Christian Camp and the Church: A Winning Partnership

written by Jeremy Olson, an FBC youth leader

“Christian Camp is not life changing, but rather life shaping.”

I spoke these words just the other weekend to Pastor John Kealen, the Director of Camp Manitoumi, a small, fundamental Baptist camp in the middle of Illinois where I grew up attending as a camper and later as a full-time staff. After a nine-year hiatus, I returned to these pivotal grounds for a family wedding and immediately was hit with a rush of emotions, memories, and spiritual commitments, lessons, and decisions from my youth. My time—my involvement—at this Christian camp as a young person truly was a life-shaping time. I attribute a large part of my love for youth ministries, local church service, and, of course, Christian camp, to my time spent at Manitoumi each summer.

I love Christian camp.

I was blessed to be born into a God-fearing, Bible-believing, church-going family that never missed a service at church or shied away from an opportunity to serve. I knew all the right answers to the questions in children’s church, knew all the songs by heart, and memorized my verses each week. Yet, my spiritual growth and understanding of a lifestyle of service was largely formed solely due to Christian camp. I’m forever indebted to Pastor John, Camp Manitoumi, and the people God placed in my life during my time there. I absolutely cherish camp, and I’ll always take an opportunity to get involved.

So, when Pastor Kris asked my wife, Ellen, and me if we were willing to go to The Wilds this summer as sponsors, it was an easy “yes!”

Life is busy—we have our full-time jobs and our fuller-time job of two kids under the age of three—but we knew we needed to find a way to make it work. The unique opportunities found at camp and the relationships that can be built there over the course of a week are invaluable to a youth worker.

As youth workers at Friendship, we develop relationships with our youth in a particular way—the “youth group” way.

Usually this means on Sunday mornings in Sunday School and Wednesday nights at youth group. We build closer relationships with a handful of kids in our connect groups, but there’s still that usual routine and process that sometimes makes it difficult to crack open a particular student’s shell or see them in a different way in a new environment. After all, we get them for two hours of the week, and then they go back to their regular everyday environment.

The beauty of camp is that new environment—the God-focused, immerse-all-of-you-into-His-Word type of environment—that we just can’t emulate with the youth group way. From Monday to Saturday these young people are without technology and distractions, placed with new leaders and friends, and are absolutely inundated with God’s Word.

What a privilege it is to be able to bring our youth to such an environment!

Better yet, The Wilds alleviates the responsibilities and pressures of a church’s youth leadership in that their staff handles everything, leaving us just to focus on making connections with the kids, enjoying the facilities, and growing spiritually ourselves. Then, at the end of the week, we take ’em all home and can continue to build off of the foundation that was placed during the week.

Many of these kids at camp don’t have the same background or upbringing that I had, making Christian camp even more of a spiritual and emotional oasis in their lives.

Perhaps this is the first week all summer that they didn’t get physically or emotionally abused.

Or it’s the first week all year that they felt heard and loved.

Or maybe it’s the first time they felt a sense of community, purpose, and design.

For that one precious week, they were able to hear and understand the Gospel in its completion for the first time.

This all can take time for someone to process and acclimate to, which makes the full week all the more critical. Between two chapel messages each day and multiple seminars and devotional times, the Word of God quickly becomes commonplace in their lives.

This summer, the speaker for our Jr/Sr High Camp was Will Galkin—an enthusiastic and precise speaker who obviously invested a tremendous amount of study and prayer in each message and had a pulse on what the modern-day young person deals with on a daily basis.

He wouldn’t just talk to the youth, though—he frequently would address the counselors, staff, and sponsors with challenges. Every person there would leave with real, meaty spiritual food for thought and several life-shaping decisions were made that week. He spoke on crucial topics such as assurance of salvation, dealing with bitterness and guilt, and identifying and conquering idols in our lives. These key topics dug deeply into the hearts of our students as the Holy Spirit began doing His work in their consciences, convicting them, and bringing them to Himself. The Lord used Will in a powerful and productive way during the week of camp, and his passion for the Word of God was infectious.

The light of God was starting to flame up in the minds of these students.

Even the most backslidden teenagers frequently come out of camp on fire for God—for a moment. But, they get their phones back. They go back to work. They get influenced by the world again, and sometimes the only spiritual feeding they get for the rest of the year is by means of the youth ministry.

Christian camp can lay that foundation, but it’s up to the Church to build off of that foundation and continue to disciple, to support, and to train that young person for Christ. The Wilds acknowledges this, and they do a wonderful job helping refresh and prepare the sponsors during that week to be ready to continue with the camp decisions well after camp.

So here we are—several weeks removed from camp—needing to continue to keep that flame that they had at camp into this school year and help it become a life-shaping experience for them.

Despite what some modernist church mantras claim,

teenagers are the church of today, not tomorrow

And we have to be interested, invested, and actively involved in their lives just as we do amongst our older “adult fellowship.”

For a young person, camp is an exciting event—often the highlight of their summer—but a brief moment in their broader calendar year. Eventually camp ends, the urgency of their spiritual decision and the different environment wears off, and it’s back to reality. The Church—not just the youth leaders—must be aware of what happened at camp so that we can be better equipped to support them, encourage them, and help grow them spiritually over the remaining fifty-one weeks of the year. Paul recognized this as an integral part of the church network (Titus 2) and encouraged and guided the young pastor Timothy.

We must not idly stand by watching little flames spark up and get smothered each year and then have the audacity to say that our youth is a “lost cause.”

I’m thankful for Pastor Kris’s organization of the recent Sunday night emphasis on our Friendship Kids and youth. It gave us insights into what the teens learned and did while at camp and highlighted how we can continue to pray for them.

I pray we as a church body are active participants in the spiritual lives of our young people, having a better understanding now of how God might be shaping their lives through their camp experience.

If you missed that service, I urge you to revisit the livestream on YouTube and hear from the youth. I know you will be blessed and desire to pray for and encourage these young people.

A huge special thanks to those who may have donated scholarship funds or sponsored a young person to enable them to attend camp this year.

📸 photo credits: The Wilds / Bethany Wilder Media