Some Camp Ideas
- Leadership Training Event/Class/Weekend/Week:
Here the idea is simply to build a leadership team. This could be targeted toward specific church needs and church leadership, or camp leadership and jobs. This might be a great staff development idea or also bring potential staff member campers in and train them in a different specific job each day. - Staff Classes:
Have a class for the staff on the theme. Dunno if there's time for a whole hour class... maybe a 20 min touchpoint session during class times? - Men's/Women's week/weekend:
Specific week of camp for men or women built to culminate in one weekend (late arrivals register for the weekend only... thur-sat) for topics involving gender specific issues. No, not necessarily sex... but definitely a topic to discuss. - Married's week/weekend:
Similar thought as the single gender, just a smaller group and marriage specific issues. Great place to have 2 - 4 on staff licensed counselors. - Christ in Business week/weekend:
Topics for the business professional.
posted by Goode Design at 11:37 AM
3 Comments:
My statement is too general and I appologize for that.
What makes Super Week super? The best part of camp is Kyle, Jesse, and Mark. It's getting to know people better, and getting to know Jesus better. I think Super Week is best for the people who come year after year. Its about realizing christianity is bigger than your church. Its about being taken out of your routine and being coaxed to grow in Christ. Its about making those lasting, meaningful relationships. Some of the people I look up to the most are camp people, campers and staff. Paul Senn, Stephen Lamb, Jay Wood. These guys impacted my life, and made me want to be like them, and they were like Christ.
Don't tell Jay but I once got a haircut just like his.
That's why I love Super Week. And maybe, just maybe, I can be that person for somebody else.
10:21 PM
I agree with Paul, so much of what is meaningful about camp is based on the relationships. Really, that's what Christianity in general should be about too (i.e. "love God and love your neighbor as yourself").
About having a staff class, I think it is a wonderful idea to have some kind of thing where we educate the staff members about the theme BEFORE the week really kicks off. Usually, certain key people (Bible class teachers, etc.) already know what we're trying to get across with the theme, but the rest of staff may not find out until the campers do.
5:59 AM
Okay, Pete, here ya go:
To those who may not know: I am thinking of all of this in terms of if someone were starting a totally new camp. This is NOT directed at PBC, although most of my experience (not that I am any kind of an expert at all) comes from there, and what I am saying could certainly apply to PBC as well as to ANY camp. I’m just trying to help Pete figure some things out. (I like it when people comment on my own blog, so I figure Pete probably does too.) Also, I care about the kids and I agree that the “SuperWeek” model (thinking not of the specific week, but of the core ideas that Pete is trying to boil down to that can be applied to all kinds of different situations) has been proven to positively impact the lives of many children (and adults), myself included. I that Pete’s goal of trying to minister to even more people (outside of PBC) with these principles is a good one. I am being very purposefully careful NOT to criticize anyone or anything having to do with the “SuperWeek” of PBC, so please do not read criticisms into what I write. They are not there. This is all intended to be very positive and constructive, so please try to view it through those lenses.
NOT JUST FOR KIDS (your topic for THIS post): These could be really cool, but you really would have to sort of start from scratch. A camp for married couples would look VERY different from a typical camp for children. I’m not sure how you would go about building these different models, but I think they would be good ideas.
AGES (from the LAST post): There are any number of age ranges and combinations that can be successful, it just depends on your intent. Mixed (broader range) ages are good because it can help to promote a system of leadership and service where the younger ones look up to the older ones and see their example. Also, you can do some pretty interesting things with mixed ages. But, it can be tricky to make sure that everything is always age appropriate. If you want to go deeper on a certain level for their age, separate them, but, like I said, it just depends on what you are trying to do. Personally, I like having a broader age range because, as a child, I was often frustrated that I was put with others my own age and made to participate in activities that I thought were too young for me. No one likes to feel that they are being put in a “box.” However, I’m sure there are other kids who prefer to be with only those their own age. Still, I’d say go for a broader range, although it takes excellent staff and serious planning to pull it off (which, we have seen, is entirely doable). In general, I feel like society is too age-segregated as it is. We need to learn (and teach our children) how to interact well with people of all ages.
FULL CAMP: Although it is easier to have more intimacy with smaller groups (something I value), I think that a goal should be to impact as many kids as possible. Maybe these kids don’t all have to be at the same place at the same time, however. Maybe you build two or three smaller camps than run simultaneously, or if you already have limited facilities, just do the program for more weeks. It is important to have enough room for a good-sized staff, but the children are the most important ones. To make sure there is enough room for campers, have a quota of staff members and don’t take any more once the spots are filled, giving preference to staffers who can commit to be there the whole week. If someone wants to visit, either have a separate sleeping area for visitors (if it is deemed important enough to warrant such a thing—this might be for guest speakers, outside entertainment, or staff members who are coming for a certain day to help with a specific thing, etc.), or just let them get a hotel in town. Like I said, the campers are the priority, so let them take up as many beds as they need, minus the quota for staff.
