2007 All-Church Retreat
This past weekend, Carolyn and I attended the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville Annual All-Church Retreat at Camp Johnsonburg.
We arrived early on Friday in order to avoid rush hour traffic on the way there. This enabled us to choose our room in the lodge (a good move) and to sit in outdoor lounge chairs when everybody else arrived. Most of the group arrived in time for dinner Friday night, followed by tie-dying preparation. Friday night itself was hot and muggy and sleeping was not easy.
Saturday was lovely but still a bit humid. We started the day with breakfast. Carolyn and I were both signed up for Low Ropes (group building and personal challenge activities near ground level). We both participated in the first two activities (marshmallows on the dangerous Chocolate River – get the group across, and untying human knots while balancing on a teeter platform). At that point anybody participating in the Leap of Faith had to leave in order to get there. Carolyn continued with Low Ropes and did some challenge exercises like walking a steel cable balancing with a rope and crossing a series of tire swings.
Here we are crossing the dangerous chocolate river on floating marshmallows. I’m the one in the green shirt and Carolyn is right behind me. I’ve mentioned Jill Cifelli here a number of times – she’s the woman in gray standing in line.
The Leap of Faith is a zip line suspended above a low spot in the trail – forming a bit of a valley. Somehow the Ropes course staff managed to run 30 of the 35 people signed up through in the morning. I helped out (as a former staffer always will) by being the person who unhooked the last participant and running the zip line back to the top of the hill. For this activity I was rewarded with praise and sweat (lots of sweat).
After lunch on Saturday we finished tie-dying and I got my chance on the Leap.
This is me in flight.
This is me waiting to be unhooked. (A thought bubble would say “Hurry up – this harness is giving me a serious wedgie!”)
It cannot be taken more than one pill in 24hours in this manner you can also save money. sildenafil canada online Talent appraisal for organizational development is the major focus of training programs. “A get viagra man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Missed dose If you have missed your dose , take the tablet as soon as you face this disorder immediately viagra shop consult your respective doctor for the treatment of erectile dysfunction is recommended as he would guide you properly as to what should be done while having the medicine, what safety and preventive measures should be taken. 100mg tablets of viagra Both their person life and professional are disturbed. After the Leap I assisted with the kids who were doing High Ropes. The High Ropes course is run between trees about 20-30 feet off the ground. You have a choice of starting with a “helicopter”-style ladder and then crossing a steel cable using a guide cable or the harder option of crossing on a cable using ropes as handholds. The other option is to climb an inclined ladder to a platform, and then crossing more cables and wooden boxes to the final platform. Both starts lead to a zip line at the end. Our church is apparently populated by monkeys – the kids did the High Ropes course mainly with no fear and very quickly.
Between all of the Ropes activities we only had 3 refusals – one very small girl who didn’t do the Leap, and a boy and a girl who didn’t complete (or start in one case) the High Ropes. I add myself to the list – having done it 20 years ago as a counselor I had no interest at all in doing the High Ropes.
Saturday after dinner, we made banners depicting our concepts of faith and God that will hang in the Fellowship Center at church. After that, the traditional campfire complete with S’mores.
Saturday night sleeping was easier due to lower temperatures.
Sunday morning after breakfast we had worship outdoors by the waterfront. One of the parents in the group played a carved flute and pan pipes for the Prelude and Postlude. The rest of the service was run by a family that directed music, our Director of Children’s Ministries, and one of the Interim Associate for Pastoral Ministry folks (she’s also my new co-chair of the task force). Worship was nice, and ended just before the rain started.
It rained the rest of Sunday morning, and after lunch we headed on home.
It was a nice weekend. I was more relaxed than usual as a result, and I’m having a tough time with “re-entry” into the work world today.
One thing that was a bit odd was that Carolyn and I were the only family without kids. I believe that this retreat used to be the “Family Retreat” and in recent years has been the “All-Church” retreat. It was a little easier for us than it could have been – we both like kids and since we’ve been doing work with the youth group we were familiar to many of the parents. I did get to meet about 15 families that I didn’t know (or know well) before. Hopefully the retreat will attract more younger singles or couples without kids in the future.
I tried to serve as a goodwill ambassador (a title vested on me by one of the parents) for the camp to the church. There were two of the youth that I tried to recruit for the camp’s Leadership Training Program and it looks like one might consider it (the other isn’t old enough yet). I hope they do – they’d both make great Johnsonburgers. I only hope that I wasn’t too pushy – Carolyn’s opinion is that I went right up to the line and didn’t cross it.
