By: Rev Dan Hues
Art & Drama Camp sprung forth from a desire to do Vacation Bible School in a new way. We desired to design a camp centered on Christ and believed that creativity might be a means of inviting a new group of people to our church for a week-long camp. We stepped out in faith and God provided. Besides a handful of our own students, everyone else who attended was new to our church!
God entrusted us with nearly forty students (on our best day) who were empowered to be creative via the mediums of drawing, painting, drama, dance, voice and a drumming circle. Each student had the opportunity to hear a story from Scripture and connect with Jesus through the hearing of his word, singing worship songs, and acting in a drama based on the book of Daniel. It was an incredible week! We celebrated with a visit from the Kona Ice truck on Friday night, where students and their families could partake in a cool treat in the relentless Clovis heat.
The week concluded on Sunday at 10:30am with an art show - featuring the pieces created by the students during the week and a drama performance of the play entitled “Shutting the Mouths of Lions.” Lunch was served following the production, sponsored by Thrivent.
Art & Drama camp brought forth overwhelming positivity and gratitude among parents, who indicated that they would love to participate again next year. We even had a couple of families without a church home express intentions of joining us at Emmanuel. In addition, one parent told us that she was looking for a VBS, but her kids exclaimed seeing the banner outside of the church, “We already know about God! We want to do art and drama!” Over the course of the week it dawned on the students that they were participating in art and drama, while also hearing about Jesus. That is precisely what Art & Drama Camp aimed to do - connect kids to Jesus while exercising their creativity.
Our sister church, Redeemer Lutheran, lent six volunteers of their own, making it a collaboration between LCMS congregations. The wonderful experience of Art & Drama Camp this past week made me think of a verse smack dab in the middle of a prophecy in the book of Isaiah 43:19:
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” This is God’s promise to a future Israel that he will bring them out of exile. That he will redeem them. And it will look different than they expect. This new thing will be subtly discernible."
God is doing a new thing here at Emmanuel. It is subtle, but God is working in and through us to carry out his purposes. It feels strange and new, but if God is behind it, flourishing will come.
I truly believe that kingdom flourishing has come in our ministry to the students of Art & Drama Camp and I cannot wait to see how God will continue to make his redemptive activity known in their lives and in and through Emmanuel.
Rev. Dan Hues
Emmanuel Lutheran - Clovis, CA
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