Scout Before Meal Graces

Just a note to say hello to all and to say that this website has so much to offer for new leaders/volunteers such as myself. This section on graces will provide me with some great ideas on how to make a campout or a special dinner/event for my scouts/venturers. I look forward to learning more from this great resource. Thank-You

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I thank you god, for this site, also. It has really helped me with Sunday services and prayers. I am very thankful for this. Thank you. Peace.

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Please consider adding the Worth Ranch Grace.   Written in 1929 by Jerry Fulkerson, Camp Director at Worth Ranch Scout Camp in Palo Pinto County. This was the grace taken and adjusted to Philmont by James Fitch.   The origin of The Worth Ranch Grace was corroborated by Minor S. Huffman, Sr., the first General Manager of Philmont Scout Ranch in his book High Adventure Among the Magic Mountains: Philmont, the First 50 Years. In that book, Huffman wrote, "Worth Ranch was definitely the earliest camp to use the Grace." Huffman recalls hearing The Worth Ranch Grace on a visit to Worth Ranch in 1930 with Dr. James E. West. As a Worth Ranch staffer it has always been a source of great pride that our grace has spread all over the Scouting world - as well as irritation that it rarely receives the credit and citation it deserves. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Grace

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I just want to offer a word of warning. You can't promote spirituality by sacrificing it. We teach scouts to be solemn and somber during a flag ceremony in reverence to our country, shouldn't that same level of respect and reverence be displayed during the brief time it takes to say grace? If we are trying to teach reverence, gratitude and respect for God then those should be the primary emotions felt during public grace. Prayer was not designed to be fun and funny.

Scouts need to learn the proper place for silliness and entertainment. Offering a prayer intended to make those around us laugh is offensive because it implies that we care more about what others think than what God thinks. God definitely has a sense of humour and wants us to have fun at appropriate times, but isn't grace before a meal intended to show our gratitude to God for His bounty which He graciously shares with us? There is a place for prayers that are informal but those are not public prayers for the benefit of a group. I love to recount the silly and humorous things my children do that bring me joy as part of expressing gratitude during my personal prayers. Often our family prayers have disintegrated into uncontrollable laughter. Those prayers are more intimate and private, where we dispense with the formality on occasion.

As an organization that embraces many ways of worship we need to be careful about the unintended message we could be sending.

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I recommend the Jayhawk Grace

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