What Bugged Me About Junior Camp
First of all, thank you to all who though of me, prayed for me, or left me encouragements or advice over the past week. The camp went relatively well, I thought. At least, I was satisfied with the effort I turned in.
The thing about junior campers (and my cabin was the most junior of all) is that they tend to be both incapable and uninterested in discussing spiritual matters in any great depth. It's a little bit discouraging to put so much energy into a week with no discernible results, but the whole thing went about as well as I could have hoped.
The one thing that I found difficult that week was talking to kids about "the Gospel" - a concept with which I've become so disenchanted that I have difficulty speaking of it without the aid of quote marks. On the one hand, I think that making a one-time decision to identify with Christianity, to ask God to forgive all your sins, and so forth, can be a meaningful - perhaps even life-altering - experience. But on the other hand, I think it's a little dishonest for me to encourage a nine-year-old to make this ostensibly eternal decision merely in the hopes that it will be "a positive experience for them". For that matter, I'm not sure how I feel about anyone prodding kids this age to "accept" Jesus. If I really wanted to, I could make most of them accept just about anything. Who are we trying to kid?
I feel a lot better about evangelizing senior campers, because they're somewhat more capable of making an rational decision. Curiously, it seems that the pray-to-accept-Jesus bit gets a lot more play at junior camps than senior camps. I wonder why that is. I hope it's not just because they're easy targets.
It wasn't a bad week, on the whole. But I don't think I'll be counseling another junior camp any time soon.
Post a Comment
1 comment:
thanks for sharing your experiences.
I had a kid "accept Jesus" this week. It was strange, but good. Like yourself, I'm hesitant to believe that a choice made at such a young age- by itself- must have eternal consequences, but I'm not sure it can hurt either. In my case, the kid comes from a difficult background with guardians who don't think much of
God, and I definitely believe it took courage to identify himself as a Christian, and to continue to apply himself as such (by reading the Bible, finding a church, and so on.)
Also, my kids were probably a bit older than yours, but they certainly did have the ability to discuss theological concept. I had an exceptional (as in, Bible taught and talkative) group of kids but I was amazed at the questions they had.
Even discussing the basic foundations of Christianity are helpful to kids, I think, who often know the buzzwords but have no clue what sin or salvation or Christ-likeness and so on really meant.
The "theme" for my cabin this week was the passage in Isaiah you linked to on your blog recently, where God challenges the Isrealites to have their actions their faith. Seemed to click with the kids. (Of course, if you have serious theological difficulties with the "basics" of Christianity this could present a problem for you.)
This comment is way too long and kind of pointless, but I'm glad jr. camp went ok, and I wish you sucess and peace of mind with older campers.
PS I would imagine that jr. camps get more "accept Jesus" time because staff assumes that older campers have already done so, or at least heard "the Gospel" so often that if they've resisted it until now a simple sermon won't make a difference.
Post a Comment