Thanks for an awesome week of camp

To all of our campers at Highland Park Youth Camp,

My apologies for sending this so late!  Just touching base with everyone that I can, and thanking you all for an awesome week at Highland Park Youth Camp!  Here are a few things that you may have missed over the past few weeks since camp ended:

• Ways to stay connected:
  • Website:  www.highlandparkcamp.org - our hub for all campground news and devotionals provided by our Youth Staff.
  • Facebook:  www.facebook.com/highlandparkcampmeeting and also https://www.facebook.com/groups/111282338942861/ for our group page.
  • Google Plus:  https://plus.google.com/114670125549846382186/posts
  • Twitter:  https://twitter.com/thehighlandpark  (@thehighlandpark)
  • Instagram:  http://instagram.com/thehighlandpark
  • FourSquare:  Coming Soon!

• Most counselors are always happy to accept a Facebook friend request from a camper, so don't be shy, but they usually won't send you a friend request.  It's nothing personal!  I'm pretty sure any counselors will accept one from any camper.
   
• We usually hold our annual Mid-Year Banquet the Sunday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Check out the website or our Facebook page for more information.
   
• Highland Park 2015's Theme Song will be "Thrive" by Matthew West and Mark Hall (as performed by Casting Crowns).
   
• Campmeeting and Youth Camp for Next Year will be July 26-Aug 2, 2015 (it's always the week that runs from July into August)
   
• Registration for camp will open in January 2015.
   
• We'll be sending you a periodic email to your address from time to time, just to keep you updated.  If you don't want to be on our email list anymore, just send an email to support@highlandparkcamp.org and i'll make sure to take you off.  Or let me know if you want to update it.
   
• A higher resolution version of our Camp Photo is now available for download.  We even put up 3 of them, so you can choose which one you look best in, or the one you like the best.  The link can be found here:  http://www.highlandparkcamp.org/camp-photo/
  You will need a password to get in.  Just put in "livewithabandon" (without quotes) and you can download whichever photos you want.
   
• Fill out a review on Google or Facebook!  A detailed review is always best, but just a star rating is better than nothing!  Those links:  https://plus.google.com/114670125549846382186/posts ;   and http://www.facebook.com/highlandparkcampmeeting

So stay tuned for more, but stay in touch with each other throughout the year.  Help each other to stay strong in your walks with the Lord.  We hope you had a great week, and look forward to seeing you all back next year!  Good luck with the start of your school year!

5 Reasons to send your teenager to camp!

As the times have clearly changed during the last 30 years, summer camps across the country have seen a steady decline as teens have become more independent.  There are, however, some very good reasons for your child to attend summer camp that are more important now than they may have been when we were kids.

1.  Helps them to make friends

Kids who attend camp often make friends who they might not necessarily go to school with or see every day.  This teaches them to stay in touch with people in the long term.  Many youth who attend camp make friends that they stay in touch with all their lives.  This offers them the unique opportunity of branching out in the friends that they have.  Building these relationships with others also boosts their self confidence in socializing, and teaches them social skills in building new friendships in the future.

2.  Forces them to unplug

This is a hot topic these days, but learning to turn the phone or tablet off is a skill that your child can learn!  It's very hard for teens to stay off of the internet these days or away from the video games, but when they have to do it with peers, it makes it much easier for them.  A lot of kids come to camp to  be with friends and to learn how to navigate, mediate, and integrate friendships. The best way to do this is by talking and hanging out together.  It also teaches them the very valuable skill of breaking their dependency on technology, which is very hard to come by these days.  Besides, it's SUMMER!  Our devices will be around all year long, but the summer weather will not.  Unplugging will get them outside and actively using their bodies, instead of sitting around thumbing a smartphone.

3.  Reinforces leadership skills

While not everyone is a natural leader, leadership skills can be learned by anyone, and camp is a great place to learn them.  Camp programs often give youth the opportunities to lead a team, perform music,  create projects, and lead discussions outside of the classroom.  For the shyer crowd, campers can learn these same leadership skills by watching their peers, giving everyone the benefit of youth-directed activities.

4.  Exposure to different age groups

Most teenagers in America spend the majority of their day with students of the same or similar ages.  Many camps offer a much different experience, where 7th graders have to interact with 11th graders, or 9th graders have to work with 12th graders.  This gives youth a unique experience, and motivates younger campers to act more mature, and older campers to step up into leadership roles.  Camp counselors are often not seen so much as "law enforcement" but older, "cool friends," who care about them, and can have a huge impact on their life.

