What an amazing week of training I experienced. I could write a long blog about everything that took place, but I will not cause you the pain of reading anything more than 500 words (learned that during training). At this point I do not know where to begin. I want to write about the really good stuff but it’s so hard because everything about camp was really good. Anyway, just stay tuned to the blog page because I’ll be posting a few blogs, pictures, etc. this upcoming week. I hope you have your reading glasses 
So how was training camp? How delightful of you to ask. It was an absolute blast. By far the greatest experience of community I have ever experienced. I came into camp with one mindset and left with a better one. I came into camp broken but soon realized I wasn’t broken enough. I came into camp with various expectations and left with ones different from what I initially had. Most importantly I came into camp as a man holding on to things that hindered my relationship with Christ but I left as a man clutching on to the liberty in Christ.
In this one week they instilled in us discipline, vulnerability, honesty, self sacrifice, leadership, servant hood, responsibility, freedom, biblical community, brotherhood, sisterhood, respect, honor, integrity, reliability, relationship, and most importantly the Love of God.
Before camp I wondered how could one week train us in any way for 11 months worth of ministry but I soon found out that when you live with virtually nothing, completely out of your comfort zone, all you have to look to is Christ and your community, therefore instilling in you those biblical and ethical essentials.
Let me list and explain briefly a little bit of how different biblical and ethical virtues were instilled in us:
- Discipline – Every morning we were up at about 6am coming off of 3 – 5 hours of sleep ready for the task at hand.
- Vulnerability – Every day various brothers and sisters shamelessly expressed their imperfections, insecurities, struggles, etc. whether we cried or not we opened up the inner depths of our heart to one another and embraced every bit of it.
- Brotherhood – Every day a band of brothers spent intimate unified time together and held one another to the standards of true biblical manhood. “Live out the Gospel daily through community, service leadership and integrity for the Glory of God in all things”. This is our vision!
- Reliability – Every day we were put in circumstances that caused us to rely solely on Christ and our community. Egos, pride, self righteousness was crushed quickly and self sacrifice was embraced whole heartedly. Beautiful! It wasn’t about what was best for myself it soon became what is best for my brother or my sister.
- Relationship – Every day we woke up there were 60 people that surrounded us. Every day we woke up we realized these 60 people are our close and intimate family that is going to the nations to labor by with you. His or her image did not matter and every day we had to embrace, encourage, pour out, and love one another. There is absolutely no other way in the body of Christ!
