Passion, Purpose, Planting & Pursuit:

CFO Youth Leadership Training Camps
A report from Black Hills CFO (South Dakota) and Tennessee CFO 2003.
by Lisa. LaLonde

There are two people who have been to all four of the CFO Youth Leadership Training Camps. 2001 Hilltop. 2002 Cedar Lake. 2003 Black Hills and 2003 Tennessee. One of those people, of course, is Colonel Bo Bottomly, the CFO speaker and “young at heart” youth leader who spearheaded the project to pour some training and vision into our CFO youth so that we could head into the future. The other was an unknown, untested young person from New York whose only claim to leadership fame was that she was available and willing to go where God was leading. That young person was me, and before I knew it I was the sponge for some unique CFO experiences and the guardian and communicator of a new vision for the youth of CFO.

Hilltop CFO in 2001 was about passion. Cedar Lake CFO in 2002 was about purpose. (See the October 2002 FM article) I knew the Lord would reveal what Black Hills CFO was about, and relaxed into experiencing the week without trying to find the “P” word that would make it all make sense. We headed off into a typical, full sensory CFO week…trying to stay one step ahead of our exhaustion and our spiritual overload. For me, Black Hills was unusual in that we had a great collection of experienced youth leaders from all over. There were resources at every turn, people to share with, people to pray with, visionaries to catch hold of. In fact, one of the overflow effects of Black Hills was the beginning of networking many CFO youth leaders together. One of the other unique things about Black Hills was that the camp itself was largely infused with youth leadership. From one of the speakers (Dan Klopp) to the Rhythms leader (Jenny Franklin) to the Morning Meditation team (Whitney and Dené Rappana) to the Creative Drama leader (Ashley Rappana) and the Worship leader (Chris Cooper), all were solid youth leaders, confident and moving in their anointing. The Council Ring itself had 50% youth representation. For me, this illustrated the purpose of the youth leadership training camps. Training youth leaders does no good if their leadership is not then encouraged. But it wasn’t until the sharing time at the end of camp that I got my reward: the key that would help this all make sense. Sarah Crose got up with tears in her eyes and said, in effect, that after experiencing this camp, it was breaking her heart to hear about other CFOs who have no youth or very few youth. She had a vision of the youth from this incredible CFO planting themselves into other CFO youth programs. I heard it and knew it was the Lord’s word: Planting. Planting takes time and commitment, and a little risk. How risky is it to hand over leadership to the up and coming generation before you’ve proven them? How risky is it for CFO youth to go to another CFO and attach themselves to the youth group there just to encourage it? (This was done later this summer by some of the Black Hills youth) But we are called to this in CFO. The Youth Leadership Training Events were not the solution or even the final result. They were the beginning of something new.

Tennessee CFO, July 2003. There was a sweetness there that I can’t describe. Perhaps it was because I had the privilege of leading the worship, and worship leaders have their senses tuned to the presence of the Lord when He walks into the room. There was much that was similar to all the other training camps. There was 50% youth representation on the Council Ring, youth in leadership throughout the camp, and many of the same amazing group bonding and caring exercises that the Holy Spirit uses to make a youth group work. But there was still something new happening here. We could not contain the passion, purpose and planting. We could not get enough of the Lord, and every time we entered worship there was a sense of not knowing how He would meet us, but a hunger for Him to meet us however He wanted to. Over and over, the youth of that camp fell on their faces before Him, laying down their lives and dreams, breaking their hearts open before him, and pursuing His path. The Psalmist says we are to “follow hard after Him” (Psalm 63:8 KJV) We were engaged in the pursuit. Pursuit. There it was. It was a word that had even been in the Tennessee brochure, and I had known when I had read it that it was the Lord’s word. But I didn’t understand it until I saw it happening before my eyes. We were in pursuit of Him and would not rest until we found Him.

Passion. Purpose. Planting. Pursuit. I did not cleverly seek these words out. They were a gift, given to me and us to help us understand and grasp what it is that the Lord is calling us to in CFO. Passion comes first. We must help our CFO youth identify and follow their passion for Jesus Christ, even if it makes us uncomfortable. We must then gift them with their own purpose. Their callings must be released in CFO environments. Next, they must be encouraged to plant themselves in uncharted territories. And then we must release them to pursue the Lord in all the unfamiliar and strange and uncomfortable ways that this generation has to offer. The four P’s are a signpost which ask us: Are you willing, ready, and obedient to follow along His path, in spite of what it might cost you? It is here at the crossroads that the future of CFO is determined.

Colonel Bo has said that the Holy Spirit has been in charge of these “training events”. I could not agree more. I have had numerous conversations with people about the shortcomings of the program: Where is the content of this program? What is it that you are offering? What are we learning? Over and over I have said to all generations with Col. Bo: just jump in and taste it and let the Lord teach you in his own classroom. There are treasures in our youth that no one has dug up yet. I believe the future is for that digging. The Holy Spirit loves it when we let go and let Him have his way. Will we let go of CFO and put it squarely into the uncharted, unpredictable waters that the Holy Spirit is stirring up? At Black Hills and at Tennessee this year, they said “yes”. I know it was hard for some of their leaders to say “yes”. They probably spent the week on their knees before the Lord while this hurricane swept around them. I believe that was a good place to be, and that without them on their knees, the hurricane would not now have direction.

Is your CFO offering an experience with Jesus Christ that a) your youth want to come to and b) your youth want to bring their friends to? If it is not, then are you missing an opportunity to feed the present and the future? We are not to step aside, but to come alongside. You may have to get uncomfortable to come alongside the youth of today. But it’s a great ride, and it’s going somewhere fast! Come alongside the passion, the purpose, the planting, and the pursuit.

© 2003 Cincogatos Productions
Published in the CFO Fellowship Messenger October 2003
Also published in Camps Farthest Out: The Journey: Past, Present and Future: Celebrating 75 Years of Living Prayer. Austin MN: Macalester Park Publishing, © 2005