Creating successes

Patience. Kindness. Compassion. Gentleness.

These are words that I heard quite a lot when I was in the 8th grade. Well, maybe not, but at least that's how all of my friends at school treated me. Well, maybe not, but at least that's how all of my brothers and sisters in the youth group treated me. Well, maybe not. None of these things happened. My experience with patience, kindness, compassion, and gentleness came mainly from the presence of some special adults in my life: Phyllis Morgan, Barbara Ellis, Janna Smith, Gusta Hoffman and their sisters in Christ, may they glorify God forever.

I believe that, since we are teaching these virtues, we had better be particularly careful to model them for our campers this week. That does not mean that we do not need to set boundaries and maintain them, but that there are certain ways to do that which are consistent with these virtues, and others that are not (I'll talk more about this in another post).

I believe that we need to teach these virtues, but that teaching them is not enough. I believe that we, as good teachers, ought to illustrate these virtures, but that is not enough. I believe that we, as God's children, ought to demonstrate these virtues, but that is not enough. I believe that we ought to try to catch them demonstrating these virtues and praise them for the doing of them, but that is not enough. I believe that ultimately, we have to create the opportunity for them to do something good and then encourage the thunder out of the behavior.

To a great extent, the ropes course presents, by design, those kinds of opportunities. But that is not the only time or place where that kind of creation of opportunity and reward of these virtues can happen.

Let's put a lot of energy into highlighting the virtues that our kids display after they encounter the opportunities that God and we create for them at camp. I think that we'll find that, not only will it change our perceptions of the week, but it will also change the behavior of the kids in our care for that period of time.