Rehashing St Michael’s: Part Deux

One of the changes that we made to the St Michael’s routine in the last few years was the morning sessions.  There used to be 3 classes that everyone rotated through in the morning, most of the other St Mike’s across the country continue to use this method.

It was obvious that this method wasn’t as effective here as it had been in other places.  Last year, we decided to try something new – 2 sessions in the morning and a Bible Study in the afternoon.  Last year, we used Quest as the Bible Study program.  I really liked using it, in fact, I used it in several other places fall as well.  The 2 morning sessions focused on Christian Living (basic discipleship stuff) and Christian Knowledge (who is God?  Jesus?  the Holy Spirit?  Us).  This format seemed to work really well.

We used the same format again this year, except that the Bible Study was different.  I loved the Bible Study times, partly cause I love studying the Word but this was a really innovate technique.  The Dean was responsible for the Studies and he came up with the idea of using popular secular songs that related to the scriptures we were looking at.  I loved it!  And I think God took it from there.  He found some great songs that fit perfectly, then came up with the idea of using clips from the Gospel of Matthew.  Loved that even more!

We got together on the first day of camp just to test everything and make sure we knew where to start the clips for each day (I ended up being the multi-media crew).  This is when I knew that God was clearly orchestrating all of this.  We started playing one of the songs, just to listen to it and then we were messing around with the clips and all of the pieces fell together.  It was great!

Never before had I heard Goo Goo Dolls or Green Day being played along with the crucifixion or the betrayal of Jesus.  It was amazing.  A number of the teens said that they really enjoyed the comparisions and saw the songs and story in a different way then they ever had before.  I was blessed by these studies, thank you Michael!