Youth Camps—Tradition or Life Change?

Classes are over and it’s summer season in the Philippines! For many a youth leader this means a camp or a retreat. Here’s an article (based on a book by Chap Clark) touching on that very topic, taken from our Connection Points workbook–a follow-up workbook to our seminars.

Spending time with youth is essential for a quality youth ministry. One way to spend a quantity of quality time with youth is through a camp or retreat experience. Consider your weekly youth meetings where you spend about one and a half hours with the youth. Over a one-year period this means you will spend approximately 78 hours with your youth. Now consider a 4-day youth camp where you spend 18 hours a day with the youth (because who sleeps much at a youth camp?). At this camp you will get to be with the youth for 72 hours—almost as much as a whole year of youth meetings! This tells me that youth camps are great investments for our ministries.

Most of you are probably doing some type of youth camps. But we have to ask ourselves some key questions about our current camp strategies and look at some new options to consider for camps. As you read this article evaluate what you currently do for youth camps and look for some new ideas.
We always want to be leaders with a plan in mind and a purpose that we are trying to accomplish. But let us begin camp planning with a question: Do we plan our camps with the real daily needs of our youth group in mind? Or are our camps planned for the sake of tradition, simply because we have always had a youth camp? For instance, your youth group is not the same today as it was two years ago. You have different people and different needs involved. Some of groups need a camp to build better fellowship among Christians, while others need to have a camp for evangelism. Others may need a camp for discipleship and mentoring purposes. These needs change from year to year for each group, so the purpose, activities, events and the camp schedule need to change to meet the needs of the group.

One way to make sure your camp is well-planned to meet the needs of your youth is to survey the leadership team and the youth themselves about the weak areas of the group. Ask them what needs to be focused on? Fellowship, unity, outreach, personal holiness, discovering their spiritual gifts, etc…

Another key element to consider once you have discovered the ministry area that the camp will impact is to set some specific goals (remember-who, what, where, when, why, how many). Involve the youth group in this process and it will begin to excite them about the upcoming camp.

Preparation cannot be left out of any discussion on camps. Obviously you as leaders need to be prepared. This includes all of the details of budgeting, scheduling, music, dramas, etc…You need to create this camp as if it is a once in a lifetime event for the youth (for some of them it will be). How can you make this camp like a wedding that introduces the beautiful bride to the groom? Our camps should bond together youth and Christ in an intimate, once in a lifetime way. Plan every detail in a way to lift up Christ to the young people.

Promotion is a critical part of a camp as well. We need to make sure we advertise in advance and make sure every young person has a good opportunity to be involved. Why spend months planning four or five days of your life, if you are not actively recruiting your young people to participate in the greatest event your youth will probably experience all year long? Don’t find yourself at the end of the camp week wishing more people had attended. Let youth know up front the fun you plan on having. Ask youth from last year’s camp to give a testimony of how much they enjoyed camp.

Programs and activities are essential for any good camp. We do not have time to discuss a full schedule here and in truth you need to plan your own schedule based on the camp’s focus and the youth’s needs. Some programming tips include the need for recreation and activities and to consider the area of relationships between camp counselors (youth team leaders) and the campers.

Recreation, fun and exercise are good for the soul. But even these can be used for eternal purposes at camp. Please do not just throw out a ball and say to the youth have fun for four hours until supper. Our fun activities should be planned as well as we plan our teaching. In fact, organized, group-based fun can open the door to a young person’s heart and allow Christ to enter in a new way. Choose games and fun activities that build up and do not tear down (be careful with competitions). If you use competition, play down the losing aspect and encourage a “we are all winners attitude”.   Camps are based on people, so I want to ask you to consider a counselor (leadership team member) centered approach, instead of a speaker or preacher centered approach. We know that youth need relationships. In fact, we all thrive on relationships. God created us to be in a relationship with Him and others. During our youth camps we are not there for the programs’ sake, but for the individual needs of the youth to be understood and met with the personal love of Christ. For this to occur we need to have leaders who are willing to be incarnational (meeting youth where they are) in the camp experience. We do not need leaders who eat by themselves, plan by themselves and sleep in separate locations from the campers. We need leaders who will meet youth where they are–leaders who are there to lay down their life, their titles and their comforts for the sake of the youth. I believe this is what Jesus would do at a youth camp.

What does a counselor-centered camp look like? First, you need to divide your camp into smaller groupings (preferably one leader to about 8 youth). This organizing should occur prior to your camp (as much as possible), because you want to train your counselors in how to be a good counselor at camp. This means that the counselor/group leader’s role is to be the pastor in a sense for the group they are entrusted to.

Everything the camper does in the camp should be focused on their camp counselors. This means that meals should be arranged so the counselors sit with their group of eight. The activities should even be planned so that they can be on teams together. The groups should be encouraged to sit together in the large worship meetings. Most importantly you should arrange times of discussion where the counselors talk with their group at least once at night before everyone goes to sleep. This can be the most powerful time of ministry. Here the counselor is not there to teach, but to get the youth to do something with what they have heard from the main teachers/preachers. This requires that you develop discussion questions for the group leaders or ask them to create their own questions for the small group (we call this cabin time). I recommend that you not only train the counselors (small group leaders) ahead of time, but that you have a meeting time each day at camp to encourage these leaders. Let them ask the main teachers what they are teaching on so they can prepare good group questions.

The counselors should also plan to meet with each person in their group for a one-on-one time throughout the camp. This allows for individual attention and ministry. If the camp is more than three days long the leaders should meet all alone with each camper in their group two times to gauge the spiritual progress throughout the week. My biggest fear about a large youth camp is that a young person comes with a burden hoping that God would meet their need and they do not find someone who can lead them to God’s answers for the need. The leaders who spend focused times with the youth will see great results (not only at the camp), but as they return from the mountaintop camp experience.

The budget, food and the teaching/preaching program alone do not measure a great youth camp. Great camps occur when young people experience God face to face. At camp, youth can see God through nature, relationships with counselors, and other youth. They can hear and respond to God’s message to them in His Word in an environment that is free from the clutter of every day life. Does this description remind you of your last youth camp?