Brand New

Isn’t there something special about stuff that is brand new? And while new stuff is always great, certain items are especially wonderful to experience while they are brand new. Things like a brand new car, or a brand new pair of shoes, or a brand new cell phone are things which generally draw the attention of most of your family and friends. Other things are more particular to the individual. For example, I love brand new office supplies. Geeky, I know, but I love making that first mark with a new ink pen of my favorite brand in a new notebook. On the other hand, my brother will research, debate, and test drive seemingly countless bikes before buying a new one for his weekend adventures living out in Colorado.

This excitement over something new starts young. Kids love to open presents and play with their brand new toys each year on Christmas day or their birthday. Or what about the all-important decision of which backpack or lunch box was to be purchased for that school year? And you certainly can’t forget the excitement and nervousness over starting a brand new school year with a new teacher in a new classroom.

New things and new experiences are surely memorable moments in our lives for various reasons. But what about new life? One of the things which has always fascinate me about babies, especially newborns, is that all of us, including the Son of God, were, at one time, that small and helpless. As infants we all have this incredible potential to be anything and anyone in the world. The future is such a mystery. Our personalities have yet to develop, our natural talents and abilities have yet to emerge, our environment has yet to form and shape us. In many ways, we are blank slates.

Looking at a newborn with 4 decades of life experience under my belt, I can’t help but be a bit envious at times of the many possibilities their world still holds. They haven’t made my mistakes yet. They haven’t felt my hurts yet. They haven’t known what it means to live in a fallen, sinful world just yet. For each newborn I get to hold and love, I pray that God would protect them the ugliness of this world for as long as possible. Every kid should get to be a kid.

This summer our theme at camp is Brand New. Throughout the week, our campers will learn about what it means to be made a new creation in Christ. While we can’t go back to being human infants, in Christ, we can experience what it means to be completely forgiven of our sins and be washed as white as snow. We can experience what it means to view others with new vision as we see them as God sees them. We can learn about putting our hope in Jesus rather than the things of this world.

For the next 5 weeks we will be taking a deeper look at the theme for each day of our summer program as we dig deeper into what it means to be made BRAND NEW. We hope you’ll join us.

Additionally, we want to invite you to join us on a new-ly re-launched app. Available by searching IOLBC Beyond in either Google Play or the App store, we will be posting a 20 day Bible study focused on our summer theme. If you’d rather access it online, you can visit https://backtothebible.app/library/p/brand-new