Sports Camp
So this summer I took a week off work to help out with a sports camp my church ran during the week of July 24-28. I love kids and I love sports so this really is a golden opportunity to experience both simultaneously. It really brought back great memories of when I used to volunteer and work as a day camp counselor many years ago.
Prior the the camp, we had many weeks of meetings in order to prepare. In previous years, the church had held the usual vacation bible school (VBS as we like to call it) during the summer. It's just a time for kids to come out, play some games, makes some friends and receive some biblical teaching as well. Since the church merger almost a year ago, we have refocused our vision on being more of a "missional" church - reaching out the community around us and those in need. We thought that VBS doesn't really appeal to many people who aren't so keen on going to church. I mean, if you aren't "religious" and you hear something with the word "bible" in it, you probably won't want to bother with it much less send your kids to some bible camp.
Anyway, we placed the emphasis on sports this year and although it required a lot more work on the planning side, it was definitely worth it in the end. We promoted the camps within our church but also outside in the surrounding communities. I think 60-70% of the children that attended came from outside of our church with a significant proportion of that coming from our community in Bannister Manor and Shawnessy. It was really cool to work with the City of Calgary to provide an affordable week-long camp for kids that maybe come from families who can't afford to pay the hundreds of dollars to send their kids to basketball or soccer camp. Many of the families only paid $5 for their kids. I won't forget the emotions on some of the parents that I saw at the end of the week. One mom had tears in her eyes and told us she would never have been able to send her girls to camp because of their financial situation and that they had such a good time.
I had the opportunity to lead hockey on the last day of camp. I anticipated the worst and even in our meetings everyone estimated at least 5 casualties in the form of scrapped knees, sore fingers and slashed shins. But, the kids were tough there were surprisingly few injuries. I also had the chance to share a simple gospel message that I called "Avoiding the Penalty Box". I tried to use the analogy of a penalties and the penalty box with sin and judgement. One of the ladies also talked about heaven and hell in the afternoon cooking camp and how it relates to salvation. By the grace of God, I think there were something like five kids that ended up talking to our childrens pastor and accepted Christ's death as payment for their sins. How cool is that?!?
We always need to be careful never to take credit for stuff like this. I know that it was all God's handiwork because even a week before we still had no idea where we were going to find the equipment for certain sports or if the weather would even work out. But God pulled through yet again and everything went better than we could have hoped for.
Prior the the camp, we had many weeks of meetings in order to prepare. In previous years, the church had held the usual vacation bible school (VBS as we like to call it) during the summer. It's just a time for kids to come out, play some games, makes some friends and receive some biblical teaching as well. Since the church merger almost a year ago, we have refocused our vision on being more of a "missional" church - reaching out the community around us and those in need. We thought that VBS doesn't really appeal to many people who aren't so keen on going to church. I mean, if you aren't "religious" and you hear something with the word "bible" in it, you probably won't want to bother with it much less send your kids to some bible camp.
Anyway, we placed the emphasis on sports this year and although it required a lot more work on the planning side, it was definitely worth it in the end. We promoted the camps within our church but also outside in the surrounding communities. I think 60-70% of the children that attended came from outside of our church with a significant proportion of that coming from our community in Bannister Manor and Shawnessy. It was really cool to work with the City of Calgary to provide an affordable week-long camp for kids that maybe come from families who can't afford to pay the hundreds of dollars to send their kids to basketball or soccer camp. Many of the families only paid $5 for their kids. I won't forget the emotions on some of the parents that I saw at the end of the week. One mom had tears in her eyes and told us she would never have been able to send her girls to camp because of their financial situation and that they had such a good time.
I had the opportunity to lead hockey on the last day of camp. I anticipated the worst and even in our meetings everyone estimated at least 5 casualties in the form of scrapped knees, sore fingers and slashed shins. But, the kids were tough there were surprisingly few injuries. I also had the chance to share a simple gospel message that I called "Avoiding the Penalty Box". I tried to use the analogy of a penalties and the penalty box with sin and judgement. One of the ladies also talked about heaven and hell in the afternoon cooking camp and how it relates to salvation. By the grace of God, I think there were something like five kids that ended up talking to our childrens pastor and accepted Christ's death as payment for their sins. How cool is that?!?
We always need to be careful never to take credit for stuff like this. I know that it was all God's handiwork because even a week before we still had no idea where we were going to find the equipment for certain sports or if the weather would even work out. But God pulled through yet again and everything went better than we could have hoped for.
Labels: God Thoughts, Personal Reflection
posted by Matt at 12:30 PM
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