Summer is winding down, the vacations are mostly over, school is about to start, and that means also one other thing--summer church camps have all been wrapped up by now.
Before anyone accuses me of being down on all summer church camps, let me say at the outset that I have nothing against the concept of summer camps for children, youth and families. I refuse to be a killjoy and one who thinks a good, recreational time is "downright siiiiiinnnnful." I have been a camper as a youth, a college student and as an adult. I have gone to summer camps as a sponsor. My four daughters go to a church camp every year. My oldest daughter goes as a counselor now. In fact, most of them have been to camps in two or three different states. I am not starting a "ban the church camp" movement.
Children and youth can swim; play softball, volleyball, table tennis, pool, or darts; go fishing, kayaking, canoeing, shoot with bows and arrows (so long they aim at non-human targets); and do a host of other things that all children like to do.
The kind of church camps I prefer are those that have all the above fun activities, but they are also small and Bible-driven. Small, because with bigger crowds come bigger issues and bigger control problems. This goes against the grain of thinking that bigger is always better, but I know from personal experience that bigger can mean bigger headaches. Often goes unreported at these larger camps are all kinds of sexual misconduct, because if the word gets out what really goes on there, donations may dry up or heads will roll or a certain well-maintained prestigious reputation is damaged.
The lady who cuts my hair is a 70 year old plus Church of Christ lady. I have always heard that bartenders and hairdressers hear and know everything. I don't know about bartenders, but I do know it to be the case about hairdressers. People will often confide in them before they confide in anyone else. This lady has more than once come to the aid of my mom, now deceased, when this lady told me some things I needed to know about my mom, who was afraid to tell me but told this hairdresser friend instead.
Recently this lady, when she was cutting what little hair I have left, told me something that was not news to me. She said, "Chris, you would not believe all the stories I have heard over the years of girls who have lost their virginity at __________ (she named the camp)." The expression "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" should not be applied at any time to camps that identify themselves as Christian.
I am not saying that no bad things can happen or will happen at a smaller church camp setting (the human flesh is what it is), and I am not saying that nothing but bad things happen at bigger camps, but what I am saying is that the likelihood of things getting out of hand can occur with greater frequency at bigger summer church camps where there is more free time and much less supervision.
I also want a camp to be Bible-driven, rooted in good, solid theology. I just happen to believe that EVERYTHING the church is about should be based on sound doctrine. I can't find anywhere in Scripture that gives us the license to do anything for anybody in the church at anytime that is anything less than Bible-centered. If children and youth can learn biology, chemistry, algebra, trig and world history at school, then why can't they learn theology even at a church camp? Why give them milk when they should be able to eat meat? Why do we shortchange our children at church and at camp? Now we can make Bible and theology understandable on their level, and all of that does not have to be boring either.
I want the Bible taught and preached to my daughters when they go to camp, and that happens every year in our case. They memorize Scripture, they hear mission stories, they have regular devotions, and I love it all. Have fun activities, but also be serious about God and His Word.
If you really want to see, though, a good reflection of where contemporary American Christianity is, all you need to do is attend a summer youth church camp. In many cases I would venture to guess it is heavy on the music, light on any biblical teaching/preaching, major on the fun stuff, and get kids worked up in an emotional frenzy. Church camp is an extension of church life after all.
One year I talked a good friend, a parent of some youth in our church, into attending church camp as a sponsor. He was blown away by what he witnessed first hand. This friend had his eyes opened in a big time way. (As pastor of that church over 18 years ago, I had no choice but to be there at camp for some of the week. I began to dread it each year.) On one occasion, right before the main evening service was to begin, they were playing music videos on the big screens. I was reading my Bible and not watching the music videos, because to put it plainly, there were many things in those videos that young people or anybody should not be viewing, especially at a Christian camp. He came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and asked me if I was watching the music videos. I told him I wasn't, and he in disgust said there were many sexually suggestive things going in those videos. I told him simply, "______ (his name), welcome to ____________ (name of church camp)."