5.  Kids get a good dose of "emotional learning."

At camp, youth go on a number of adventures throughout the week, experiencing and learning many new things.  Learning how to function in a team, for example, is something that a camper at camp can learn much differently than what they might learn at school. Summer camps are the latent learning method of teaching children hard work, teamwork and of preparing them to face difficult situations with courage.  The amazing thing is how the campers don't even realize they are learning any of these things because they are enjoying fun activities, with friends.

News from the Park

So there's more reason to go to a Work Day than just Work...

No trouble sleeping at camp this summer!

...you also get to find out what's going on in the Park!  So last Saturday (June 14) was our Spring Work Day.  We got the Tabernacle cleaned up for its many engagements over the Summer, including the Valley Forge Chorus Concert, the King's Brass Concert, and our own Highland Park Campmeeting.  Many thanks to the Eichlins, Ian Johnston, and Matt Erickson for coming and helping out!   We also found out that Highland Park is planning on pampering our campers with some brand new mattresses for its bunks.  These mattresses are nice and firm, much thicker than the old ones, and very comfortable, considering they are for bunk beds!  

Introducing Imago Dei

We also get to welcome some new guests to our community.  If you've been to camp recently, you may have seen their signs up and around.  This group meets every 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month, and takes part some great mission work throughout the local communities here and around Highland Park.  As you can see, they have already left their mark on Highland.

Newly repainted benches in the Snack Stand area!

Yeah, they did them all.

A newly redone Lounge area under Boys Dorm.  New paint, new carpet, new furniture.

They also worked heavily on what used to be the "Old Dining Hall" underneath Boys' Dorm.  This area was first partitioned into separate rooms by Cornerstone Community Church several years ago, and Imago Dei has taken that work a few step further.  They will be occupying Highland Park's facilities during our off-seasons when they are not in use, which helps to take care the grounds during the rest of the year.

A new elementary classroom beneath Boys Dorm.

A newly repainted Nursery area.

We would like to welcome them to Highland Park, and we look forward to working with their church.

Many great things are happening at camp these days!  Please plan on checking them out at our annual Campmeeting from July 26-August 3!  Click here for more info!

HPYC 2014: Live With Abandon

The 2014 theme for Highland Park Campmeeting and Youth Camp this year is “Live with Abandon.”  When I first heard the name of this Newsboys creation, I thought… really?  Live with abandon?  That sounds like a rather reckless message to be coming from a Christian Band.  Typically, the phrase “live with abandon” means living in total surrender to something, with complete disregard for anything else.  Usually, that abandon refers to following our wants and desires without any regard for any moral implications.  This is no way for anyone to live.   As I soon learned, it gets scarier than that. 

Michael Tait and Duncan Phillips describe it as letting go of your life and letting God take control.  They say that human beings don’t feel comfortable with that.  We want to take control, and we want to fix our problems ourselves.  Living with abandon is all about giving up control of your life and giving it over to God.

Paul lived with abandon, but not to his own desires or natural instincts.  He lived with abandon to the will of God, and he gave up all control over to God without any regard for his own life.

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jeusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.  I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has giving me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s Grace.”
- Acts 20:22-24 -

We all go through a lot of rough times in our lives, and those rough times seem to follow us wherever we go, whether it be to school, to our homes, or to our workplaces.  Sometimes the problems seem bigger than us, and sometimes they are.  This is when it just seems natural to give up the control, and give the problems to God.  He’s really good at those.  He’ll walk you through it. 

Now for the scary.  How about when things are going great?  Or when there’s something you really want?  Can you give it up for Jesus Christ?    I am happy to say that I don’t live with abandon to my natural inclinations; however I do play it safe in my life far too often.  I can only pray that God will show me how to live the life he wants me to, instead of the life I want to.

I would like to invite you to our Youth Camp and our Campmeeting this summer to learn alongside with me, and the rest of our Highland Park congregation, about living life with abandon to Jesus Christ.  If it’s not a life changing experience for you, you’ll still get something out of it by learning how to build your relationship with God, or maybe even start your walk with Him.  Come join us at 7:30 p.m. any nights from July 27-August 3, and then hang out and enjoy some great ice cream afterwords.

