Our theme at this year’s Family Camp at Camp Koinonia was "Living God’s Dream." The adults, teens, and children who attended this year’s program were encouraged to think and pray about "God’s Dream for Me," "God’s Dream for My Family," "God’s Dream for Our Community," "God’s Dream for Forgiveness" and "God’s Dream for Our World."
We each were invited to think about how our own dreams correspond with God’s dream. We often talk about God’s will for us and we sometimes use it to rationalize when something goes wrong in our lives. We chalk up bad experiences we don’t fully understand to happening according to God’s will.
God’s will often seems to be something imposed upon us, something we are subject to, but not something we participate in or cooperate with. The concept of God’s will is often used in reference to someone dying, someone being disappointed, or some other tragic event or natural disaster.
At camp this year, we attempted to understand and appreciate not God’s will, but God’s dream for us. God’s dream seems much more positive and much more collaborative than God’s will.
As a community, the campers and staff prayed for the ability to discern how our own dreams coincide with God’s dream for us. We also prayed for each other and for our openness to living God’s dream in our own lives.
During one morning session, as part of a prayer walk, the adults and teen campers took some time together to reflect on and contemplate how the gifts and the fruit of the Holy Spirit are evident in our own lives and in the lives of those closest to us.
We concluded our prayer time together by praying for an outpouring of those gifts we saw as being most beneficial to Living God’s dream for us, our families, our community and our world.