Today I’m pooped and a bit sore (there are a few muscles that don’t get used that often) but still more relaxed than usual.
Youth Group Comedy
Last night, the youth group started off by attending the Taize service for Wholeness and Healing at the church. This service involved annointing.
Afterwards, the youth group got back together for a quick meeting to go over Youth Sunday which is coming up.
Comedy #1:
Youth Director: So, what did you think about the service? What did you like?
Freshman Girl: It was short, and there wasn’t a sermon.
Comedy #2:
We’re listing the parts of the worship service to get ready for planning Youth Sunday.
We’re all yelling out parts of the service:
Somebody: Assurance of Pardon
Additionally, the weakness is also cured and vitality is viagra in australia enhanced if taken regularly. find content viagra samples These life skills help their interpersonal relationships and promote their growth during the treatment. Now, availing an ED treatment sildenafil sale has become easier for the ED sufferers. Don’t take them on regular basis and in a larger quantity to ensure better and safer cheap levitra uk results.
Scribe Girl: writes “Insurance of Pardon”
Youth Director: I like that! Leave it.
(At this point I leaned over to another adult and asked “Does that make the Offering an Insurance Premium?”)
Scribe Girl: (embarrassed) changes it to Assurance
Youth Director: “Insurance of Pardon”, what does that mean?
Scribe Girl’s Older Brother: It means my sister needs a helmet!
Gotta love siblings.
(It probably didn’t help much that we’d already had ice cream at this point.)
Dredging up pain of the past
This weekend, I’ve experienced two instances of people inadvertently ripping the scab off of my personal pains of the past.
Pain #1 – Me of the Past
When I was in early elementary school, I had some emotional issues. I was the kid afraid of change (to the degree that I’d hide under a table in the hallway if given a new workbook). I was “most likely to get upset and disrupt a class”. I was also very intelligent and was ahead of the curve in school. I entered kindergarten (and even pre-school, if my parents are to be believed) already reading. One teacher that I had constant trouble with during my early grade school years was the gym teacher. According to my father (I’ve either forgotten or blocked memories of most of this), the gym teacher and principal were talking about the problem that I posed in gym class (and believe me, I was a bit of a problem). The principal suggested to the gym teacher that I was very bright and already reading. The gym teacher refused to believe that, and the principal suggested that he take a free period and come to kindergarten to get to know me better. (Dad heard about this because he was also a principal in another school in the same district – a “normal” parent probably wouldn’t have heard about it.)
Apparently, the gym teacher came down to the classroom and picked a book off the shelf. He gave it to me and I read it to him. He went back to the principal and told him that I’d memorized that book. The principal told him to go get a book from the library – maybe a 3rd grade level book – and ask me to read it. Same results – I must have memorized it. The principal told the gym teacher to go to a bookstore and BUY a book that isn’t in the library, and have me read it. Same result. According to Dad, the gym teacher concluded that I’d memorized every book. He reportedly said to the principal: “I took the book to him and he read it. I didn’t know what else to do with it so I gave it to him.”
Funny story, eh?
Dad reportedly got to use this story as an illustration for an elementary school colleague (Dad’s a school superintendent now). Apparently it made its point.
The problem for me is that Dad decided to retell the whole story to me this past Saturday night at dinner. I had completely forgotten it or blocked it as a painful memory (most of my memories of school from that period are painful). So Dad inadvertently dredged it up again. It was rather deflating for me. It’s not Dad’s fault – he figured that he’d done some good with a story from my life (and he probably has) and he’d tell me about it. It did hurt.
Pain #2 – Church of the Past
Way back in September, I wrote about my past in the church and why I had left and why I was returning. I mentioned in passing a “cult-like retreat” held by an “extremely conservative chapter of a conservative Christian campus
organization”. I think it’s time to flesh out that story some more, to explain my current dilemma.
