Church | Jesse Joyner

The Power of a Family Camp

I recently spoke at a Family Camp at Camp Dixie in North Carolina. The idea is simple: create a camp experience that involves the whole family. Most camps offer programs for age-specific groups, particularly children’s and youth camps. But Family Camp is where all the members of the family come to camp together and enjoy the experience as a family. This creates memories that last forever and help families bond in ways that are hard to do in the midst of “everyday life” back at home.

Here are some things Camp Dixie did well: they had plenty of free play time (for the pool, the lake, canoeing, hiking, go carts, etc.). They also had joint worship services for the whole family (music and a special speaker that is geared towards all ages). And there were some times for age-specific break-out times where the adults went to workshops on different topics and the kids went to do crafts.

I enjoyed it and I look forward to returning next year. Here is a video recap of this camp….

Family Camp Weekend 2014 from Camp Dixie on Vimeo.

How to Memorize Scripture

Making an "L" with our hands for the word "Lord" in Ephesians 6:10-11. — Photo: Forest N. Morrell 2014. Making an “L” with our hands for the word “Lord” in Ephesians 6:10-11.

I personally learn how to memorize things better when I associate the thing I want to memorize with something else that is unique and/or familiar to me. For example, if someone tells me their name is John (a very common name), I might quickly imagine that person dressed up as John the Baptist baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River. Every time I see John, I’ll see that unique and familiar image in my head – and ideally remember his name.

I have found through experience that children can memorize Bible verses (and retain them in their memory) very quickly by using a similar method. I use a method I picked up at a Children’s Ministry Conference I attended about a decade ago (I think it was sponsored by Group Publishing). I have since created my own style of this method. Here it is:

Pick a verse that is relevant to the teaching and/or theme you are covering. Try not to pick a very long verse (usually 30-40 words maximum). There is a time and place for memorizing longer passages and that can be done in smaller groups or in one-on-one training. Right now, I am talking about large groups of kids at camp or at church on a Sunday morning or other weekly meeting time.
Show the verse on the big screen or have the kids look up the verse together. Make sure you pick a good Bible translation that has a smooth reading of the verse (I usually like the NIV ’84 and the ESV, sometimes the NLT).
Have the kids stand up.
Attach a motion to each word and/or phrase. I will make up motions (some silly, others just straightforward) to go along with each word or phrase in the verse. I then teach the motions and words to the kids and have them repeat it after me several times. Sometimes I will use a motion from American Sign Language while other motions I simply make up for the purpose of the verse at hand.
Once the kids know the words and motions, the trick is just repetition from this point on. You may want to have a “Memory Verse of the Month” (as my friends at The Village Church in Flower Mound, TX have) and review the verse before and after the teaching each week for a month. When I’m at a week-long summer camp, I will call it the “Memory Verse of the Week” or “MVOTW” (pronounced ma-vah-twa). The kids love saying silly words that are really an acronym. When I do the MVOTW, I will open up every teaching session with the kids standing and reciting the verse. They don’t even need the verse on the screen after the first teaching session. Every time after that, they have it all memorized because they have the motions along with it.

As a word of encouragement, this is something that anyone can do. You don’t have to be a juggler or a magician. You can make up some silly motions for the verse and teach away. If you have fun with it, the kids will have fun with it. And they will remember (and so will you).

I had a group of girls approach me at summer camp a few months ago and they recited the memory verse I had taught them three or four summers ago! They did the verse along with all the motions I had taught them. That is the power of memorizing something along with motions. It drastically increases the retention rate.

And retention is what we want when we memorize Scripture. When we or these kids are faced with challenges in life or a temptation to sin, what better thing than to recall God’s Word from our minds (that we memorized) in order to resist temptation or pray through a challenge in life? Even when times are good, Scripture is something we want to meditate on all the time.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4), he was tempted three times and all three times he responded to Satan with a memorized Scripture verse (“it is written…”).

Let’s teach kids how to memorize scripture!

Worship Response Stations

I recently returned from Pine Creek Camp in Gore, VA. I was the camp pastor for two weeks with several hundred preteen kids and their chaperones from Assembly of God churches around Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, D.C., and West Virginia.

I speak at many camps each summer, but this one stuck out because of the format they asked me to follow. First of all, there were two chapel services each day for the kids – one in the morning and one in the evening. The morning service was designed to be the “main” service of the day (in terms of worship music and teaching time) with the evening service being more of a “review and respond” service.

So in the evenings, I taught for about 10 minutes, just reviewing the points we learned about in the morning. Then, for the remainder of the service (another 45 minutes to an hour), we spent responding to God’s Word through the format of worship stations.

The camp told me this ahead of time. So I wrote up some station ideas that went along with my lessons each day. The leadership at the camp then took all my ideas and turned them into reality by getting the supplies, setting up the stations, and manning them each night.

The results were amazing. We realized that kids learn and respond in a variety of ways, depending on their learning languages. Some kids respond well with hands-on and interactive activities while others are fine being still or reading. Most kids have a variety of learning styles inside of them anyway, so it’s good to have the different stations so they can move around freely as they like. I’d like to take a few posts to share the ideas and pictures from the worship response stations.

Here is a quick rundown of the stations. I will go into more details with each one in subsequent posts.

Prayer Counseling – This is the traditional idea of having prayer counselors on hand if a kid or adult needs prayer for anything. This is usually the only “station” people offer as a way of response at camp or in church. We still used it, but it was only one of many ways to respond.
Question Cards – If the kids had a question about God or the Bible, they wrote them down on a 3×5 card and handed it to an adult. The adult would then attempt to find the answer in the Bible and answer the question. If they couldn’t find it, then they would say “I don’t know” or “I’ll look it up later and get back it you.” This was a surprisingly popular station for the kids.
World Prayer Map – There was a map on the wall and the kids would go up and place a sticker star on a country, city, or location of a people group and pray for them.
Slime Buckets – One night, we taught about Jonah. In order to explore the idea of what it may have felt like to be inside the belly of a great fish, the kids put their hands in slime. This was obviously very popular.
Blindfolded Prayer – Also along the story of Jonah (who prayed in pitch darkness inside the belly of the fish), we had the kids put on a blindfold and then sit or kneel and pray. One leader said this station was the first time he had seen one of his boys pray. Sometimes it takes some creative way that really connects with a particular kid to open them up to things like prayer and worship.
Kids Pray for Adults – I will devote an entire post to this station, as it was my favorite of all the stations. Kids were on hand to pray for adults who wanted prayer. It was humbling for adults and exciting for kids. More on this one later.
The Wooden Cross – This is another traditional station that many groups have used for years. I believe it is still very powerful in form and function. The large wooden cross reminds us of what Jesus did for us and we have the chance to lay prayers and confessions at the cross by writing them on a piece of paper and nailing them to the cross.
Prayer Journaling/Drawing – This was also a very popular one. We had stacks of paper and boxes of crayons, markers, and pencils on hand. The kids would simply grab some paper and something to write/draw with and freely journal or draw pictures as prayers, thanksgivings to God, and other worship thoughts on their minds.
Finger Painting – On the day when we learned about Creation, the kids got to draw pictures of things that God made on a large white poster using finger paints. This was extremely popular and looked very pretty when it was all done.
Other Stations – There were also stations with bead bracelets, mouse traps, clay and play-do, bowls of fruit, a white board with a dry erase marker, and Scripture reading. I will discuss each one in subsequent posts.

Let me know if you have done worship response stations and what they looked like. Thanks for reading!

All photos are credited to Kelly Gibbs. Thanks Kelly!