Get Real: Finding Your True Self in Jesus

Get Real: Finding Your True Self in Jesus

InsideOut:Christian Resources for Outdoor Ministries

Site License

Purchase of this resource gives license for its use, adaptation, and copying for programmatic use at one outdoor ministry site (hereinafter, “Camp”) for up to one year from purchase. For questions or permission for other uses, contact Chalice Press at 314-231-8500 or .

This site license allows your camp to post this edition of InsideOut resources for up to one year from purchase on a password-protected Web site for the exclusive use of volunteer directors and authorized staff. The password must expire within one year of purchase, and the administrator must change the password immediately upon discovery of unauthorized use. Please e-mail the Web site link for verification to .

The camp must include the following copyright permission statement on each Web page, posted file, or item of the InsideOut curriculum:

Thank you for your help in this matter and for your willingness to serve in the ministry of camping.

Project Manager

Crystal Zinkiewicz

Copy Editors

John Patrick Carey, Anne Konopka

Art Director/Design

Hui-Chu Wang
Elizabeth Wright

Cover Images

BIGSTOCK®

Interior Photographs and Images

Camp Mack, Camp Hopewell, Fotosearch

Writers

Joshua Ashton Hill is chaplain at The Episcopal School of Knoxville, Tennessee.A priest in the Episcopal Church, Josh is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal Seminary at Yale. He is currently enrolled as participant in the Youth and Theology Certificate program at Princeton Theological Seminary.In 2007, Hill was a National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Fellow, having devoted a year of graduate study to environmental theology.He has worked variously in youth ministries for thirteen years, including five years at Camp Wesley Woods in Townsend, Tennessee.Josh wrote the Biblical and Theological Backgrounds.

Lara Blackwood Pickrel is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and serves Hillside Christian Church in Kansas City, Missouri, as their associate minister for youth and young adults. Writing and other creative practices are an essential part of her ministry, along with summer camps, social media, and anything else that helps her keep up with children, tweens, teens, and young adults. You can find some of Lara’s work at Chalice Press, ”The Thoughtful Christian Blog,” and her blog, “Serendipity Soiree” ( Or you can check out how she and her youth ministry colleagues are taking risks for the sake of the church by visiting Lara wrote both the Daily Guides for Young Children and the Daily Guides for Older Children.

Katie Barrett Toddis a graduate of the University of South Carolina and Union Presbyterian Seminary. Katie has served churches in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Kentucky in youth and young adult ministry. Growing up she attended Camp Fellowship in Laurens, South Carolina, and has many years’ experience as a conferee and group leader at Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina. Katie holds a Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Christian Education and is married to a Presbyterian minister, with a son and a daughter on the way. She enjoys swimming, traveling, writing, teaching, and family time. Katie wrote the Daily Guides for Younger Youth.

Whendi Cook Broderick has worked for many years with the Connecticut Conference United Church of Christ both as its Youth Consultant and as a program leader at Silver Lake Conference Center. A graduate of Hartford Seminary’s ecumenical Building Effective Youth Ministries program, she has a passion for co-creating transformational experiences with people of all ages. Whendi holds a Ph.D. in Emancipatory Learning and works widely in popular education, creative arts, outdoor adventure, and service learning. She is a graduate professor in the field of Oral Traditions, a musician, and an interdisciplinary teaching artist. Whendi wrote the Daily Guides for Older Youth.

Sandy Safford has served as a Christian educator for twenty years in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She is also a partner for FAITHSENSE Consultants and currently responsible for multigenerational ministries in a UCC church. Sandy’s degree is actually in environmental education, and after more than ten years in that field moved into Christian education. Combining both passions, she has volunteered as camp director for thirteen summers at Highlands Presbyterian Camp in Colorado. She spends at least a week each year at summer camp with fifth and sixth graders, and has led more than six summers of grandparent/grandchild camp, one of her favorite camps. Sandy wrote the Daily Guides for Intergenerational and Family Camps.

Tracey Brown serves as director for Potosi Pines camp, a United Methodist camp in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tracey served in youth ministry for sixteen years, during which she was in leadership for Riverside District Camps. She grew up in church camping and says that her formative faith milestones were a result of Christian camping. Tracey also worked for the YMCA and Girl Scouts in their camping programs. She wrote for the national church newsletter Insight. Tracey wrote the Extra Resources for this year’s curriculum.

