What Do You Expect?

Every summer I have the same discussion with students & the leaders who work with our students. The question arises about the time students come back from their camp experience. Everyone wants to know how to "take camp home". After all, we've all experienced the amazing week at a camp, conference, or retreat only to watch it fade away within the first few weeks back home. It's demoralizing to everyone & sort of makes you wonder if what you experienced was even real.

Fortunately I've seen a few groups who didn't let that fire die. Somehow they managed to not only keep it alive but to feed it as well. The common thread wasn't that the groups "took camp home". If every week & everyday at home was like camp, then camp wouldn't be as special, but what they did was to take the core of what camp is back to their student ministries, churches, & lives. The bottom line was that they took home their expectations. For some reason when we're at a camp or retreat, we expect God to do ridiculous & amazing things, but when we go home we expect something different. We expect church to happen, but we don't necessarily expect God to fall on a place that is undeniable & life changing. When we change those expectations, God honors it. He shows up & does the amazing.

We express those expectations by how we approach everyday life & how we approach our times together as the church. When you come together with your student ministry, men's group, or entire church do you expect God to do something great, or do you expect to go through some kind of program? Do you beg God to show up & touch people's lives? It's time for us as ministry leaders to lead the way by coming to God on our faces begging Him for His presence & for a movement that can only be explained in Him.