Later on that week he and I had a good talk about other things, and he said to me that he figured out why there was a majority of "decisions" made during the altar call on Thursday night of camp week. From everything I had heard, over 75% of all decisions that are made that week from morning and evening services are made during the Thursday night service on a consistent basis every year. He told me that by Thursday the kids are all worn down physically and emotionally from a fun-packed week that they are simply putty in the hands of any effective presentation, no matter if it were biblically on target on not.
As sponsor during one week one summer, I had to counsel some of those who came forward during the invitation altar call. Every pastor who was back there doing just that were fit to be tied, because in nearly every case the children had no idea why they came forward. The speaker did not use the Bible in his sermon, but instead told one scary or funny story after another. We were being told in the back room by the authorities of this camp that we had to get the names of all those children down on a card, so they can get reported as being saved during the week. The total number of decisions would be impressive for wide-scale publication purposes.
One pastor in the state who preached at a summer youth camp one time told a group of us pastors that the lodge where he stayed on the campgrounds was the lodge regularly used by the guest preacher for the week. On the inside of the door was a chart that had the number of decisions posted for the previous weeks. He said the subtle message was "you got to match last weeks' results at least, or beat them preferably."
It does not matter if a camp is small or big in this case. If a summer church camp relies on "decisionism" evangelism, then it will pull every rabbit out of the hat to get kids to make a decision, even if the children have no idea what is going on, nor can they explain it 30 minutes later to anybody else what they have done, let alone have any fruit to show for it just 30 days later. But we are told all that does not matter that much, since the number of decisions is what matters most.
Jesus told us to make disciples not make decisions, though. It's amazing how the early church did it without our methodologies--just imagine, we might foolishly think, if Jesus and the apostles had at their disposal such things as extended altar calls, "we love Jesus, yes, we do; we love Jesus, how about you?" rah-rah sessions, repeat-after-me "sinner's prayers", and other psychological ploys.
It is easy to get people worked up, and that is clearly evidenced at a football game, a music concert, a political rally, or a highly-charged summer youth camp. All it takes is a leader with some imaginative charisma, and there is no telling what a crowd will do. Mob psychology can do all sorts of wonders.
But there is a huge difference between getting people WORKED UP, and Philippians 2:12-13, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, WORK OUT your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who WORKS IN you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."
Jesus never said that you will know the true disciples by how loud they can cheer in a mob situation, but you will know them by their fruit. 1 John says over and over again that the way we tell who are those who are truly regenerated, born of God, is by such things as loving the brothers, loving God, obeying His commands, living the Christian life day in and day out. Walking an aisle, filling out a card, repeating a canned prayer, saying "I love Jesus yes I do" at the top of one's lungs, physically nailing your name on a cross, or any other regular camp ritual simply did not make the cut in the list of 1 John identifiable features of a born again person.
Jesus warned and scolded the Pharisees in their outreach methodologies of making their converts "twice the sons of hell." (Matthew 23:15) Once the son of hell by nature they are children of wrath, which all of us were at one time, and twice, by giving them false assurance they are all right with God simply because they did A, B and C. At church on Sundays or at summer youth camps or at other events, if we are not Bible-driven, we can be guilty of the same as the Pharisees. We can not shake this off as some insignificant matter. It is never the right thing to try to usurp the role of the Holy Spirit, either in conviction of sin (John 16:8) by getting people to make decisions with high-pressured or emotionally-charged tactics or later in giving these same people an assurance of their salvation (Romans 8:16) by telling folks they are saved simply because they did our prescribed A, B and C.
We can do our prescribed A, B and C, and God grades us with an F, because only the Holy Spirit can bring conviction of sin (a necessity for every person's conversion) and assurance of salvation (a necessity for every person's sanctification).
My daughters have been after me for the longest to find them a biblically solid devotional workbook they can use in their daily Bible reading. I have called around and asked the experts in the publishing field, and there are none of those workbooks to be found, at least what my girls are looking for.
If I could write one myself, not just for my girls, but for all the post-summer campers at every church camp everywhere, I at least know the title I would use--Will You Love Jesus After the Cheers Die Down?
One of my instructors at seminary put it this way: It is not how high you jump that counts, but how straight you walk after you hit the ground.
Yours in Christ,
Chris
