God outside of video screens
Thursday, September 28, 2006
This week's issue of the United Methodist Reporter is focusing on camping and retreat ministries. I think any of us raised in the church can think back to those old Methodist camps and what an impact they had on us. My first experience with camping ministry was at the Wayland Springs Camp in Imboden, Arkansas. No air conditioning, leaky cabins, and 100 degree heat. It was awesome.
If anything, getting kids to engage in camping and retreat ministries is more important now than ever before. With their technological addicition to Playstations, XBox, the Internet, IM, iPods, etc., etc., it is hard to get them to look up and look around for the beauty on God's good earth. The last couple of years that I taught Confirmation Class, we had a rule that there were no cell phones or iPods on our weekend retreat at the end of the Confirmation experience. By their reaction, you would have thought we told them they were going to have to go without food for the weekend.
In my column this week, I talk about why I think getting out of the asphalt jungle is important in our relationship with God. Check it out.
If anything, getting kids to engage in camping and retreat ministries is more important now than ever before. With their technological addicition to Playstations, XBox, the Internet, IM, iPods, etc., etc., it is hard to get them to look up and look around for the beauty on God's good earth. The last couple of years that I taught Confirmation Class, we had a rule that there were no cell phones or iPods on our weekend retreat at the end of the Confirmation experience. By their reaction, you would have thought we told them they were going to have to go without food for the weekend.
In my column this week, I talk about why I think getting out of the asphalt jungle is important in our relationship with God. Check it out.
Labels: Camping Ministries, Digital Bog
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 8:48 PM
2 Comments:
Someday those kids will long for a retreat when their cell phones are taken away for the weekend. Especially when they are in ministry. That was a huge plus for me when I went on a Walk to Emmaus during my senior year of college. No cell phone. No watch. No CD player (iPods had not been invented). It was great to leave all that behind and focus on what is truly important.
In my experience with older Methodists from other parts of the country, particularly Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, camp meetings were an integral part of spiritual formation for their families. It wasn't like in college where August was Camp Meeting Month and the Sr. Pastor wore a golf shirt and khakis. It was a week long event in the summer when all the families stayed together in cabins, ate together, worshipped together, and learned together. I'd love to have that experience of getting away in that setting.
Maybe we could use Wayland Springs! ;-)
Camps are awesome! It IS a way to get kids to realize what is so great about God and nature. I loved camp when I went, and I became a true Christian at a camp. I am a counselor and have been for 2 years at the camp I converted at. I guess you can see I'm pretty passionate about camp! :)
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