The Chorus of the song “The Great Adventure” by Steven Curtis Chapman goes like this:

Saddle up your horses we’ve got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God’s amazing grace
Let’s follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is a life like no other – this is The Great Adventure

A western cowboy theme is a popular one for youth camps and is a great metaphor for the Christian Journey. Check out the “Great Adventure” Youth Camp curriculum from Creative Youth Ideas. Here are some of the topics found in this tested and fun filled Bible study series:

• Saddle Up: The Journey of Faith
  Genesis 12:1-5
  In order to begin the “Great Adventure” we must “Saddle Up” our faith. We must pack our bags and prepare for the journey. We put a blanket on it, cinch the saddle straps, step in the stirrups to mount it, then spur it forward. Only God knows where our faith will then take us! Abram, before he was called Abraham, began a similar adventure.
• Pony Express: The Bible as a Letter from God
  Various Scriptures
  The Pony Express delivered the mail in the early days of the West. Mail was loaded into saddle bags and carried by riders upon horses. The Bible is like one of those saddle bags in that it contains letters. Yet the letters in it are to God’s people, written by God and delivered by his prophets, disciples, and other men that He chose. To read the Bible is to read God’s letters to YOU!
• Jail Break: Freedom from Sin
  Luke 4:16-22 and Isaiah 6:1-6
  The jailhouse was a common feature in most towns of the Old West. Wanted Posters were placed around the town with the photos of famous outlaws and bandits. It was the local sheriff’s duty, with his star badge to make sure all the lawbreakers were captured and locked away. In the Kingdom of God, all of us are lawbreakers as well. But Christ didn’t put on the sheriff’s badge, six-shooter, and cowboy hat to lock us away. In fact he came to set all prisoners free!
• Trailblazing: The Wide and Narrow Paths
  Matthew 7:13-14
  As the first wagon trains and settlers traveled west, they not only cut the trail and found the mountain passes, but also marked them clearly so that others would be able to follow them. Known as trailblazing, the markers might be as simple as a pile of stones or a hatchet chop to a tree that would help others to find the correct route on their journey. Christ also taught us how to find the route to God. Are you willing to follow the trail?
• Tracking: Knowing God’s Will
  Romans 12:1-2 and others
  Where am I going? How do get there? What signs mark the path? What direction should I take? It is important that each of us discover the path that God wants us to take in life. There will be challenges and adventure. The struggles will be tough, but the rewards will outweigh anything we could ever imagine. Every Christian must learn to recognize the call of God, to recognize the signs along his path, and to follow God’s directions for his individual life.
• The Blacksmith’s Shop: Tools to be Used by God
  Isaiah 64:8
  The blacksmith begins to pound, envisioning what the tool was planned for, making it sharper, more durable, useful. The pounding and melting down of the metal is not comfortable or easy. Change is never easy, but over time the scars are removed, the cracks are filled, and the impurities are burned away. The dull becomes sharp. The crooked becomes straight. The weak becomes strong. The useless become the useful. Then we are plunged into water and the moldable becomes the strong tool to be used!
• The Christian Frontier: Becoming Christlike
  Romans 8:29; Selected Passages
  What is the new frontier for new believers? In actuality it is as much the journey as the destination, but the ultimate aim for all believers is to become Christlike in character, attitudes and actions.
• Gold Rush: Salvation
  John 3:1-21
  No story of the wild west would be complete without the tales of the gold rush. Many men gave up everything to find it. For Christians, heaven is described as having streets of “gold.” In John 3:1-21 God gives Nicodemus directions to get to the streets of Gold. Those same directions are a map for us today, to find the greatest treasure mankind has ever known!

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