STAFF CONTINUITY: It wouldn’t work to have ALL of the people switch out each year; that would just be confusing and a level of efficiency would be lost. But, you do need new people to supplement or to relieve the people who have been doing it forever. Just like with campers of different ages, there should be a system of leadership and service among the staff. The older, more experienced ones should teach the younger ones (or “new” ones, as the case may be), so you do have fresh minds and energy coming in, but you don’t lose the core principles that hold everything together. Still, I think there is something positive about having it mainly be the same people from year to year with just a few new/different people coming in and out as the Lord sends them. You shouldn’t turn “new” people away, but you should encourage the “old” people to stay. Also, I think we should encourage campers to come on staff when they are old enough. A “Super” camp should be more than just an organization; it should be a family.
TRAILER: I could be wrong, but I am under the impression that it is already gone. The main point is that a camp needs up-to-date, SAFE facilities, but until there can be renovations, some buildings just have a certain charm.
OWNERSHIP: Whoever is doing what job, they need to fully understand and embrace their role. Whether they take on a different role or whether someone else takes on the role they usually do, the focus should be on service and on doing whatever it takes to bring the kids closer to God and Christ. Sometimes (and I am saying this in response to my OWN attitudes at times, so don’t imagine that I am picking on anyone else in particular), we do need a reality check to help us better align our perspectives with God’s perspective and the perspectives of others. However, if we see that someone ELSE needs a reality check, we need to be VERY careful how we communicate this to them. Sometimes it IS necessarily to have to point out the speck/plank in our brother’s eye, but we need to remember that we probably also have a similar speck/plank in our own eye. I say again, though, the focus needs to be not on our fellow workers’ faults or on ourselves but on Jesus and the kids.
CHANGING WORSHIP: If there is a label on the camp that says “Church of Christ,” you really need to go with what the Churches of Christ are doing with worship. (If you make your own camp that doesn’t have that label, you can do whatever you want.) I won’t say that there is never a place for instruments anywhere in a Church of Christ camp (for several reasons that I will list below), but I still think that this is an area where people need to tread very carefully. We all know that having instruments in worship has not been something acceptable to the Churches of Christ as a whole, BUT it seems that there is a movement going on right now that spans ALL denominations. There is a big push to change or update traditional methods of worship. I don’t think we have seen yet the full ramifications of this movement on the C of C. I know that Keith Lancaster is really pushing to revitalize 4-part harmony. It is entirely possible that this one thing by itself will be enough change for most congregations. However, there are MANY, MANY C of C-ers, especially musicians, who are fed up with feeling like they can’t use their talents for God. Also, many with a great heart for outreach feel that doing ONLY acapella music cripples our efforts for evangelism because the people who walk through the doors won’t stay if there isn’t a band (whether or not this is true, this is what some people are saying). I think that any Church of Christ camp should wait until some of these issues are settled before they try to add instruments to the worship service. We should do what we can to ramp up the acapella singing, and if we want to give people a chance to use instruments it should be in the “proper” (acceptable to people who make a difference) setting. If you want to have instruments in the actual worship service, do it in a camp that is not associated with the C of C (unless some things in the C of C change here eventually). I have already commented on this blog about my opinion of instruments in worship, so I won’t go into it here, but since camps get kids from such a wide range of congregations, it is better to gauge what those congregations would think is acceptable and go with that.
MORE THAN JUST A WEEK: Absolutely. Off the top of my head, some of the things than should transfer over from PBC would be:
*A Sense of Family
*Leadership through Service
*Love for God (obviously)
*A Spirit of Praise
*Crazy Fun
*Romance (I am partly kidding bit because we all know that a big part of the camp experience for many a camper is trying to “hook up.” Some may discourage this practice—or, more specifically, the physical manifestations of the hooking up—BUT the Bible does encourage marrying other Christians. Also, for those of us who are married, we should try to experience that same level of romance with our spouses, where we are hoping beyond hope that the person leading the prayer will tell everyone to take the hand of the person next to them. This does not mean that we should conjure up a false sense of romanticism, but we should still try to be sweet.)
*Deep Friendships
*Helping Each Other In Our Walks with God
*Being Transparent with Our Prayer Requests (as in “Horse’s Head”)
*Sacrificing Our Wants for the Needs of Others
Well, that’s all I have at the moment. I hope I have given you some good stuff to chew on.
-BB
2:17 PM
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