- by Jack Grimes

Unplug Yourself from the Net, Plug into something even better

Between bed, my car, work, and coming home, I have looked at about 6 or 7 different LCD screens today, and now I am staring into another.  Technology in the U. S. has become so dominant in our lives, and is so abundant everywhere we look, many people actually get anxious when they have been away from their touch screens for too long.  What is even more alarming is that number of times people look at their smart phones even when they are out with friends or family.  The real question you need to ask yourself, do you control your phone, or does your phone control you?  Here are a few signs that maybe you need to give your smart phone a time out for a little while.

• You feel the need to take a "selfie" for every occasion.
• You get upper back pain on a regular basis from hunching over a tablet.
• You get phone-panic when you accidentally left your phone at home.
• You have never accidentally left your phone at home.
• When you walk into the bathroom, so does your phone.
• You have actually gotten into a argument about being on your phone too much.
• You check it before going to sleep at night.
• And then you check it as soon as you wake up.
• How many times have you Instagrammed your meal this week?
• You don't know a family member's phone number.
• Your hand looks like this.

• You use it while talking to people in real life
• You've actually mastered walking and texting.
• You miss entire TV shows because you are engulfed in what you were doing on your phone.
• You can't really enjoy anything without posting about it on Facebook or taking a picture of it on Instagram.
• Your opinion on a topic of discussion is someone's social media post.
• Did you just check it since clicking this blog post?  Really?

Perhaps we are so comforted by our phones because there is something fundamentally important missing in our lives.  Or maybe it's just a bad habit that got out of hand.  I won't pretend to presume your situation, but I can tell you that there are some pretty great advantages to taking some time away from your phone, and even the internet in general.  These are advantages like getting more sleep at night, building friendships, exercising and getting in better shape, and enjoying the world around you.  There is also a certain freedom in not being able to be reached in any way.  In the back of our heads, you might think that you are missing some huge, amazing part of life by unplugging yourself for even just a week, or that your entire world may be unraveling on Twitter without you supervising it, but you can rest assured, the world will continue without you, while you enjoy your night out with your family.  So turn your phone off, and enjoy the world around you for an hour tonight.  Enjoy the silence, or the sound of the rain outside, or the people that live in your home.  Your notifications will be there when you turn your phone on again.  Try leaving your phone at home for the day.  Not much happens on social media from 8am to 4pm anyway.  Maybe think about unplugging yourself for a whole week at a youth camp.  I guarantee, it will be worth it.

-Jack Grimes

The Great Sin

We're all guilty of it, we've all been on both ends of this sin, and it hurts every relationship we have had.  So what is the 'Great Sin'?  Pride.  Pride is the root of many of our sins, the root of many of our inabilities to improve our hearts, pride is what often times prevents us from honestly examining ourselves and seeing where we need to be more like God and less like us.  And the type of pride I am talking about, is the pride that is buried in all of us.  It's not being proud in a good day's work, proud of your children, proud of someone complimenting you, etc....but to a certain degree, the pride I am talking about is a perversion or an uncontrolled obsession with the mentioned examples.

C.S Lewis wrote,

"In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself.  Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you."

Pride leads to judgement, to jealousy, to anger, to spite, and many other sins because it becomes more about how we measure up to the person next to us, and not about bringing glory to God.  That is the difference from being proud of something and being prideful.  When we are proud, we accept compliments but recognize that we succeeded because of the gifts God gave us, for his glory NOT for our own. How many times do we get upset when we don't feel like we were recognized for something we did? That is our pride essentially wanting and longing for people to see us as superior or better.  As an athlete this resonates with me, how often do we want to celebrate all the good plays we made, but forget about the mistakes we made?  This is what makes pride so dangerous, because we often want the most grace from other people so our pride is intact, but our pride prevents us from giving the grace in return when other people mess up.

Finally, when we give our receive advice, pride so often gets in the way of the words being said, and the truth that may or may not be there.  We love to give advice, but often when someone says something true about us, whether it be a fault or a shortcoming, how quickly do we discount what they say.  Pride prevents us from taking criticism, but also enables us to be the harsh critic that our friends and family might not need in that situation.  Show some humility, show some love that person, and more importantly be understanding and receive constructive advice from people that you trust.  They see you a lot clearer than you do sometimes.  