Contents

Welcome to InsideOut

Introducing Your Get Real Resource

Daily Overview for Get Real

Your Camp, Your Curriculum

Training Your Staff: A Plan

Learning about Campers

Age-Level Characteristics (Handout)

Multiple Intelligences (Handout)

Teaching Bible Stories

Bible Study Methods (Handout)

Bible Storytelling Methods (Handout)

Get Real Biblical Introduction

Biblical and Theological Overview for Each Day

Daily Guides for Younger Children

Daily Guides for Older Children

Daily Guides for Younger Youth

Daily Guides for Older Youth

Daily Guides for Intergenerational or Family Camps

Extra Resources for a Great Week at Camp

Arts and Crafts

Games

Science Fun

Table Talk for Younger and Older Campers

Nature Activities

Multi-Day Projects

Daily Worship Plans

Camper Cards

NEW! Day Camp(Six Weeks of Daily Activities)

Tell Us What You Think…

Sneak Peek at Next Year

Welcome to InsideOut

Thank you for choosing InsideOut: Christian Resources for Outdoor Ministries as your program resource for outdoor ministry this year. What an exciting and awesome opportunity you have to share God’s love and goodness right in the middle of God’s wonderful creation. As camp directors and counselors, you know that curriculum is only the backdrop to the amazing things God does in the lives of campers and staff at camp. You know that outdoor experiences, love of God’s creation, safe community, and life-long relationship building with God through Jesus Christ are the anchors of Christian education at camp. Our hope is that this resource will be a partner, taking much of the burden of planning off of you and freeing your staff for holy conversation and Spirit-filled experiences. Feel free to mold, shape, and adapt this curriculum to meet your camp needs.

What Is InsideOut?

InsideOut is the result of the curriculum partnership between Chalice Press and the Committee on Outdoor Ministries of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. The partnership is committed to creating and offering excellent, effective, and economical tools for Christian camps. The goal of these curriculum resources is to bring together theological scholarship, experiential learning, biblically grounded teaching and learning experiences, culturally relevant language and illustrations, inclusivity, and environmental responsibility.

InsideOut: Christian Resources for Outdoor Ministries curriculum follows a four-year rotation of themes: God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, and the Church. Get Real: Finding Your True Self in Jesus is the 2014 edition and emphasizes Jesus in the Bible study and learning activities.

InsideOut writers are selected through an application process and are chosen for quality of writing and feet-on-the-ground experience in Christian camps. Read their biographical information above, and you will know you are in good hands. If you are interested in applying for writing for the 2016 edition, please indicate that on the evaluation form on the next to the last page of this resource.

Each volume of InsideOut provides:

•Biblical and Theological Overview for the theme and for each day

•Daily Guides for a full week each for Younger Children, Older Children, Younger Youth, Older Youth, and Intergenerational/Family Camps

•Extra Resources, which include additional Arts and Crafts, Games, Science Fun, Table Talk for Younger and Older Campers, Nature Activities, Multi-Day Projects, Daily Worship Plans, and Camper Cards

•Day Camp plans for a full six weeks—NEW

•Training Helps, in a variety of formats: video, PowerPoint, plus written guidelines and handouts

•Artwork for your use to publicize your camp and to create reminders for your campers

What Is the Committee on Outdoor Ministries?

The Committee on Outdoor Ministries of the National Council of Churches meets twice a year to pray, dream, and discern how to effectively and faithfully partner as an ecumenical body to support outdoor ministries across America.

How Can I Use the DVD-ROM?

By purchasing these materials, you bought a license to use them at a single campsite for the whole summer. Open and edit files from the Word files on the DVD-ROM, make copies of the files, or print the pages from the PDF file. Governing bodies owning more than one camp are expected to purchase a copy of the curriculum for each site.

How Do I Give Feedback?

Your comments are valuable and important to the future development of InsideOut. Please e-mail an evaluation of the curriculum (found at the end of the materials) to . Or, mail it to InsideOut, 483 E. Lockwood, Ste. 100, Saint Louis, MO 63119.

Blessings on your great adventure in camping this season!

Crys Zinkiewicz, Project Manager

Introducing Your Get Real Resource

Get Real: Finding Your True Self in Jesus is the official InsideOut resource for the 2014 camping season. Here are tips and suggestions for using it well in your outdoor ministry program.

Biblical and Theological Overview

Be sure to read the Biblical and Theological material more than once. First, read it all the way through by itself. This reading will help you have the big picture—not just what you are doing, but why! Here’s another opportunity to fall more deeply in love with God, who loves us and has given us Jesus as God with us, friend, teacher, healer, and Savior—the Real Thing! As your love grows, you will be more fully equipped to pass it on to your campers.

