Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Boys and their toys


I just spent last week working at High School Camp at Camp Koinonia in Sweet Home.  After working at the younger camps the past few years as a cabin dad, I’ve had lots of experience working with 3-6th grade boys.  I was excited to embrace the maturity of working with high school boys.  Granted some things have not changed.  Boys cabins have the terminal gym sock smell and there is a general rebellion around the topic of cabin clean-up.



        I remembered the old saying that “the difference between men and boys is the size and cost of their toys.”  I couldn’t wait to see what these mature, sophisticated young men would use to occupy their free time.  As usual I’m behind the times and I need some coaching to cope with this new technology.



        So, I spent last week around Legos.  To be fair, our theme for the week was a Lego theme.  The idea was to build up one another in Christ.  During our planned recreation time, we played a group game building a structure that my cabin of 16 boys could all fit in out of cardboard.  Every body lay next to each over while the other counselors and I spread a huge cardboard quilt over them.  They worked well together and grew closer together.  (There are pictures on my Facebook if you want to see what it looked like.)



        I also watched as they would decorate our cabin for cabin clean up.  One guy made a platform out of Legos.  He hung it from our ceiling with duct tape, and mounted a salt shaker sized speaker on it, so we could listen to music.  I cringed at the thought of having to listen to their new music!  The favorite song for the week was “Take me home, country roads” by John Denver.  The song originally came out in 1974 and it was the first song I learned on guitar.  My cabin loved singing it.  What they lacked in pitch and harmony they made up in volume and enthusiasm.  Apparently, the song was used in a couple of popular movies, so it’s making a comeback.



        On the home building front, I love playing Duplo blocks (bigger Lego blocks for younger kids) with grandsons John and Tyson (3 and 1 respectively) for two reasons.  The first and most importantly is spending time with my grandsons and also, they are young enough that I can build my only Duplo creation, a tower, and they are impressed.  I’m looking forward to when they are in kindergarten and can build stuff that I can copy.



        There are more important building projects that every church needs to focus on.  The most important is building one another up. Our theme passages for last week’s camp were, Hebrews 3:13,  “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness,” and Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwhole-some talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”



        We build the church up by encouraging one another.  These building blocks can be a kind word, a smile or shared story, meeting together in a Small Group, checking in on someone sick or missing from our church family for awhile, or a loving hug or handshake.  It can be a thoughtful, kind deed.  Satan and our world tears people apart.  We are to rebuild people into a beautiful, God honoring structure called “the church”, which Jesus said “even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)



        Now, where did I put that duct tape…