Changing the church camp culture

There’s more than s’mores and campfires

By Mike Givler | Presbyterians Today

Spiritual practices are being incorporated more into the daily camp routine at Camp Whitman. Director Lea Kone hopes the practices will be brought home with the kids after they leave camp. Courtesy of Camp Whitman

For many children, a week at summer church camp meant a time away from parents. It was a space to be yourself, to connect with friends new and old, to spend a week in the outdoors, kayaking or splashing around in the pool. There might be some religion, like daily Scripture lessons or Wednesday night worship, but that was secondary to the games and crafts held throughout the week.

“You go to camp and have this great experience, and then that’s that. Maybe you get a spiritual high for a little bit, but you go back to your life and wait for camp again next year. That’s how I grew up,” said Kellie von Borstel, director at Montlure Presbyterian Church Camp in Pinetop, Arizona.

There’s a movement, though, to change traditional camp culture, as von Borstel and other Presbyterian camp directors seek to instill spiritual practices into young lives, and have these practices continue back at home and in the church. For von Borstel, such change starts by exploring a question: What does it mean to partner with churches?

“What does a real partnership between camp and churches look like? And not in the way when we used to go after churches and say, ‘Give us your kids because we need the numbers,’ ” von Borstel said. “We want to send children back to — and work with — the churches with the practices that they were living 24 hours a day at the camp.”

In Rochester, New York, Camp Whitman on Seneca Lake is working to get youth more engaged with spiritual practices that will last more than just a week at camp.

“One of the things I have noticed is that our Christian education is really falling on deaf ears with the kids,” said Lea Kone, the director at Camp Whitman. “We would do a vacation Bible school-type curriculum with an interesting story and activities, but at the end of the week, when we surveyed the families, nobody was talking about anything that they learned. They weren’t bringing home the messages.”

To change that, Camp Whitman has incorporated “Sabbath Practices” into its morning message, evening worship services and campfire devotions. According to Brian Frick, mission associate for the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Formation, Camp and Retreat Ministries in Louisville, Sabbath Practices are those practices that draw one into “that space with God.”

In 2017, Frick and the PMA Formation team gathered leaders in children, youth, adult, camp and college ministries and asked them what shaped their faith. After hearing the stories, another question was asked: What practices were part of those faith experiences? Out of the replies, five practices were identified and named Sabbath Practices — “sabbath” to capture the importance of “our time to be with God,” Frick said.

The five practices that are being incorporated into camp life at Whitman are:

Storytelling — “Hearing the stories in Scripture is important, but we are not spending time in intentionally telling and hearing the life journey and faith stories of each other,” Frick said. Campers now spend more time engaging and sharing stories.

Service — What does it look like to bring a group together for service? “We know that God calls us to serve and we serve others because of God’s grace and love of us. But by serving, we are also pulling closer to each other. We are forming a community, bonded and identified together,” Frick said.

Hospitality — “This is deeper than milk and cookies or fellowship hall hellos,” Frick said. “This ideally is the hospitality that calls us to invite each other to our homes for dinner, to welcome the stranger, to welcome all. More than passing the peace, this is a full welcome — again, bringing us closer together as a community.”

Prayer — “If we take time praying for and with each other, we are drawn closer together and to our faith — beyond ritualized prayer and into a lasting practice. This can be a part of worship, of course, but how does it become a rhythm of your community?” Frick asked.

Retreat — “Jesus retreated often, which is a good model. But knowing the power of getting away together from our jobs, school, sports — this is a need for a community that is going to stand on faith as opposed to fitting in around the busyness of the world,” Frick said.

Camp Whitman is broadening its ministry to reach new communities. Among those communities are youth and adults with developmental disabilities as well as children in low-income families. Courtesy of Camp Whitman

At Camp Whitman, instilling these Sabbath Practices to become part of the camp’s culture has made a difference.

“Right away, we noticed in our post-camp evaluations at home that campers were actually telling their parents about the practices. The kids were able to describe the concepts they were learning,” Kone said.

Camp Whitman staff, too, has benefited from the incorporation of Sabbath Practices.

“Our staff has latched onto these concepts and found that they were ones that they could get behind and were excited talking to the kids about,” Kone said.

This is exactly the kind of buy-in that Frick was hoping for when developing these practices.

