By Rachel Shively, 4.12 Coordinator
In a very fast paced culture, most people quickly move from one season of life to the next and never truly take time to reflect on what has brought them to a specific moment in life. However, when the season of summer camp wraps up here at Joy El, a specific weekend is set aside to look back upon what God has done through the staff since the first day of training.
Throughout the weekend, staff are able to break up into various groups and walk through specific, guided questions that allow them to not only process what God has done through that summer but how to communicate these praises to others. Sessions discuss people’s joys, fears, highs, lows, etc.
One specific session that I had the opportunity to lead took place with the Female Junior Staff which consists of the 4.12 female students (girls in our 4.12 Leadership Training Program) who served during the summer. During this specific session, they were each asked to write down the lies that they believed about themselves during the summer on a piece of paper. They were then challenged to recall why what they wrote was a lie. Once they finished writing, each of them was challenged to take that same piece of paper and put it in the flames of the campfire in the middle.
I reminded them that by letting go of the paper, it represented what they needed to do with the lies they believed about themselves. Although the paper was gone, the temptation to believe those lies again would come back. However, stopping to believe the lies was not the end. From there, each of them were given a sheet of paper that had over 40 statements of what God’s word said about them with specific scripture references to remind them of their true identity in Christ.
By taking the time to reflect upon the more difficult times of summer, it opened a doorway for staff members to leave behind many misconceptions about themselves but also to go home walking in the truth of who they are in Christ. Therefore, by taking a moment to reflect back, they are now able to walk into the next part of life proclaiming how God changed them over the course of summer.
The weekend was truly a Romans 12:2 season! “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Resources you can use to combat the lies of the enemy
Lies Women Believe by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth
Lies Men Believe by Robert Wolgemuth
Wonderfully Made: Becoming Who You Are in Christ by Allie Marie Smith
