Christian camps and retreat centers have not been unaffected by the recession. As families' disposal income drops, trips and camps often get cut. But Christian camps face another challenge - the generational job of convincing kids and parents that they're not just another activity among equals, vying for kids' time and parents' money. Camps aren't just a weekend's worth of fun - they're an investment. And it would be a shame to lose them, because I can't think of anything that's even a close second.
By "generational job", I'm referring to a much shorter period of time than 30 or even 20 years. I'm reminded every year that fully one-third of the kids we minister to in 4th-6th grade are brand-new at this, that camp is a developmental milestone most haven't yet crossed, and that we get to walk them through it. But first we have to get them there.
Take a few minutes to view this video, produced by Forest Home, on what they call "core essentials" - the philosophy from which they operate their programs. Then I'd like to suggest seven reasons why Christian camps offer something kids can't easily get elsewhere - not even in church.
Here's what happens at camp that you won't find anywhere else:
1. Kids get almost 48 hours unplugged. The loss of wide-open spaces and the hurried pace of modern life deprives us of, to borrow the phrase of one of my seminary professors, "our best apologetics partner". To see the dramatic rise of the mountains on either side of the camp, to leap across rocks in the creek, or to smell fresh air reestablishes our place in the created order, bringing us closer to our true selves. We were not meant to be enslaved by cell phones, computer screens, or even school textbooks. We are people who labor under the illusion that we've tamed nature. Wrong. Technology has tamed us. We need to be set free. This happens at camp.
2. Kids genuinely play. Some will say that kids these days have forgotten how to play, because they're too busy, too scheduled, too programmed. Don't you believe it. They may be busy and programmed, yes, but in an outdoor camp setting, the ability to make great fun from very little quickly re-emerges. This, again, is connecting us to our true selves. Play stimulates their imagination, requires compromise and conflict resolution, and invites them to approach other kids who it might not be "cool" to affiliate with in their schools. Play is a great leveler. This happens at camp.
3. Kids are surrounded by God, and godly influences. Adults sometimes focus solely on "the moment of decision" at camps, when a kid either does or doesn't respond to an invitation. This misses the point that a camp environment is itself evangelistic - all the time! From morning wake-up until "lights out" (quotation marks are deliberate), kids are in the presence of caring staff and counselors who want to see their experience maximized. The counselors who will be spending the weekend with your kid are not strangers - they are the small group leaders who give their time to serve our kids every weekend in Surge, and who want to deepen their relationships by investing a weekend of their time. Forest Home's staff is made up mostly of summer camp veterans who sacrifice ten weekends January-March to make winter camp happen. They wouldn't be there if they didn't love your kids. I have never seen a discipline or medical situation handled poorly at Forest Home. Instead, kids receive empathy and kindness. This happens at camp.
4. Questions get asked, and answered. We cover a lot of ground in our weekend program, but we are inevitably rushed, and one thing I regret is that we can't be more responsive to the immediate interests of all of the kids. But because the time at camp is so relationally intensive (kids are constantly in the presence of their leaders), it creates a great forum for informal conversation, or for a leader to follow up with someone who had more questions than the nightly small group time could accommodate. What better way to model that God doesn't live "in church", and that our learning and thinking and talking about him doesn't have to stay within the walls of a church, either? Instead, God-as-a-way-of-life can go on display, even if it's only for a couple of days. This happens at camp.
5. Kids get connected in a hurry. If your son or daughter attends weekend services every weekend for a year, they'll log about 65 hours of church time annually. If your family comes every other week, that's 32.5 hours annually. Our ministry is made up of kids from more than 75 schools. It is not uncommon for a student new to our ministry to be the only kid from his or her school in the classroom on a given Saturday or Sunday. Hard to run into kids you know? Yes. Hard to meet other kids? It can be - it depends on how regularly a new family attends and what other outside events they engage in.
In a camp weekend, we're talking about 48 hours of sustained interaction with other kids and leaders, making it all the more easier to return to church when camp's over. Kids relax when they don't have to worry about being knew, when they recognize other faces, when they themselves are know. This happens at camp.
6. Kids make memories. Think about the most outstanding events of your life. Were a number of them from before you were in high school? I hope so. Every kid deserves that pack of loyal childhood friends, the thrill of family vacations and amusement parks, the freedom of after-school play, the hilarity of stupid jokes, the raw adventure of pillow fights. Enough bad stuff will happen to them as they get older - let's let childhood be reserved for safety and successfully trying new things. Kids now in middle school still ask me, "Remember that time at Forest Home...?" I often don't. But no matter. The memory is theirs. Kids need those. This happens at camp.
7. It's the easiest thing in the world to invite your friend to. Let's face it: it's not always appealing to ask your friend to come to "Sunday school" (shudder; we don't use that terminology, but lots of people still do) or anything where the default model is "school". But an outdoor camp in the mountains where you get to sleep in bunks and play outside a lot? Yeah, kids will go for that. Four years ago, a couple of boys at our church invited their whole hockey team to camp. Today, most of those kids (now in high school) still attend our church. And research shows that kids who are comfortable sharing their faith, talking about what they believe (and this includes the openness to bring someone to the place they experience it all) are more likely to hold onto that faith when the going gets tough. And for a first-timer, a weekend at Forest Home puts a great impression in their mind, because it's church camp without being churchy. This, too, happens at camp.
And I haven't even mentioned the teaching. But that's because the cognitive benefits are harder to assess, and in any case, they shouldn't be separated from the overall experience. They will soon forget where they learned what they know; but they will long remember what they did at camp.
There are ways in which camps are very primitive places. But then, we're primitive people, aren't we? And every kid who's dirtied their jeans hiding in a muddy spot or windburned their nose or soaked their socks completely when snow got into their boots knows this is so. More and more, these things happen only at camp.
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
