In Response

My heart, mind, and spirit respond to this year's email promotion of our children's camp theme.
Oh my gosh, how much can we do this theme?! Fruit of the Spirit, again?! Sheesh, how original, how inspired. I'm sorry, but I really don't think this is what God wants the kids to go away with. More of the same, more rules, more laws, more obligations that they don't feel the need to follow, more burdens, more pressure...pressure to perform in a spiritual existence that does not exist for them yet, pressure to be the person they are not, and cannot be on their own, pressure to live up to a set of standards that were never meant to be lived up to on their own. It's the fruit of the SPIRIT, damn it! Cant' you get it through your thick skulls? The SSSPPPIIIRRRIIITTT!!!!!!! It's the fruit of the Spirit, the SPIRIT. It's not called the fruit of man, and yet that's what we're teaching them when we tell them about the fruit of the Spirit. We only emphasize the fruit. We forget about the Spirit. We forget about telling them about how it is the Spirit who manifests this fruit in our lives, not ourselves. It's the fruit of the SPIRIT. You don't teach the fruit of the Spirit to children, acting as if they now need to live up to them, to do them, to follow them. Teach the Spirit, not the fruit!

Do we somehow feel let off the hook if we teach what and what not to do. Do we somehow feel released from our true obligation when we teach them a set of rules, standards, guidelines to live by. Do we somehow feel like that's what the Christian life is all about??? What the frig are we teaching these kids about Christ, about the Church, about God??? We're teaching them that it's all about following the rules, obeying the law, keeping the list of do's and don't's. We are not called to 'live the Christian life'; we are called to Christ living through us! Man, how can you, how dare you, burden these kids again...again and again and again. How can you put so much pressure on them? Because you're NOT going to be teaching them the Spirit - I know that; you're going to be teaching them how to live the fruit - alone! by themselves! on their own strength! I know it! How foolish, how lazy, how meaningless, how disgusting. Aargh, find the SPIRIT!!! Stop teaching the fruit!!! Teach the SPIRIT!!!