Summer Camp Highs

The late 90's were an excellent time to be a Christian teenager. There was a huge surge of Christian subculture including music, movies, clothing, and accessories (heavily featuring crosses and W.W.J.D.? embroidery). If you lived it, you know what I'm talking about. Another huge part of that era of life was summer camp.

Summer camp was the highlight of the Christian youth's calendar. From dawn to dusk and well into the night, youth like me would do little else but eat, sleep, pray, play, and worship. It was awesome, and we'd commonly come back from the week super-hyped about whatever the speaker had challenged us to do.

As time wore on, I began to notice a pattern with these weeklong summer camps. The first night was always about getting saved. Night two was God's plan for our lives. Night three was the big picture of how to fulfill that plan. Night four was what we needed to do once we got back to "real life".

Night four was always the worst. While each of the other nights were a glorious escape from reality, night four reminded us only that reality was right around the corner. Most of these sermons centered around two main ideas: that we were about to go back to our normal lives, and that it was probably going to be hard and painful.

Fast forward about fifteen years to March of 2015. I'm on my fourth Key West Bike Ride--a 300 mile journey by bicycle from Fort Myers, Florida to Key West. One afternoon, my dear friend Sean McIntosh and I are running together. We were discussing the "high" of the KWBR and the subsequent "crash" after we returned home. I'm not quite sure how the idea originated, but we realized the formula that makes the KWBR so powerful is: 

Mission and togetherness.

When combined, these two things make for seriously incredible community--unlike anything else I've ever experienced. Maybe you've experienced it too. Like on a short term mission trip, for example. Or a Habitat for Humanity day. Or even in the military. Something happens when people come together to accomplish a cause bigger than any one individual. And it's indescribably powerful.

Mission.

Togetherness.

Back to camp and that fourth night. So much of night four was how difficult and different life would be after we returned home, and how we needed to brace ourselves for the inevitable spiritual crash. It was almost as if the past three days of spiritual ecstasy were looked at with scorn. Anyone can get excited about Jesus at camp... Let's see how you do at home. Or at school. All by yourself. With nobody alongside you.

To be fair, I get the point. Jesus is still enough and we're never truly alone. But maybe we had things backwards. Maybe real life isn't the isolated desperation many of us have grown accustomed to. Maybe camp was amazing precisely because for one week we came together on a mission and believed we could change the world. And we believed it because we saw how we ourselves were changed and empowered by the community around us and the God we worshiped.

Mission together.

If you've been feeling aimless or isolated, ask yourself: Do I belong to a community whose purpose exists outside of itself? Many of us belong to organizations. Many of us feel passionate about a cause or our life's goals. Yet precious few have experienced mission together. Where these two intersect, behold, the kingdom is there in the midst. 

One reason we go to Bulgaria, then, is how few local youth know Jesus. While these students have a strong and clear mission--to reach their classmates--they often miss the critical component of togetherness outside of camp gatherings. There is simply, to few of them and their lives don't intersect on a day to day basis. So, while we go to make disciples, we intend to do so by helping to start youth ministries where students can find these two vital components of kingdom life. Jesus said it was not good for us to be alone. And he also taught that we have a mission to make disciples of the whole world. The two go hand in hand. And where you find them together, there you find the purpose behind Jesus and the church.