Our 2025 Retreat Theme
Question: Who Are You?
Answer: His Workmanship!
This past summer, we examined how Jesus Christ remains the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Because of this truth, we can trust in God's plan and will for everything that happens in this world, because he remains in control. But just because we believe that truth doesn't mean we live it out.
This is where our 2025 retreat theme comes into play. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
We live in a world of identities. The world bombards us with so much messaging, telling us what we should dedicate our time to, what we should invest our money in, and even what we should care about. It's so easy to get overwhelmed by the constant messaging we receive.
There is a reasonably well-known film from 2003 called "Lost In Translation" which points this out really well. Bob (Bill Murray) is an actor experiencing a career slump, but he catches a big break when he gets a commercial deal in Tokyo. He heads off to Tokyo, but the job is not what he expected, and he simply is not satisfied. He tries to fill his time in Tokyo, searching for something, anything, that will satisfy him. Nothing does.
Enter Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). Bob and Charlotte hit it off and get to experience Tokyo together, and Bob realizes that what he has been missing is relationships with other human beings.
Now, if you delve deeper into this movie, you will find some problematic themes. But that doesn't mean the film isn't onto something. First, consider the setting of Tokyo and examine the image below.
There's something chaotic about the scene—so many colors, signs, banners, and messages. Close your eyes and imagine the sounds of people talking, cars passing by, and horns honking. It's enough to overwhelm anyone when you try to look at everything.
Look at the advertisements again. Those ads all have something in common: they tell you that you need this product, you should spend money on it, and it will satisfy you. Another consideration is the sheer number of tourist destinations in Tokyo, yet none of them satisfied Bob. In the movie, it is clear that Bob places his identity in his success, and when that is challenged, he becomes lost.
Yet we do the same thing Bob did. We all place our identity in the wrong things, and the world continues to bombard us with things it says we should place our identity in. We try to be satisfied with the things the world tells us, but we leave emptier than before. We live in a world of identities, where who we associate with, where we invest our money, and what we own all define us.
Yet it is the world's standards that we are called away from.
The goal of this year's theme is to equip your camper to know where their identity lies. The world calls us broken, Jesus calls us redeemed. The world tells us we don't deserve another chance, but Jesus calls us to get up and follow Him. Christianity is counter-cultural, and we are called to something higher.
Our identity needs to be in Christ, in his redemptive work and his never-ending power. We are his workmanship; he created and cares for us. And we can trust these things because Christ never changes.
Share this with a friend!
