church camp

I am a leader for the soon-to-start church camp. We have roughly 200 kids registered. A few more girls than boys. We have a full slate of volunteers for the girls and we are desperately understaffed for the boys. We have a contingency plan, phone calls, email, etc for recruiting.

But what I really want to know is: How is it that the Bishop can preach about professions of faith being necessary for the survival of the church and neither he nor any of his District Superintendents or Conference Directors (9 men and 2 women) are volunteers at camp?

Our church camp is a great opportunity to shape the faith of young people so they will, with integrity, reach a point of making a profession of faith. Our church is wringing its hands over the lack of young clergy. Maybe those young people were children who went to church camp where there were no clergy to set an example and be available for conversation. Maybe those kids needed some one other than the clergy in the home church to help them recognize God's call on their lives -- not just as future clergy -- but as baptized Christians living out their faith each and every day. Sometimes camp is a place where God is heard differently and clergy can help shape the faith of a young person in a way that doesn't happen on Sunday morning in "church" clothes. And, maybe, a bishop or district superintendent could live out ministry for 5 days with a bunch of kids for one small shot that God could whisper the name of a kid at church camp and that kid would experience a transformation.

or maybe not