Introduction
The experience of summer camp is wild. It might be the first time you’ve slept away from your parents, or at the very least, more than a 10 minute drive away. It’s a time where you might be sleeping in bunks beds for the first time, figuring out how to share three shower stalls with 15 other campers, and hanging out with your new BFFs 24/7. You’re participating in activities designed to maximize joy or push your limits, you’re experiencing the Holy Spirit through amazing worship three times a day, and you’re immersed in nature, free from the distractions of school, your family, and you’re (insert favorite tech/toy). Your parents come to pick you up, you hug your new friends one more time promising to stay in touch, and head home only to experience the post summer camp blues.
This feeling of experiencing the best week of your life followed by a deflated sense of self and direction is all too common. And it’s not unique to the type of camp, the role you played in camp (attendee or counselor), or even your age. It’s a difficult time that can manifest in physical and emotional ways, lasting days or weeks. It can leave you forever seeking the ‘high’ of camp, only to fall short, resulting in an inability to live once again in the reality of your everyday life.
Let’s dig in this week as we wrap up our series on Church Camp for Everyone to learn how we can ride out the ‘high’ of camp into a gentle rhythm that can last.
Shannon Barrowcliff & The Teaching Team
Reflection Questions:
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Sit and reflect on your experiences at camp (church, Scouts, space, etc.). What emotions did you have as you finished that experience? How did those emotions impact your return to ‘normal’ life? What could have been done differently to keep any positive emotions you had related to camp while helping you to return the rhythms of everyday life?
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Write a letter to your younger self, your children/grandchildren/nibblings, or anyone who could one day experience church camp. Thinking of our topics (the Bible, Purity Culture, Testimonies, Fun and Games, and Altar Calls/Evangelism), what would you wish that person(s) to hear to help prevent hurt or set them up for a richer relationship with their faith through that camp experience?
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How can you practically create a new rhythm or scheduled cadence to experience God in a more profound way? What resources, boundaries, or support would you need to set up this new experience?
Communal Confession for Vine and Branch
Rejoice, Grace Church this time culminates our Sabbath day, our gift of rest and renewal.
We rejoice in this time for worship and wonder.
God gives us Sabbath as freedom from and freedom for.
God is worthy of worship, our Creator, Healer, and Inspiration.
Hang on Grace Church, we were never promised an easy road.
Jesus bids each and all of us to take up our cross and follow Him.
We have the promises and person of Jesus with us every step of the way.
Because we have this we will endure, even though we struggle.
We have the testimony of those who have gone before us to encourage and enlighten us.
Because we have this we will follow their example and receive their encouragement.
We have been given each other to rejoice with, grieve with, grow with and work with.
Because we have this community and all these things we will not lose heart or be forever discouraged.
Grace be to you now and forever in the Name of our Lord Jesus
Lord’s Prayer
Christ, who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who’ve sinned against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory forever. Amen.
