A report I did for my Theatre 1020 class about an experience from a production

Teen Mania Ministries has summer camps that I attended a few years back. These camps had programs that were meant to inspire, there were speakers and teachers, videos, and dramatizations. They would set the mood by changing the atmosphere. They made a distinct transition from outdoor activities, to the indoor entertainment. They would then dim the lights and set of firecrackers on the stage. The music they played would set the ground (start the ball rolling) for whatever they were about to present to you. The skits would begin, they were meant to make you think, and examine how your life was in comparison to what they were showing. The scenes were deep and almost heavy feeling at times. They showed videos of orphans that desperately need sponsors, and told you things that you liked to hear. And every now and again they would mix in the Truth, but it was watered-down, and tainted with the materialism, psychobabble, and other things that appealed to human nature as opposed to Godly-nature. They would tell you about the love, joy, peace and happiness that came from being a “Christian”. At the time it sounded great, you were in a nice atmosphere, things were easy, and you had this great emotional high. Every year I would “re-dedicate” my life to the image of God that I created. It seems as though they just helped me make a better mask, so that the society couldn’t see that I was just a broken and messed up as they are. And with each year, came a more realistic the mask; and the better the mask, the easier it was to hide the fact that I really wasn’t a Christian as defined by the Word of God. I even seemed to hide it from myself. I would then go home, and after about two weeks the high was gone. So did the camps and the dramatizations change me in any way? No. I was still a dirty wretched sinner, on my way to hell. Only now I had a smile on my face, and a pat on the pack from the youth camp.

Now, if you ask if I have learned anything from those camps and dramatizations, I would now have to say, “Yes.” Though I didn’t learn anything from them while I was there, I can now see where the experience has helped shape who I am today. My eyes are now open to see what was presented at those camps in the Light. I see how it made me feel secure, and comfortable in my so-called-“Christianity”, and I see the lie that I believed. And because I now see the sin in being comfortable as opposed to challenged, and complacent as opposed to Holy, I am able to repent, and change the way that I think, especially about what True Christianity is. So now I have a reminder, I can look back at those camps and push forward, knowing that I never want to be the same again.