Church Camp
04 March 2007
There can be many things that make a good camp... great food, great Bible teaching, inspirational seminars. Hanging out, games etc usually finish well down the list of reasons for going to a camp. I want to question this especially so with smaller style churches (eg. Crossroads 50 or so members).
Quiz night
Gwyd...With the smaller church the emphasis moves away from the individual home groups and Bible Study to the gathering of the church on a Sunday. In effect the Sunday meeting is "church" this is where people meet and "do community". Therefore it is vitally important to get the whole church away and "hanging out" working together as a family (especially on a camp).*
The preacher pumps out the tunes with our band
fellas at lunchNow to our camp just gone. We had five 35-40min sermons and two seminars and most importantly plenty of time to pray, hang out and get to know each other. It was incredibly refreshing and most importantly I felt people really had an opportunity to get to know each other and "hang out".
...and again
The fellas get set for an eating challenge... Gwyd explains the finer details.*In the past our church camps have involved vast seminars and Biblical surveys making your head spin and leave you needing a week to recover. Now while I believe these style of camps are beneficial they don't always achieve the purpose of "doing community" rather they serve to train and equip.
tags christian, church, ministry, ministry tips
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Oh, it's so cool to see all the pics of folks back home! I'm glad the camp went well.
Camp rocked. I think I agree with your assessment about what builds community through camps, too.
Mike never worked at Machine did he? Machine t-shirts will one day reach random-grunge-label status.
Where's Wally: There's a few bloggers hiding in those photos. Can you spot them all?
was the first Christian to work at machine that I know of.
2002 I started.
i liked Nirvana before Kurt commited suicide too.
I heard Mikey Lynch invented grunge culture...
I heard Mikey Lynch was grunge culture.
I heard your mother was grunge culture.
Mikey, I sit, slumped in my computer chair, corrected.
Nah, Mikey's too nice to be grunge.
I vote the best camp moment was when Mikey jamed with the band to fill in time. With me on bass it would have been 10 times better, but you did what you could. :)
I'm from a smaller church too and can definitely recommend going away together. We only went fifteen miles away because some of the elderly folk don't like to stay the night, but it was lovely to all be together to eat, chat, pray and sing.