Extreme Camp: Part Two

Extreme Camp: Part Two

If you read the last blog post you would have gathered that we were on our way to Extreme Camp. Was my first time going to camp as a leader so it was kinda exciting. Part worried about doing music and part happy about hanging out with the youth. So yeh, music. That was the main thing I was involved in at camp.

What is SOAP?? If you didn’t know, it stands for Songs Of Awesome Praise. It’s essentially just one way that, as Christians, we praise and worship God. It really aint about the music itself but about glorifying Gods name.

Highlight for me at camp was definitely Prayer + Praise night. Yeh, take it literally; we had 3 different prayer sessions each followed by a different set of songs. For those that weren’t there, the 3 prayer sessions were: prayer for ourselves, prayer for our church and lidcombe, and prayer for the world. Was very cool seeing all the youth gathered into that hall sitting around in circles praying about different things. I think its good at camps to have a time like this, as besides the study, there aren’t many other group prayer session opportunities.

We had brought along these stage light things that we found in the library at church. Pretty cool things. They would constantly switch between a bunch of colours. We turned the colour switch timing to really long in order to steer away from a disco night feel lol. Only bad thing bout the lights was the need for a dark room so following my music was kinda hard. Whenever the lights were yellow, it was like “sweet, can read the lyrics”, then it would change to a dark green or purple and it be like “ooop stand back from the mic a bit” lol. We had these glow sticks though, so when they were handing em out I thought it would be a smart idea to get the yellow ones cus they were the brightest, and place em on the stands. But alas, their glow was really weak and it didn’t do much to solve the problem.

Anyways, yeh, the music sessions were really awesome. We had done tons of practice the weeks leading up to camp and we had practiced a bit at camp. About 12 songs for that night so it was quite tiring. Luckily all the youth were really excited so it created all this energy in the room. Maybe a hiccup here or there but in the end everything worked out well and we could see at the end that all the youth were really excited about singing praises to God. We had people all standing together, jumping up and down, swaying their hands and all that. Before the last set, the music team got together and decided that, yeh, we should do an extra song on top of the 3 we had originally planned cus it looked like everyone wanted to keep singing. So yeh, we play the 4 and everyone is still really pumped up and theyre all pretty much jumping around shouting. Then the youth are like “Yehh!! Another song!! Woooooo! Encore!! One more!!”. At this point I think all musos were really excited and encouraged at the same time. Was so cool seeing everyone passionate about singing praises to God. So yeh, we were kinda stumped, so Ronnie asks what song they wanted to sing, and they all scream out this rabble that we cant really decipher, but eventually the words “let your kingdom come” kinda rings out a bit more. Mind you, we had just done “Let Your Kingdom Come” as the final song. So we just clarify with the youth again, and they’re all “YEHH!”, so we do it again.

We seem to have “Let Your Kingdom Come” a lot at extreme, but I really think its an awesome song. If you check out the lyrics, they’re really good. It pretty much talks about getting involved in Gods big plan and is our cry for Gods kingdom to come. Lets just check out the first verse (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkKCb6Bmi6o):

Your glorious cause O God, engages our hearts

May Jesus Christ be known, wherever we are

We ask not four ourselves, but for you renown

The cross has saved us so we

Pray your kingdom come

If you read that then youd get the idea is that we want to be part of Gods amazing plan. I remember from one of Adrians talks where he said how everyone wants to be a hero. You see it in movies, tv, books and everything, and it kinda goes like this: bad guy comes, plants the bomb, you go stop the bomb, save the city, and get the girl, the end. Pretty much that’s how most action movies go. But yeh, Gods mission is much more epic and involves saving the world from a plague that everyone has, sin. He’s included us in his plan and we are told to go and spread the word of God. That’s why I think this song sums up that message really well. We call for Gods kingdom to come, we go and spread the name of Christ, and we do this all for Gods glory. So yeh, praise God for such a great night of prayer and praise. p.s. just listened to the song again while writing this, chorus is sooo good, such an epic proclamation of wanting Gods will/plan/kingdom to come about.

And that was the end of our official prayer + praise night. All the youth headed out to the campfire as Dan played his exit music lol. While we were at the campfire someone, cant remember who lol, came out and got me my guitar, so we did so singing around the fire. The atmosphere was really cool, and it was just great seeing everyone hanging around the fire. A bunch of guys stayed back to sit around the campfire and sing and chat some more which was fun. We sang about pokemon and created a song about this bowl of mi goring, that I got from my secret service person, that danny kept knocking over in the dark lol.

In summary, I guess my time at camp leading the music sessions really reminded me of how differently Christians view things of this world. In this case we are talking about a bunch of people standing upfront playing music. From a world point of view, I think that the main reason why people would get up and play music for others is to gain glory for themselves. You got a guitar strapped on and you’re rocking it out for your own glory. I think that’s where music service at church really stands out. Instead of trying to be the centre of attention, the job of music leaders is to help others to focus on God and to express their worship and love to him through their singing. In a sense, we assist people in their worship of God.

Final words. Hope you’ve enjoyed and been encouraged by the camp series. Praise God for saving us into his family and thanks to him for including us into his epic plan; all the glory to our sovereign God!!

-Matt