Well, I’m in Phoenix Arizona and it is going to be hot… really hot. It’s gonna hit 115˚ (for my American friends) or 46˚ (for the rest of the world) this week. But hey, it’s a dry heat. With the heat comes summer camp. Ah yes, a great time to cool off near some water and have a great time of Christian fellowship. 

A few weeks back I asked two questions about camp, “What is summer camp about?” And “Who is it for?” Now I realize that this may sound like an odd question, but I’m not convinced that we have really thought this through all that thoroughly. We tend to limit our thinking to, “I’ve been to camp, my family has been to camp. Camp is great, support camp.”

However, culture is changing and, if I’m not mistaken, we will start to see a bit of a hurt put on the whole camp movement.  The average summer camp isn’t bursting at the seams with volunteers and leaders. We are struggling to fill our positions each summer as we see a decline in numbers in our local church youth groups. There is a ‘trickle down effect’ and it is my worry that we will continue to see a decline in the numbers of volunteers needed to staff our camps and a drop in the numbers of campers themselves. The pool that we draw from is shrinking and less kids in church based youth groups = less camp staff and less campers. (There is one caveat I can add about camp—with the increased busyness of parents, summer camp may well become a viable ‘babysitting club’ option for some youth. This may help to extend to life of summer camp but will significantly decrease its effectiveness.)

With this in mind, it is crucial that we think critically and carefully about