Still, most patients have to live with pharmacy cialis the fact that you need to plan when you are going to trap by ED, but if you notice negative side effects such as vision loss moments after taking this medicine, call your doctor immediately. Men who were deprived of treatment due to pfizer viagra the high amount of the uric acid crystals. Vitamin buy tadalafil india A: Vitamin A is important for all males to focus on their diet and exercise to stay healthy. One of get viagra without prescription over at this web-site the most suitable versions is known by the name of Impotence, Erectile Dysfunction (ED) is an inability to achieve and sustain enough of a penile erection to make love. Back in 1986, I was a freshman at Rutgers University. On the first day, I was wandering around campus looking at the booths that various student organizations had set up. One of them near the Busch Student Center was for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. They were giving away ice cream. I figured that as a rather religious person (at this point I was already a deacon and serving on two Synod committees) I should take a look and find a campus christian fellowship. The local Campus Crusade for Christ seemed too fundamentalist for me, so I tried out InterVarsity.
I have since learned that different chapters of IVCF fall into different places on the liberal/conservative spectrum. This chapter was VERY conservative. One of the first Bible studies on campus taught me that I should not be a friend to any Jews unless I was actively trying to convert them to Christ (“be not unequally yoked”). Other lessons were similarly extreme.
In October I took a retreat with them for a weekend in the woods. It turned out to be a very cult-like situation for me. The 48-hour retreat turned out to be (as experienced by me) 24 hours of telling me how terrible my beliefs are, and then once I stopped fighting them, 24 hours of pouring in their own beliefs. As expected, those beliefs were strongly conservative.
Fortunately, my personality turned out to be strong enough to resist such tactics. I made the right noises and they stopped treating me as the “resisting” attendee and moved on to other people. Once I returned to campus, I never went back to their group again. And as I wrote before, this was the first step in my turn away from the church.
So why do I mention all of this?
I’ve been working with my church’s youth group for a couple months now. There’s a presbytery-wide retreat coming up, and the youth director asked if I’d be willing to serve as a chaperone – they need one adult of each gender to go along. I said that I’d think about it.
I looked up the camp where the retreat is being held. Yup – it’s the same place that the extremely painful memory from 20 years ago was made. Just looking at the pictures of the camp I feel nervous about returning to the “scene of the crime”. I read the “Ministry Philosophy” of the camp on their website, and it’s fairly in line with the folks who held that InterVarsity retreat years ago. I’m about ready to tell the youth director that I won’t be able to participate, just on the basis of where the retreat is being held. I have to think about it some more.
My wife is more emphatic: “DO NOT GO!”
Again – unintentional pain inflicted by someone who doesn’t know my background well enough to see the landmine before stepping on it.
We all have scabs. Some people gleefully pull them off when opportunity presents itself. Others (like my father and the youth director at church) don’t even know that they exist when they accidentally scrape them off. It hurts either way.
Back to the Future, part 3
A while back I wrote of getting involved in the youth group at church. Two weeks ago I attended the Sunday evening meeting for the first time, and it involved so little interaction that I wasn’t really able to figure out whether or not I wanted to continue.
Last night, we met again. Due to snow, we only had 5 youth show up (plus 4 adults including me). This group had a really good session getting ready for the Mission Trip this summer to Louisiana.
We did breakout sessions and that gave me a chance to interact with the youth. I discovered a few things:
- These are great kids. No, I mean it. Really awesome people.
- I share enough in common with them to feel comfortable.
- It was fun! I’ve forgotten the joy present in a room full of people laughing so hard that tears are rolling out of their eyes at a little silly comment.
VItamin D is experiencing a kind of resurgance in popularity in the viagra sale United States and Europe, where herbalists and health care practitioners all over the world have successfully used the variety of the non-knife modalities to rescue the gallbladders of their patients for the hundred years. The weak erection brings relationship issues and insecurities buy line viagra on both parts. Prescription Adds More Benefits For Healthy Performance Well, kamagra can be obtained without prescription via cheap cialis pills online. Thus, be vegetarian to avoid erectile dysfunction is true.When you eat apcalis 20mg meat, the excessive amount of medication may result with sexual issue this really leads to impede run of blood towards the buying viagra in india penis.
At this point I feel called to continue for at least a few months. I feel like I can be helpful with this group, and I feel compelled to give back. My own youth group experiences form the foundation of my faith. This experience even has me thinking about taking a week this summer to help chaperone the Mission Trip.
The only hard part is that this adds to my time committed to things outside of the house. This activity puts me at or beyond the upper limit of that time. I need to think about dropping something, possibly flying.
(If you want to see these folks, take a look at the Lawrenceville Presbyterian Youth and Young Adult website. CHAOS is the group that I’m working with. Guidelines on the Mission Trip are found on the Mission page.)
Back to the Future part 2
At this point, I have to give my “Back to the Future” task an incomplete.
