Extending Today’s Truths at Home with Family Moments
This summer at camp, we hope that your camper’s eyes, ears, and hearts are opened to the GREATEST, most LIFE-CHANGING story ever told – God’s story – and where we can find ourselves in it. We invite you, as parents, to join us on this journey! Throughout this blog, we will explore what your camper saw, heard, and learned each day at camp. You’ll also find a guide for extending these powerful today’s truths in your own home, once your camper has returned!
For each Today’s Truth we’ll give you a few passages of scripture to read with your campers, a few questions to talk about, and some prompts for you to share your own personal experience with these these theme truths! We’ll even throw in some quick videos of each today’s truth that you can watch alone or with your camper!
First Things First
First things first, whether attending day camps or overnight camps, you can use these questions to help your camper begin talking to you about their camp experience on the way home, or around the dinner table!
1. What were some of your favorite activities you go to do? Why?
2. Did you learn anything new at camp? What?
3. Who are some new friends you met?
4. Which skill was your favorite? Why?
5. What was your favorite thing about the whole week/day? Why?
6. What do you remember most from what you learned during Worship?
Today’s Truth #1:
God Once Made a Perfect World that We Enjoyed with Him
Read It 📖
• Read Colossians 1:16,17 with your camper.
• Read Genesis 2: 8,9 with your camper.
Talk About It 🗣️
Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.
1. What does this mean (in Colossians 1:16,17) that in Him (Jesus) all things were created?
2. What is the difference between creating from something and creating from nothing?
3. What does it mean that “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together”?
4. How does it encourage you to know God created everything from nothing and still holds all things together?
5. Describe the most perfect place you can imagine.
6. What do you think it would have been like to live in that perfect garden of Eden?
6. Why is it important that God once made a perfect world that we enjoyed with Him.
Share It 🤲
Is there a moment when you realized how much power God had to create the entire world but also how much love He had, to create people to share it with? If so, share with your camper why understanding God’s power and love was important to you.
If you haven’t had such a moment of realization, discuss Colossians 1:16,17 and Genesis 2:8,9 with your camper. What do you learn about God’s power and love from these passages?
Ask your camper and/or other family members to share their thoughts about God’s power and love in creating a perfect world and creating people to enjoy it with Him.
Today’s Truth #2:
But Then We Turned Away and Broke What Only He Could Mend
Read It 📖
• Read Genesis 3:1-7 with your camper.
• Read Micah 5:2 with your camper.
• Read Isaiah 5:14 with your camper.
Talk About It 🗣️
Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.
1. What choice did the first 2 people make at the “two trees”?
2. They had a choice to listen to God’s voice or another voice that would lead them away from God. How do we face that same challenge in our lives?
3. What are some ways we can help ourselves learn to listen to God’s voice first, every day?
4. Why are these “hints of hope in Micah and Isaiah so exciting?
5. What does “Immanuel” mean? (God with us.)
6. How does it encourage you to know that God had a plan to once again be with us, to make it possible for us to have a relationship with Him?
Share It 🤲
Have you experienced the choice of whether to listen to God’s voice or listen to another voice that would lead you away from Him?
If so, share with your camper how you have learned to focus on God’s voice over any other. If you haven’t experienced this choice, discuss with your campers what might have happened had the first people chosen to trust and love God.
Today’s Truth #3:
So He Sent Jesus to the World to Rescue Me and You
Read It 📖
• Read John 3:16 with your camper.
• Read Romans 3:23 with your camper.
• Read Romans 6:23 with your camper.
• Read Romans 10:9,10 with your camper.
Talk About It 🗣️
Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.
1. How did sin come into the world
2. What does it mean that God loves us? How do we know this is true?
3. At camp, your camper was introduced to four images that tell the story of salvation (being reconnected to God). Go through each and see how well your camper recalls all he/she learned today.
a. What does the heart mean? (God Loves)
b. What does the broken heart mean? (We Sin)
c. What does the cross mean? (God Gave)
d. What does the gift mean? (I Receive)
4. What does the Today’s Truth mean to you now? (So, He sent Jesus to the world to rescue me and you.)
Share It 🤲
Share your personal thoughts about those four images with your camper. What does it mean to you to hear that God Loves and, even though We Sin, God Gave?
Can you identify with this response to this statement: I Receive? If so, share with your camper how your life is different because you have believed in Jesus and received His gift of eternal life.
If not, share with your camper how your life might change if you were to believe Jesus came to re-connect you in close relationship with God and you received eternal life from and with Him.
Share from your heart and encourage your camper and/or other family members to do the same. This could be an awesome conversations that none of you will ever forget.
Today’s Truth #4:
Now we Get to Join God’s Work as He Makes All Things New
Read It 📖
• Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 with your camper.
• Read Revelation 22:1,2 with your camper.
Talk About It 🗣️
Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.
1. How does thinking about the way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly help us understand how we can be new creations when we believe in Jesus?
2. Why is it difficult to say “I’m sorry” and ask forgiveness?
3. What does it mean to be an ambassador?
4. So, how can we be ambassadors for Christ?
5. How does it feel to know you have a place in God’s story for the world? How can this change the way you live each day?
6. How can the sure future in heaven we learned about encourage believers right now?
Share It 🤲
Have you learned anything about God’s story for the world you didn’t know or realize before? If so, share those things with your camper.
If you have found yourself in God’s story, share with your camper how that has affected your life.
If you haven’t, discuss with your camper what it might be like to find yourself (your role, your identity, your purpose) in God’s story for the world. How might that change how you think, feel, speak, live every day?
Invite your camper and/or other family members to share their thoughts about God’s amazing true story for the world… and each of you.
Today’s Truth #5:
God once made a perfect world that we enjoyed with Him. But then we turned away and broke what only God could mend. So, He sent Jesus to the world to rescue me and you. Now we get to join God’s work as He makes all things new.
Read It
• Read Colossians 1:16,17 with your camper.
Talk About It 🗣️
Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.
1. With all the discussion from camp in mind, what have you learned about God?
2. In what ways have you recognized God’s love at work for you and around you?
3. Why do you think experiencing God’s love inspires someone to share it with others (to be “His ambassador”)?
4. How would you explain this amazing story to someone else? How could our Today’s Truths help you?
5. How has your relationship with God changed at camp? (Maybe you’ve started a relationship with Him, have deepened your relationship with Him, or have become open to learning more about a relationship with Him.)
6. How would you describe your time at camp, exploring The Wonder Chronicles?
Share It 🤲
What have you learned this week from sharing these Family moments with your camper?
Ask your camper and/or other family members to share their biggest takeaway from their time at camp.
As a family, discuss how everything you have learned this week might affect how you live and interact in your home, in your neighborhood, and everywhere you go.
We hope this guide has been helpful as you and your camper begin to process your camp experience and head into the new school year. Thanks for joining us this summer for the Summer of a Lifetime! See you next summer!