Part of the point of Summer Training Project is the “training” part of the name. Training takes a lot of different forms, the most obvious one being the talks that are given throughout the week. But a more subtle form of training that happens is the “on-the-job” training that happens during the month of July.
At the end of June, the CO staff leave SC and the responsibility of leading, speaking and organizing all of STP is handed to the student leaders for a month. From the perspective of one of those student leaders, it was a pretty scary day when we had to say good-bye to the last staff person. Suddenly the people we asked a million questions and looked to for example in ministry are a thousand miles away, and it’s time for us to step up to the plate in a new way.
What does it look like when staff leave?
Now that the staff are gone, the team leaders are responsible for leading the project; that means that the team leader guys are giving talks every week, all of the team leaders are planning the events of the week, managing budgets, coordinating student jobs, and any number of other things that come up during the week. Team leaders, room leaders and the servant team are all meeting with more students during the week: studying the Bible, checking in on how they’re doing and just doing fun things around Myrtle Beach.
Where training comes in
All of us came into the summer with a little bit of training in what it means to be a leader on STP, and almost all of us have been involved in Campus Outreach for a couple of years. But we’re still young and don’t have tons of life experience to draw from. But the staff spent a lot of time meeting and talking with us during the first month of STP, but most importantly have spend a lot of time pointing us to Scripture and encouraging us to pray and talk with one another during the good times and the hard times.
We also have leaders’ training every week, where we’ve heard talks on servant-hearted ministry, helplessness, confronting sin, and several other topics, each of which God has used to further equip us to walk alongside students this summer as they grow in their relationships with the Lord.
We’re far from perfect at this, but God is using leadership to train and grow each of us in places where we struggle, showing us His faithfulness in our own weakness and inadequacy.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9