This will be the last post this summer about Youthfront Camp South. If you’re tired of hearing about camp, I apologize. If you’re tired of hearing about my life outside of camp, you’ll just have to wait until next summer ;-)

Tomorrow we share our last day together. Cabin leaders finished up on July 30th and we have had the last week and a half with our eastern orthodox friends renting the place, and now a free youth worker retreat where full-time youth workers and their families are welcomed here to enjoy all aspects of camp and get to hang out for a few days. It’s been a blast.

Last week while conducting an exit interview with one of our staff we began to talk about what is special or different about Youthfront. One of the things he mentioned about summer staff was that it really felt like Youthfront was not a place that tried to force anything on kids or create an unhealthy environment, but rather, one of openness and willingness to engage with kids in whatever place they come here in.

I said “yeah…that’s right”

Of course there is a tension there. We want kids, in some cases, to be confronted by a loving God who sent Jesus to be in relationship with us and be the perfect sacrifice on the cross, bearing the sins of the entire world on his shoulders. This message, does not always come when kids find it most convenient or when they are ready to stop texting or talking with friends and finally listen. Sometimes it breaks in. We want to be receptive to the Holy Spirit and its ability to move above, around, behind, or beside us as we share life with kids here.

But the environment we work to cultivate is super important. 

And we don’t always see results.

But even that is important, because results are what we as adults are looking for. It’s not what kids are searching for. It’s not the kind of work Christ is inviting us into either. But results are tangible, shareable, sellable…

It’s hard to fully describe to anyone what we try to do here. What happens here also takes time to grow in a person before it can even be put to words.

Here’s what we don’t try to do (anymore): 

Create a busy place that has the most energetic and funny speaker, the loudest and craziest worship band, the newest and best attractions, or the ability to set kids on fire to go back to wherever they came from and really do it this time.

Instead, we try to s l o w  k i d s  d o w n .

We’re lucky enough if they can spend a week here in the summer, and if they do make it here amidst all the work responsibilities, family trips, sports conditioning, etc. etc., it’s time for a break. It’s time to slow down and listen. It’s time to be in a place where God is present in a multitude of ways. It’s time to be in a place that doesn’t expect you to look or feel or act a certain way, or give a certain answer, or be able to explain, in 30 seconds, exactly what happened to you while you were here and how you will be different leaving here. 

It’s time to awaken, to what God may actually be inviting each of us into, before we go out and simply serve or do something. 

So we participate in fixed hour prayer, experiential learning, 600 acres of trails and sacred space, stations of the cross, group conversation, worship through music, drawing, collage making, question-asking, and prayer. We hear from a storyteller who helps us to see and interact with God’s story in ways that perhaps we have not understood before. Then kids share with each other what they’re thinking, feeling learning, and the ways that God is speaking to them during these times.

And so no, it’s not a mission trip, though we try to think about our world and how we can participate in the work of restoration, it’s not a camp high, though if kids leave here with a renewed or new passion and zeal we’re glad, and it’s not a place where we have set the dials so kids will have to fit into a narrow window of what it means to be a Christian.

It’s retreat, listening, opening, and asking. It’s finding God where God may be found and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit. It’s a place in kid’s lives where they are enlivened and enriched, sometimes transformed, but always formed.

And here’s what I mean, really, when it comes to real kids.

1) I’m having a Facebook conversation as I type this with a camper who was here two weeks ago. I followed his cabin as they participated in an experiential approach to the stations of the cross together. This young man did not engage at all. While his whole cabin stood around each station and read together, prayed together, and engaged in a hands-on experience, this fellow just sat on a rock and stared at the ground. Other kids started to notice asking…”why isn’t [so-and-so] participating?” to which his cabin leader gracefully replied discreetly “it’s alright…you don’t need to worry about him…” I’m not sure if this kid did anything that appeared to be meaningful while he was here. But I found him towards the end of the week hanging out in the Snack Shack with his cabin leaders and a few other guys, and I just said hi. A few days later he requested to be my friend, and now we chat whenever he’s on Facebook, and he’s asking me about all of the worship songs we sang, and where to find them online. He’s telling me about his passion for art, and has shared one of his sketches with me. I would not be surprised at all if he joins teen staff while in high school, and summer staff in college. I wouldn’t be surprised if he directs this place one day.

2) A couple years ago a girl shared during a response gathering here that she had come to camp a couple years prior and had really been considering suicide that summer. She was in a very dark place, and had made up her mind that the next time her parents were not home she would go through with it. She continued to share that during that summer at least one of her parents was coincidentally home with her each day until she left for camp. During one of the worship times, a line from a song awakened her: “You’ve called me out of death, you’ve called me into life…” She changed her mind. God found her here, and she stood to testify two years later to the riches of God’s grace and restoration. I guarantee you I did not pick that song with her in mind, and I did not notice this transformation take place that night. I only heard about that initial spark years later.

3) This summer, in the midst of sharing a really traumatic life experience with some close friends, I was walking up to the chapel for morning prayer when I noticed a teen staff girl weeping loudly. I stopped for a moment to ask if she was okay, and she told me that a friend of hers had just been admitted to the hospital after attempting suicide and that she was having a hard time believing in a God who could let that sort of thing happen. I shared with her that my friends were going through a really hard time too and that I was having the same difficulty believing. We prayed together for her friend, and talked a little bit more before I left and completely lost it. I remember walking aimlessly, not sure what to do or where to go, weeping, and asking God…”why?” This girl returned a few weeks later to teen staff and thanked me for the time and told me how important it was for her to be able to share from the real place that she was in and not have someone try to fix her or be concerned that she was doubting. Her church environment, unfortunately, did not allow her that kind of space or ability to express herself.

There’s more. And there’s more than just me. Each day cabin leaders are engaging with kids and hearing their stories. Each day our teen staff supervisors are sharing life with teen staff and helping awaken them to the reality of God’s kingdom on earth. Each day we’re sharing meals together, reading scripture, discussing, and praying. There is something very special and unique that happens here, and it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with a community of people that opens itself to be honest and passionate about a relationship with a God who is honest and passionate about us.