Secondly, begin your study of each day’s plan by reading again the scripture and the Biblical and Theological Overview for that day. Keep it fresh in your mind and heart as you plan and lead and listen to your campers. No printed material will ever be able to anticipate all of the questions, comments, or opportunities that come in a live discussion with campers. You become the one who helps them see the connections that can draw them closer to God.

InsideOut resources use the New Revised Standard Version as the primary source of scripture.The NRSV is copyrighted by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. The secondary translation used in this resource is the Common English Bible; those passages will include (CEB) with the reference.

Daily Guides

The Daily Guides are by age level:

•Younger Children (ages 7 to 9)

•Older Children (ages 10 to 12)

•Younger Youth (ages 12 to 14)

•Older Youth (ages 15 to 18)

•Intergenerational/Family Camps (adults and children of all ages)

Daily Guides for each age level are divided into three sections:

Explore, which generally gives you two Bible lesson activities. You may choose to do one or both of them.

Experience, which gives you several activities that build on the theme for the day. You will also find activities that help to create community.

Express, a guide for daily worship, devotions, and singing. The Extra Resources section on the DVD-ROM also includes worship plans, which will give you additional options.

Seven Days

Not every camp is seven days long, but Get Real provides a week of plans.

Day 1 Guides are half-day experiences that introduce the theme.

Days 2 through 6 Guides each give a full day’s worth of activities for Bible study, play, and worship.

Day 7 Guides are half-day closing activities that help you wrap up the theme and send campers home with love and affirmation.

If your camp is shorter, then you have choices to make.

One option is to treat Jesus’ question, “Who Do You Say I Am?” as a thread running through the subsequent days. Introduce the story and the question and simply tell the campers that they will be discovering their answers throughout the week. Then at some point each day, remind them of the question. Evening worship or cabin devotions, for example, provide a natural opportunity to do so.

Another option is to review the daily themes and leave out one or combine parts of two.

Customize Your Plan

Get Real provides you with more activities than you are likely to be able to use—even in a full week of residential camp! Here are a few tips as you plan each day:

Explore generally offers two approaches to the Bible study. Look at them both, but you don’t have to do both! As you read through the activities in Experience and Express, you will see that many of them also provide campers with an entry into a deeper understanding of the scripture.

Days 2, 3, 4, and 6 each have two scriptures. With younger children, for example, working with only one will likely be sufficient.

One factor to take into account as you consider your options for Explore is the designation of the Multiple Intelligences the particular activity uses. Often the first one in Explore uses mostly linguistic or verbal intelligence, whereas the second may push into some of the other ways of understanding, such as spatial or bodily/kinesthetic, for example. All are valid ways of learning, but some may suit your particular group of campers better than others. (For more about Multiple Intelligences, see the discussion in “Training Your Staff” and the “Multiple Intelligences” handout below.)

Experience will also give you choices. You do not need to do all of them. Again, consider your group, the Multiple Intelligences, your particular setting, your schedule, your goals, and your own skills and experience as you decide.

Also, don’t think that just because the order in the curriculum puts Explore first that you have to do the Bible study first. On the first day of camp, especially, you will be wise to do some of the community-building activities from Experience before you tackle Bible study. Other days, you may want a wake-up activity before you ask the group to engage with the scripture. The order in which you plan your day is up to you!

The listing at the beginning of the Daily Guide, Customize Today’s Plan, is in the order in which the Explore and Experience learning activities are printed. But you have the opportunity to designate your own order. Please do! Here are samples of how you might use this tool. You can simply checkmark those activities you want to do, and even cross out those you choose not to do. Or you can write in times for the various activities, or indicate an order with a number. The tool is yours; use it any way that is helpful to you.

CUSTOMIZE TODAY’S PLAN

Choose what you will do today and in what order.

1 Morning Worship

3 Fake Christmas vs. Real Christmas

Promises, Promises

2 Backpack Name Game

4 What’s Our Covenant?

Christmas Charades

5 Leafy Jesus

6 Evening Worship

7 Cabin Devotions

CUSTOMIZE TODAY’S PLAN

Choose what you will do today and in what order.

7:45 Morning Worship

9:00 Fake Christmas vs. Real Christmas

Promises, Promises

8:30 Backpack Name Game

1:30 What’s Our Covenant?

Christmas Charades

4:00 Leafy Jesus

7:30 Evening Worship

9:00 Cabin Devotions

Be sure also to consult the Extra Resources section as you are planning your day. The Arts and Crafts, Games, Science Fun, Table Talk for Younger and Older Campers, Nature Activities, Multi-Day Projects, Daily Worship Plans, and Camper Cards there will help ensure that your campers have a wonderful experience all week long.