Why church camp is still important

When I was young, church camp was always one of my favorite weeks of the year, ranking alongside my birthday, Christmas, and family vacations. It was a week of independence, exciting games and activities, independence, meeting new people, independence, exploring unfamiliar terrain, independence, growing in grace, and independence. A kid would have to be crazy to not love church camp!

When I went off to college, however, church camp became a thing of my past. I still looked fondly upon my camp memories, but I had other things to do. There were summer jobs. Then there was a wedding. Then there was ministry. Then there were kids, and so the story goes. In short, we had neither the time nor the money to splurge on church camp.

I do not remember what changed our minds. In reality, it was likely a cocktail of factors such as having kids that we wanted to connect with other pastors’ kids, people in our congregation attending and telling us how wonderful it was, and a little bit of nostalgia for both my wife and I. Regardless, we decided one summer to attend camp as a family, and we were immediately hooked. For a decade or more, we scheduled our entire year around church camp. Our entire family enjoyed the week living in a “rustic” cabin, playing goofy games and activities, participating in worship services, catching up with colleagues and friends, hay rides under the stars, S’mores over the campfire, movie nights in the tabernacle, and more.

Over the years, though, we became increasingly aware that we were exceptions. While our church was sending a larger group of people to camp every year, other congregations sent fewer. Many stopped sending people to camp altogether. The camp, of course, responded with facility improvements, programming changes, and other things, and things seemed better for a time. When one camp director stepped down and another one stepped in, though, it was the beginning of the end.

The camp still exists. It continues to serve kids and youth. In fact, my children recently attended church camp. Family camp, however, is gone. Moreover, between cell phones, video games, and summer jobs, the number of people interested in attending any of the camps continued to dwindle even before COVID struck. I know COVID was the final nail in many camps’ coffins.

It took me several years and a lot of searching to understand why the demise of camp was so distressing to me. In fact, it was not until I enrolled in a seminary class about spiritual formation that I began to understand. Our churches have a tremendous capacity for building relationships, teaching both the basic and deep truths of the faith, and deploying people in service to both God and community, but they are still missing something.

I first began to recognize this when I realized that God instructed the Israelites to leave their towns and villages three times a year to present themselves to him. Three times a year, they left their normal scenery, company, and routine, and God met with them. This led to the recognition that biblical figures often saw explosive spiritual growth when their lives were thrown into a proverbial blender. Consider, Joseph had to grow when his brothers threw him down a well and sold him into slavery. Moses had to grow when God called him to lead Israel out of Egypt. Ruth grew when her husband died. David grew when Goliath called. Daniel grew when he was whisked into captivity. Paul grew as he sat in jail. And John had a profound revelation as he was exiled to an island far from home. From beginning to end, the Bible is a story of people who encountered God in the disruptions of life.

This is why camp is still important. No, it is not a catastrophe, but it is a disruption. For one week, campers step outside of their normal scenery, company, and routine to meet with God, and he does not disappoint. Indeed, as a kid, I attended numerous secular camps, but none of them had the same life-long impact as church camp.

Our kids need church camp. Our teens need church camp. I would submit that our adults need church camp. Indeed, we all need periodic opportunities to leave our normal scenery, company, and routine to meet with God, and we cannot rely on catastrophes. We must therefore plan to take advantages of opportunities for planned disruptions, and church camp should be at the top of our lists.