The story so far.
DAMASCUS evolved from St Joseph's Catholic Church, Guildford and the Life is for Joy weekend events held annually at the Wintershall Estate. There was a youth stream that ran alongside the main speaker programme and many of the young people attending asked ‘why can’t we have our own event with preaching/teaching, worship, prayer, camping and fellowship . . . So here we are preparing for our 4th summer camp!
Each year we pray for a core theme to be given us by God and one which we can share and unpack with our young people. Looking back it is interesting that each year we have had an over arching theme with ‘sub themes’ also emerging.
Previous Themes
2006: Road to Damascus: Journey of change
In our first year we looked, not surprisingly, at the story of Saul’s journey to Damascus and the life changing encounter he had with Jesus en route. We meditated on our own walk with Christ and a journey that might lead us to encounter Jesus on the cross. The sub theme that emerged during our first year was that of armour and how we wear it to varying degrees in our daily lives. We encouraged our young people to remove any armour that prevented them from being the children that God created and to replace it with the armour of God.
2007: Blind Bartimaeus: How faith can heal us
Continuing the theme of journeys, heat and dusty roads we focused on the story of how Jesus met and healed blind Bartimaeus and we explored ideas of physical, moral and spiritual blindness. We focused on the part of the story when the son of God asked this blind man ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ When Jesus speaks his words echo throughout eternity so surely this is a question that Jesus asks each one of us today. We asked our young people to ponder their answer. A sub theme that emerged was that of cloaks and concealment (Bartimaeus threw off his cloak and came before Jesus) and how much of ourselves do we try to conceal from God?
2008: Discipleship – what it is and who is called
Last year we made the link from previous years that we are all on a journey with Christ and can all encounter him in different ways, whether dramatically as with Saul or more gently as with Bartimaeus. We discovered that God doesn’t always call the equipped but does always equip those he calls. We looked at the historical significance of a rabbi and the fact that Jesus called those men who had been overlooked; a statement that still resonates to this day. How have we responded to Jesus’ calling and would we be prepared to follow him to the foot of the cross? We also followed the sub theme strand with sessions on labels and how false labels can prevent us from truly becoming the people that God created in His image.
2009: The Holy Spirit: The Breath of God