There is no love in pride, there is no humility in pride.  God calls us to be humble before him.  Jesus tells a parable about two men going before God to pray, one a righteous pharisee, the other a tax collector.  The pharisee praises himself before God, while the tax collector humbles himself and says, 'I am not worthy'. (Luke 1 18:9-16).  So give glory to God in everything that you do,   because nothing we have is our own, but everything belongs to Him.

-Nick Kratz

Routine

Often times when we are crunched for time or running late the first thing that gets forgotten or ignored is the time we set aside for God.  I know I'm guilty of this all the time, whether it is first thing in the morning if I'm late, or if it is late at night and I am really tired, I often sacrifice my spiritual well-being, for the demands of this world. How many times have we played a sport, or been at work, or been at school, and messed up because we weren't in "rhythm"?  When we miss a step in our daily routine, it often has the potential to throw off our entire day, and I don't think that our spiritual life is any different. 

When we get into a groove and intentionally spend time with God, we feel at peace, we feel fulfilled, because we are doing what he has commanded us to do.  And this is important to realize, because when we are called to go to God in prayer, it's never for His benefit, I believe it is for ours.  God doesn't gain anything from our prayers, God doesn't need us to go to Him in prayer, He WANTS us too.  He knows that when we decide to spend time with him, we show Him love, and it shows a desire for a relationship, because that is what he has given us. 

How many times have we gone to a friend who will just LISTEN, and felt so relieved after venting because that's all we needed to do; just speak it out loud.  Praying to God on a regular basis is no different then talking to a good friend, in fact it's better.   We bring our joys, our worries, our fears, and anything else, and he listens.  The God of the universe  WANTS us to spend that time with him, WANTS that relationship with us, so why don't we use it?  I believe we are most vulnerable when we aren't being intentional about our time with God.  Like an athlete or a performer, who doesn't warmup properly, and they feel out of whack, when we aren't being intentional about our time with God, we leave ourselves vulnerable for poor decisions, poor judgement, and temptation. 

Praying on a regular basis, and making that commitment refuels us, it releases anxiety and stress, and frankly it allows us to maintain some sanity.  Verbally speaking out loud the problems that I have often clears up a lot of the anxiety and worries.  We tend to answer our own questions when we just talk about them out loud.  God wants to listen and we should let him! 

Like a player taking the baseball field who messed up his pregame warmup, or a singer, who didn't go through their vocal exercises, when we break these routines we often find ourselves in a funk.  Prayer is important, not just when we are asking God for something, but when we are choosing to share our lives with Him.  So i challenge you, to spend sometime in prayer every day...a minute, five, or ten, just get into a routine of doing so, and watch how it affects the rest of your day. 

-Nick Kratz

A message from the President...

Dear Friends,

In the late 1800's some christian men came together and created an annual week of evangelistic meetings. Their goal and purpose was to provide a place where people could come and gather, getting away from the rigors of life, and share in singing, reading, and hearing the word of God, proclaiming the salvation message of Jesus Christ. Initially, they would use tents, and a large tent for the services. This evolved into an outdoor tabernacle, open on three sides. Then they began to lease lots for the erection of cottages surrounding the tabernacle. Eventually, they added dorms for the purpose of housing teens, and a dining hall, thus began the youth camp program. 

"Oh that men would praise the Lord's goodness, and proclaim His good works to the children of man." Psalm 107:8 

These same goals and the grounds remain as a place dedicated to Jesus, and that redemption from sin is a free gift. In this tabernacle, cottages, dormitories, and on these grounds we pray that many more may find joy, and freedom in this good news, joining the thousands who professed faith in Jesus Christ at Highland. 

It is my sincere wish, and the hope of the board of directors, the Jr. Board of directors, Camp staff, Ladies auxiliary , and cottagers, that God will bless this Holy ground, and even more bless the individuals who annually hear and accept the invitation of Jesus to come to Himm confessing their sins, and professing faith in Him for eternal life. 

"What does the Lord require of you? But, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God". Micah 6:8

Join us for the Highland Park Camp meeting week, check out how you can be a camper or attend services. Then praise the Lord for what He is about to do! 

"Behold, what manner of love the Father bestows on us that we are called the children of God.". 1 John 3:1 

Your servant in Christ, 
John D. Hollenbach, President