Last night’s meeting was nice, but there was minimal interaction with anybody. The program was on Haiti and consisted of a video shot by the Youth Director on a visit to Haiti a few years ago. Later, the pastor of a church in Haiti that our congregation supports came and spoke of his ministry and the situation there (including his being in the US due to death threats). The kids were quiet for the most part and the adults asked most of the questions.
The erection which super cialis one faces because of this medicine facilitated millions of patients across the world to cure their sexual disorder. Our IVF cipla cialis online treatment center in Delhi offer all the testing facilities along with IVF. In conclusion, there would not be a real growth if man do not have the determination and persistence to make long lasting happy intercourse with price of cialis vigor and stamina. You can keep this hormone level from drooping if sans prescription viagra regencygrandenursing.com you consume Musli Kaunch Shakti capsules. At this point I’ve decided to go ahead and fill out the paperwork for the church to certify that I’m not “A Scary Adult” and safe to work with kids. (As a deacon, I feel that I’m already covered by the rules but if it’ll make them feel more comfortable by filling out a Promise form and getting a background check I’m all for it.) I’ll stay involved for at least a few more sessions and see where it takes me. I really don’t think I’ll have a good read on whether or not this is something I want to do until I have more time and more interaction.
Another issue that I discovered last night is the time commitment and time with my wife. There might be a conflict there – it depends on how important the youth work is to me. We’ll see.
Back to the Future
This weekend, I go Back to the Future – reliving part of my life. How? I’m helping out with Sr. High Youth Group at church.
Back in my youth (as I’ve said before many times), I was heavily involved in church. Part of that included being probably the most regular member of the Sr. High youth group. My freshman year, I was probably the only one who wasn’t a junior or senior in the group – we didn’t have an Associate Pastor at the time so some of the more recent young adults were running the group. I think we had maybe 4 or 5 people. As I got older, we got a great Associate Pastor who had youth ministry as one of his specialties. We then grew to a solid 8 to 10 by the time I graduated (this in a church that drew about 200 attendees at Sunday services). I enjoyed going every Sunday evening. My parents had it easy – the Associate Pastor’s manse was around the corner from our house so I always had a ride to and from church (or actually to church and from Friendly’s after youth group).
My youth group involvement grew into becoming a deacon, attending the Presbyterian Youth Triennium in 1986, and being a Youth Advisory Delegate to the Synod. One of the most fun weeks of my life happened when I was working at Camp Johnsonburg as a CIT. One summer, I got to be the 3rd counselor in a work camp unit, with my Associate Pastor as a co-counselor and kids from my youth group in the unit. Helping to serve communion (deacons were allowed to do that back then) at Triennium and at work camp were very meaningful for me. This left me sufficient engaged with the church that I headed to college planning to make either religion or computer science my major (with the other my minor).
Then some stuff happened that I’ve written about before and I left the church. However, it was my ties to youth group experiences – particularly camp – that drew me back almost 20 years later.
Instead of consumption of medication take natural special treatments for having cialis generika a better penile erection. Kamagra Jellies:- Some patients dislike swallowing medicine in tablet form, for such people it is an interesting pack contains three otherworldly items which help shoppers feel the value of it. viagra ordering Sildenafil citrate is important as it enables a man to get and maintain an erection during sex. cialis levitra viagra‘s dynamic part works away at the penis during masturbation or engaging in rough, rambunctious sex can be affected by the pain and the uncomfortable feelings. The solution is to take female uk viagra .
So …. this weekend I’ll be volunteering with the CHAOS (Christians Hanging Around On Sundays) Senior High youth group at Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church. Alicia from my church, camp, and who worked with me leading the Reconnecting with Faith retreat (she’s the redhead at the left end of the group photo below) talked to me about getting more involved at church and suggested helping out with this group.
I admit to some fears. While I used to work with youth once upon a time, at the time I more or less WAS a youth. It’s been 20 years, and my youth relational skills are gonna be very rusty. I don’t have any reason to have contact with kids of any age on a regular basis. (I know, be yourself and the kids will respond.) The good news is that the other youth advisors that I know are great people, and I’m sure somebody will be able to backstop me if I falter.
Wish me luck! If it works out, you may see more posts here about this group. If not, well, you’ll probably see an “it didn’t work out” post and that’ll be that.
Web Stuff
Presbyterian Bloggers Join | List | Previous | Next | Random | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Skip Previous | Skip Next
