Growing up I had a memory problem when it came to camp. At the end of the week I would leave so excited for what God was doing in my life. I was ready to leave behind all the baggage I carried all year long. I’d have all these big ideas about what I wanted to do that next school year.
“I’m finally going to start reading my Bible.”
“I’m going to keep praying like I do at camp.”
“This next school year I’m going to tell my friends about Jesus.”
It felt so easy to draw close to God. No distractions. Service every night. I was PUMPED!
But when camp was over I’d go home to my normal life and that excitement slowly faded. The new school year would end up looking exactly like the last one. All those sins and baggage I thought I left behind at camp would creep back into my life.
I wish I had written everything down as a reminder for when things started to get hard.
That’s why I made this journal. I wanted to create a resource students could take with them to help them hold on to everything that happened at camp.
With all these students who go to camp this summer there’s going to come a time when things get tough again and they are going to question everything that happened this week. They might try to talk yourself out of all the things they felt like God was calling them to do. That is the exact moment they need to pick this journal back up and read everything they wrote in here.
They’ll get to read that excitement and passion. They’ll see the written proof that what they experienced at camp was REAL! And they can return to it at any time.
I wish I could look back at something like this for when I was in high school. We got notebooks at camp but I was a little idiot who didn’t know to take good notes. I’d write down one or two words that made no sense to me when I went back to read it a few months later.
This journal has specific prompts at the top of each page to keep you focused on what to pray about and what to write about.
The best way to use this journal is to do an exercise every day and when it’s all filled up, leave it out in the open in your room. That way you can pick it back up to read and remember at random times throughout the year.
It’s really cool to see students and youth pastors get excited about using these. At one camp a youth pastor bought a copy for every one of his students and planned to meet with each one of them to discuss everything they write down.
If you’re interested in getting journals for your youth ministry, email me at contact@taylorjohnsononline.com