Guiding Principles for Staff 2020 1 Curriculum Contents Curriculum Contents ..................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................. 3 Week at a Glance.......................................................................................... 4 GROW Time ................................................................................................. 7 GROW Schedule and Planning Sheets ............................................................ 10 CMLPS Worship .......................................................................................... 17 Worship Planning Outline ............................................................................. 21 Day 1: Abraham and Sarah ......................................................................... 22 Day 2: Joseph ........................................................................................... 22 Day 3: David ............................................................................................. 22 Day 4: Mary .............................................................................................. 22 Day 5: Paul, Timothy, Lydia, and You! .......................................................... 22 Pre-School GROW ....................................................................................... 22 Off-Site Camp with Crafts ............................................................................ 22 All I really needed to know and how to live and what to do and how to be I learned at Camp Mount Luther. Wisdom was not in a series of rooms with school books but there in the woods of Pennsylvania. These are the things I learned: Use the buddy system Take a shower everyday Don’t throw stones Stay on the paths Don’t hit people Run in the field only Store time is fun Live a balanced life- study the Bible some, and make some crafts some, and sing some after every meal Go to the pool every afternoon Make new friends but keep the old Be aware of nature: remember the snakes, tadpoles in the pond, wild cucumbers, groundhogs, and deer Sleep out once a week to appreciate your bed Mail makes you happy CAMP IS FUN!!! Everything for a good summer and a good life is there at camp. Take what you learn from camp and try to apply it to your regular life. --By Dennis Crissman with respect to Robert Fulghum 2 Introduction Dear Staff: The following materials been developed for your work in outdoor ministries, especially to prepare for GROW Time. Use this as a reference book. During staff training, treat it like one of your campers this summer. Keep it with you at all times and know where it is! This can be an object lesson during training to remember CAMPERS FIRST!!!! When making decisions this summer, you should always put the needs of your campers over the needs of yourself. Get to know them. Learn their name early on. Treat them as a child of God! As we orient you to available materials and resources, Prayer Partners- On the first day of pay attention. Watch what we do, where we go, and training, you are being given a prayer listen to what is being said. It’s important, even if partner. This is someone on the staff you’ve been part of Mount Luther a thousand times, who you will pray for and with during to keep watch. We’re always improving our program the summer (and beyond)! Share your and we’ve changed things for this summer. You worries and concerns for the summer never know when something will be a bit different! with your prayer partner. Pray for him/her frequently. Each week as we To help with faith growth each summer, we use a gather and begin our week together themed curriculum. You should possess a basic with a circle prayer, you can pray for understanding of the Biblical texts and the materials your prayer partner and his/her presented here so that you can adequately teach our worries, concerns, and joys! You can campers. The materials in this packet are condensed write your prayer partner’s name here: and taken from various resources, including From Generation to Generation Outdoor Ministries Curriculum, © 2019 Lutheran Outdoor Ministries. By looking over this material, you undoubtedly will have questions. Please ask! Once you have a general understanding of our Bible passages, you can think of other activities, devotions, songs, and games which may relate to each day’s theme. We will review this material during our staff training, discussing how to apply it to your work. The theme verse for this summer is as follows: “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” --Psalm 100:5 Life can be unpredictable and challenging. As a result, we can become consumed with fear, trying to control the things happening around us—or we can trust that something or someone greater than our circumstances is caring and benevolent and able to get us through what life brings. The stories we hear as children help us navigate day-to-day situations, helping us live out a response and build an understanding of how the world works. For example, Cinderella offers hope when family dynamics change, and the Three Little Pigs encourage us to work together to overcome a bully. The narratives of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are stories of our ancestors in the faith that help us see God’s hand at work in all the things that happen in our lives. Their significance isn’t only for people and places of the past but also for us today, showing us a loving God who is always active in creation and our purpose as God’s agents of love and hope when others are filled with fear. With this curriculum, From Generation to Generation, campers and their leaders will explore the stories of familiar Bible characters and their responses to God’s call and promised faithfulness in the midst of life’s unpredictability and challenges. The promises of God, first made to Abraham and Sarah, include a place to live, a purpose to live out, and a posterity to carry on God’s promises to all future generations. 3 Abraham and Sarah were called to step out in faith with a destination unknown, but a promise to assure them of God’s grace and blessing. Joseph stepped beyond anger to embrace God’s gifts and use them to bless more people than expected. His story emphasizes that what others might mean for harm, God can use to bring promised blessing. David’s story reminds us that God has a propensity for choosing the least expected person to do the most difficult job. God does not call the qualified but instead qualifies the called. Each one of us can be God’s agent of blessing. In that same manner, the story of Mary the mother of Jesus shows us that God goes beyond cultural conventions and our understanding to keep the promises made to Abraham and Sarah and their offspring. Mary’s courageous trust is an example of a life narrative to follow. The stories of Paul, Timothy, and Lydia extend the promises beyond the descendants of Abraham and Sarah to all the world, including us. We are invited to experience God’s promised blessing, love, and grace and also to share it with those in our world today. Simon Sinek, a contemporary author, talks about a “circle of safety” that people need in order to develop healthy community relationships. In an organization, that translates to increased engagement with its mission and its continuation into the future. In the faith community, this circle of safety allows individuals to move beyond their own needs to lives that serve others, confident that they themselves are not going to be forgotten in their own times of need. In John 13, when Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, he sets aside the expected hierarchy and practice of that time and place. Rather than being served by them, he takes care of his followers, a self-denying action made more poignant in the events that follow. As extraordinary as it seems, Jesus’s act of humble service is simply consistent with God’s actions toward God’s people throughout time. God repeatedly puts the needs of the people ahead of God’s expectations and demands. God’s benevolence and patience forms a people called to live with a purpose that draws the world closer to what God intends. God’s steadfast love, which endures across the generations, provides a circle of safety for those who follow God. Freed from fear, we step out, trusting that missteps will not destroy us, that God’s guidance will take us where God has called us to go, creating relationships based on care and compassion. Week at a Glance 4 5 6 GROW Time Adapted from material by Betsy Debertin, Metigoshe Ministries, from her classroom students, ELCA Curriculums and the books The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and 4Mat Level 1 from About Learning. GROW Time is held every day with your cabin group and with the whole camp; this is when we study the Bible and learn more about God. GROW Time is not an academic endeavor in an outdoor setting. It is an intentional and relational wrestling with the written account of humanity’s quest for God. Finding God is one of church camp’s goals. Scripture serves as a door through which we seek. Through the study of scripture, as well as through the natural setting of camp, people seek to experience God. Mount Luther is in the “business” of making disciples for Christ, by forming the faith of those who come to this place set apart by God. Therefore, we Gather and Reflect On the Word each day. Reading and responding to God’s Word is the backbone of all that we do at Mount Luther. Giving campers opportunities to verbalize their faith and to see how their faith plays into all they do is the most important venture of camp. CONCEPT: Each day will have a singular concept that you want the campers to learn about and walk away with knowledge of how it affects their lives. Reinforce the daily theme/concept all day long in all you do! LEARNING STYLES: To understand the flow of a typical day of GROW Time, you need to understand that there are a variety of gifts and abilities each of us are given (Read Corinthian 12: 4-11).