights. It means wooden bleachers caked with questionable substances, shorts and t-shirts to combat the heat and the word of God read under skies threatening rain. I've just returned from this to my home church where tonight, in an air conditioned building complete with stained glass, carpet and florescent lighting in cushioned pews made to seat a thousand plus decked out in Sunday best, I heard a sermon complete with PowerPoint bullets on God's desire to heal us of our love of stuff.
I sat in the auditorium feeling both happy to be home and distinctly out of place.
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Happy to be home and distinctly out of place: Could this be the lament of a child of God who is in the world but not of the world, even at your home church? : )
Of course, this in not an indictment on having church in a/c buildings with stained-glass windows. But we often feel comfortable with the "trappings" without adding to the quality of our walk with God.
This may have nothing to do with what you are feeling about your camp experience, but it made me think of my own camp experiences and a point of lingering sadness that many of us felt after repeating the camp/home cycle year after year of spiritual intensity and awareness to watching the embers cool. God is so simply understood in that rustic setting!
We met at a nearby youth rally where we recalled those precious times and posed the question: Why does it have to die when we leave for the summer?
When we asked the question, some amazing things started to happen.
So whatever you are distinctly feeling as the result of your experience, don't give a sigh of resignation; Ask a question, or two or three......and watch what happens.
You are a blessing!
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