I Love Teen Camp!

Teen camp for the Missouri District NYI will be here in just a little over a week. I'm really excited for it. I love teen camp for few reasons. First, it's fun. There are tons of fun stuff to do: the blob, games, team competitions, and sports tournaments. A few of our teens have entered the basketball tournament and have already declared their victory by giving themselves the name, "The Winners." I'm sure they will do fine. Second, there is a good deal of time to just be in relationship with people. By that, I mean to sit around and talk. This, perhaps, is one of my favorite things. Finally, there's the food...? Ok, the food isn't bad, but it isn't one of my favorite things!

Of course, it would not be teen camp without some sort of worship and preaching. I'm hoping that this year both of these elements will be excellent, as they have been in years past.  But I'm also hoping that the impact of worship and preaching will last well past the end of camp. David Fitch, in a blog that I regularly read, comments that many people have faced what he calls "church-abuses" that have led them to reject certain things within protestant evangelicalism (typical organization structures, authority in leadership, God's judgment, the authority of scripture, and conversion). These abuses have led to various degrees of discontentment and have sparked the creation of different movements which seek to find meaning and safety in Christianity again. One of these, conversion, is a big one at camp.

It has been my experience in camps of all kinds (Family Camps, Teen Camps, and the like), that we abuse conversion like a rented mule. We hype people up on emotion or scare the hell of out of them (quite literally) so that they might find a saving relationship with Christ. When the week is over, when they return to whatever life had for them before camp, things revert back. Salvation becomes an act of manipulation which almost always damages the one being manipulated. Never mind that the salvation that Jesus brought was never manipulative. This isn't always the case, but I've witnessed it enough to know that it happens more than we like.

I am not, like those who Fitch describes, saying that we need to get rid of the altar. What I am saying, what I am hoping for is that at teen camp this year salvation is proclaimed as an open invitation to begin to participate in the work and mission of God in the world. I'm praying that those who find Jesus at camp this year will realize that what they are getting themselves into is not nearly as much about them and their future destiny (which is important) as it is about what God would have them be and do in their schools, in their churches, and in their neighborhoods. It is only as we are sent with a sense of purpose and mission, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that our conversions – teen camp or otherwise – become more than just a moment in time.