Band of Survivors Team Update 27

We had our first Teen Session today, bright and early at 9:15am. In years past we’ve tried to follow a Youth Councils approach—by going all out and decorating our room, getting a praise band together, doing lots of high tech, flashy, youth ministry things—with really poor results. This year we took a totally different approach to how we teach at Pilgrimage this year. We wanted to keep it simple and interactive so we decided to take off the idea of what a “pilgrimage” really is (a spiritual journey).

The concept was to get our teens out of the box by getting out of the building. We also felt compelled to have Jesus teach us from the “Sermon on the Mount”. So we broke Jesus’ mighty teaching into two sections and taught our two sessions from that text. In medieval times, when pilgrims would travel they would often have minstrels (or traveling musicians) go with them and play music while they walked. This would brighten their spirits as they traveled. So we did the same by having Justin, Dietrich and Stephen play drums as we went on our Pilgrimage.

Because Jesus taught on a mountain we decided to march to the cross on the hill by the Lodge. It was a great time of teaching and the kids really responded. We had a few of our BOSers read the Message version of this account while kids followed along and read congregational texts throughout the teaching. After we went through the first portion we led the teens through each moral teaching and had them discuss what it meant in small groups. The kids really dug into this experience, it was a huge blessing.

After that the entire camp was challenged to go out and do Acts of Random Kindness around Camp Lake Wisconsin. Each Corps was given a community to impact through kindness. Band of Survivors were given Paddock Lake to target with love. We broke into cell groups and had each group come up with how they would share God’s love in a practical way. Some were going to hand out popsicles, others bottles of water, others face painting and balloon animals and some wanted to return shopping carts. Unfortunately, Paddock Lake was a bit of a ghost town so we went to Kenosha to adjust our strategy. We dropped two groups at Menards and the other three went to find a park and make some friends.

After the Menards group was kicked out (but in a nice way) we met up with the park group. It was a bit discouraging at the time but God had a better idea for us that afternoon. We met up with a large group of Hispanic soccer players and they asked us if we wanted to play them in soccer, as they were preparing for a tournament and needed an opponent. So there we played, in our light blue BOS shirts. It was a really great time and gave us a long time to get to know them and run around like crazy. And even though we didn’t have cleats and shin guards like these guys, we weren’t half bad and even ended the game in a 5-5 tie. I think once I scored the last goal to tie it, they realized that they were too tired to play us (read: I stink at soccer). When the game ended, we had cell groups at the park. The weather was perfect and the setting was awesome.

The Cadets Farewell was a nice meeting and we are excited for Mike and Kristina Sjogren who will represent our Division well. Steve Sjogren spoke again and went a little too long so we were forced to cancel our second teen afterglow which would have been a camp fire. After that we had what amounts to our “closing ceremony” which we called a Night Watch. It was a great way to end our project. We had Taco Bell, worship, prayer, our final cell group and buried our time capsule. We ended sometime around 2:30am. This group of Survivors was really special. I will miss them!

Eric Himes