“The premise is that we learn by doing and participating, not by being ‘taught.’ The more we are brought into and experience the practices of a group, the more we will form an identity as a part of that group,” he said.

A new community emerges

Focusing on Sabbath Practices isn’t the only change at Camp Whitman. There’s also a unique ministry for youth and adults with developmental disabilities that encompasses the rustic 117-acre plot every summer, and it’s growing.

“It’s a really underserved population,” Kone said. “I think there is a lot of opportunity for camps, churches and ministries to be serving individuals with disabilities. I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s one of the last frontiers of populations not served. We always fill our programs and have a waiting list for this ministry. It’s something campers look forward to all year long.”

A Tuesday night talent show and weekly dance are among the activities that the campers with developmental disabilities participate in, along with the children and teens attending traditional camp.

“A lot of our campers with disabilities really love to perform in that talent show, and our traditional campers do perform as well, but they also help to provide support and cheering on of those campers,” Kone said. “It’s really cool to see kids who may, in a different community or setting, have made fun of individuals with disabilities or disregarded them, but instead our young campers are learning about the ways they are talented and special and are supporting and loving them.”

Kone says it has become “a true joy of being director of this camp” because of all that is being done to serve God’s children, young and old, especially those with special needs.

“When I first started hiring counselors, they seemed a little bit nervous about the challenges of working with that population. But once they work with those campers, it’s honestly their favorite part of the program. Some staff members even end up changing their majors to do special education,” Kone said.

 Kone adds that the camp is always reaching out to communities that might be ignored or not given a chance to experience camp. Currently, the camp receives youth who are considered low-income or were formerly homeless, thanks to referrals by local agencies that the nearby churches work with.

Traveling day camps

A fire at its camp in Greer, Arizona, led Montlure Camp to think creatively about its mission. Today, Montlure reaches more kids through its traveling day camps — reaching children where they are. Courtesy of Montlure Camp

Montlure Camp has its own unique situation. The original camp in Greer, Arizona, was shut down due to a forest fire seven years ago, forcing the camp to move to other locations throughout the years. Montlure now rents space at a private ranch in Pinetop, about 40 miles west of Greer, enabling it to continue to have summer camp while it works with the forest service to return to its own campsite.

Montlure currently holds just three weeks of overnight camp a year, attracting about 100 campers in the process.

The three weeks are broken down into a junior camp for fourth- and fifth-graders, and then a junior high and a senior high camp. These camps are “unplugged,” meaning the campers are not permitted to bring cellphones and other electronics onto the grounds.

“We really want to give children and youth a break from all of that,” von Borstel said. “We are all, even as adults, so plugged in all the time. We want a way that kids are able to unplug and have a week away. It’s a way to break from all of that anxiety and stress that technology brings us.”

One way that Montlure reaches more kids is through its traveling day camps. Camp staff members travel to churches to be the leaders for weekly programs often in lieu of summer vacation Bible school, thus taking the strain off congregations that are lacking in vacation Bible school volunteers. The day camps allow for interaction with another 30 to 70 kids weekly for Montlure.

Had it not been for the displacement of the camp, things like the traveling day camps might not have ever been fully explored.

“It’s dramatically changed things,” von Borstel said. “It’s really interesting as we reflect back. We’re seeing a lot of changes in the makeup of church these days, and that’s changing in camp world, too. Montlure was kind of at a stuck point before the fire, but I don’t know that anybody realized it because there was still a lot of kids coming and it’s rich in history.”

The change in locations for Montlure resulted in a loss of campers as the facility scrambled to find a new site. This transition uncovered some unseen issues that wouldn’t have otherwise been brought into view.

“Montlure basically put a Band-Aid on things and found a place to go for that summer [after the fire in Greer],” von Borstel recalled. “There was all this red tape with the forest service and all of the focus was on getting back. But after a few years when that was not happening as quickly as hoped, they realized that the program had been suffering and they were losing kids partly because they’re going to a new place every summer.”

A short time later, von Borstel was hired as its new director, and she has overseen shifting the camp’s focus more toward its mission. For the first time in 12 years, Montlure is seeing an increase in campers who, von Borstel says, are just happy to be a part of camp, whether that means they are in Pinetop, Greer or at their own church taking in a traveling day camp.

Mike Givler is the communications coordinator for the Synod of the Trinity in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

Support Presbyterian Today’s publishing ministry. Click to give