The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

This week I’m the speaker for our Club 56 (5^th and 6^th grade) and Ignite (Middle School) Sumer Camp! Yes, I’m speaking to 5-8^th graders. As I write this we’re in Show Low at Fool Hollow Lake swimming, fishing, playing volleyball, and all kinds of stuff.

As I was preparing to preach to this 5-8^th grade age group, I was taken back to my youth pastor days, and even earlier to my days as a Middle School student. I don’t know about you, but those were the worst days of my life! Have you seen the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Yeah, kind of like that. Even though I didn’t have an older brother to terrorize me, I didn’t need one because most of my problems were self-inflicted!

Do you remember your old Junior High/Middle School days? Here are a few highlights from mine:

1) Being told by a girl that I had the skinniest arms of any boy she had ever known. (Yeah, Melissa, you should see them now.)

2) Having a lit firecracker put in my back pocket after P.E. class that detonated. (The plastic surgeons did a pretty good job on my butt reconstruction.)

3) Getting arrested for vandalism (I didn’t do it, I swear) and getting a ride in the back of an LAPD squad car handcuffed to my friend Frank who is now in jail for murder (not kidding.)

4) After getting bored with bringing crickets to math class, bringing a water balloon that the teacher, thinking it was just an air balloon, stepped on. It made a big puddle. (That was a good memory actually.)

5) Sneaking into an orange grove and smoking unfiltered cigarettes with my friend David, and then spraying ourselves down with Aqua Net to make sure we didn’t get caught.

6) Sentenced to clean the bathrooms after I was busted for “sagging” my pants too low (I was just trying to make a point).

7) Throwing a large piece of candy with an attached note in the backyard of a girl I had a crush on. Hey, I tried knocking but no one was home. Funny how that relationship never worked out.

8) Writing the phrase “I Will Refrain From any Further Moronic Behavior in Mr. Suenaka’s Class” about 1500 times.

So, as I said, I’m the camp speaker for some of your kids this week.

I can honestly say there were two reasons I survived that time of my life: My church and my parents. If it wasn’t for my Youth Pastor and the great example of my parents there’s a good chance I’d either be eating three squares with a set of numbers on my shirt or still be living at home with a life that resembled the character “Kip” from Napoleon Dynamite.

You see, in the midst of all that ridiculousness, I knew deep down that God had something for me – that I was created for a purpose. I just had a hard time finding anything constructive to do until I got into high school.

With each passing year, the memories of that time in our lives fades just a little more. But let’s not forget how tough those years were for most of us. And at the same time, let’s not forget how critical the decisions are that these young people are making. They are charting a course now that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

So I’m excited to be hanging out with some of your kids this week (including my own, who’s going into 5^th grade). I believe God has great plans for each one of them as well, but it is time for them to own their own faith.

Please remember to pray this week for our 5-8^th graders and the many wonderful adult volunteers who came up to help make this camp unforgettable. Also, if you’re the parent of one of these students, don’t forget that they’re watching you – how you live, who you are when no one is looking, and the degree of intensity to which you follow Christ.

It is AWESOME to be a part of a church that’s making such a great investment in the lives of young people!!

See you this Sunday,

Pastor Tim