If anyone needs me this week I will be unavailable. I'm at Camp! I will most definitely have a lot to talk about when I return due to my love/hate relationship with denominational camps. I am thinking about forming a secret society for youth pastors who are afraid to come out of the closet and tell their true feelings of denominational camps. True, there was a day in the past that I looked forward to making the trip south to the mountains. Now I am less enthusiastic. I see youth culture drastically changing before my eyes, and I see denominational camps failing to account for those changes in their programming and service structures. Perhaps its just me, but if you are a youth minister and are needing to come out of the camp closet, leave a comment and I'll let you know about our first Denominational Camps Anonymous meeting.
Shalom.
5 comments:
I'm not a yp, but I probably feel the same way as you do about youth camps. Last year, the speaker never named the postmodern mindset, but sort of alluded to it ("MTV generation," short attention spans, etc). These allusions were not favorable.
And he's a high ranking youth official in our great CoG. Yikes.
I'm not yet a YP, but what would you suggest as an alternative to "youth camp"? I ask this as sort of an invitation to conspire together and possible create said alternative experiment together.
To hijack this thread...
I don't really think that camp is the problem, but rather the way it's all done. I don't mean the segregated swim times, because lets just face it: teenagers are horny.
How about a week where they can just come and be kids... they don't have to worry about school, or their current peer group (unless they're all at camp too), their family life. We give them a time away from all that just like the CoG does, but also remove the unbelievable pressure to "get saved," and speak in tongues all during the week.
But those are just first-thoughts
As Wesleyan-Pentecostals, we need to provide opportunities for our students to encounter a crisis experience with Christ. Camps are a fantastic way to do this.
Perhaps the way we do camp needs changed. I.e. - the pressure-packed "banquet" has got to go. But, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Pete,
I'm not suggesting that we "do away" with Youth Camp, because I agree with you, it is a wonderful place to invite crisis situations where God makes possible a life that before the crisis was not possible. My question centers around what and how could we change the youth camp environment from what it is now to what it could be in the future?
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