Post Preteen Camp Thoughts

• Preteen Camp is the most exhausting Student Ministries Camp for leaders. Although it's the shortest in length, there is absolutlely no downtime from the moment you're awake to the moment you go to bed. A leader always has to be "on."
• Taking our mature Senior High students as leaders has been a great win/win for us. Huge win for the Senior High students in our mission to see students become Spiritual Reproducers. Huge win in 5th and 6th Graders seeing a relationship with Christ modeled by a High School student. Preteens are looking for heroes, I'm glad many of them found one in their cabin group leader this week.
• Preteen worship rules! I'm sorry, but I loved doing motions to songs, jumping around, screaming, clapping along to a reflective worship song. It brought the kid out in me, and in the process I connected with my Savior in a fresh way.
• Concrete experiential learning is king! Abstract or conceptual teaching might connect, but will most likely shoot over heads. Sitting and listening works... for about 5 minutes. We ran stations where a leader talked about God's love, and then students did something to experience or express it. It worked. When we ran the "What If?" stations, we pushed for kids to think of practical step. They did. When Jason taught, he incorporated motions, drama and action steps.
• God moved! On Thursday night, God showed up in a major way. Seeing many Preteens stand up and say, "I Want to be used by God" was a powerful picture. The presence of God was thick in the room. The conversations that happened in groups after was awesome!