The Logic of Camp in Christian Education

Introduction

Christian summer camp has long been a place of educational innovation and theological exploration, though the scholarly community has often overlooked or dismissed the wisdom camp has to offer. In a time of dramatic changes in all levels of education, particularly the increased use of online and distributed learning, the highly experiential and relational camp model has become increasingly novel and important for consideration. Though the early camping movement was well regarded among Christian educators, in more recent years it has been frequently dismissed as theologically shallow or little more than fun and games. Findings from The Confirmation Project, however, shed new light on the critical role camp can play in the ecology of Christian education and faith formation.

The Confirmation Project (2014–2017) was a multi-denominational study seeking to explore the extent to which confirmation and equivalent practices were effective for strengthening discipleship in young people. ¹ The five participating denominations, all of which practice infant baptism, included the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The project surveyed nearly 7,000 confirmation leaders, students, and parents from more than 3,000 congregations across the United States, resulting in a nationally representative data pool for the participating denominations. Researchers also traveled to 24 sites gathering qualitative data on educational ministries. The data collection included surveys of camp directors from more than 300 camps, and five of the site visits were summer camps or conference centers. These elements helped make the project the first major nationwide youth ministry study to take seriously the role of camp in Christian formation.

Camp was integrated so fully into The Confirmation Project, in part, because of the findings of a predecessor study on confirmation practices in Europe. The study spanned seven different countries, among which confirmation students in Finland and Sweden stood out from the others in terms of overall satisfaction with the program and ongoing involvement in Christian practices. The factor that most differentiated these programs from the others was that the majority of confirmation instruction in both Finland and Sweden took place at summer camp. The study authors note, “Confirmands from groups that have been to camp three nights and more, score higher on almost all indexes on confirmand experience.” ² Members of the American team traveled to Finland to hear about the European project findings and participate in a Finnish confirmation camp. The programs were remarkably similar to summer camp in the United States. The major difference noted was the disconnect in Finland between the camp experience and church engagement. While Christian camps in the United States are often strongly connected with congregational ministries, the camp attendees in Finland regarded the church as a sort of spiritual storehouse that offered resources that were “valuable, but they are for occasional use only.” ³ As church engagement continues to decline in the United States, reclaiming the logic of camp in Christian education can help ensure that vibrant faith practices remain central to daily living and the church is not relegated to a spiritual storehouse.

A Brief History of Summer Camp and Christian Education

Summer camp began in 1880s New England as a way to get young people, particularly boys, out of the squalor of urban living and the perceived feminization of the home for a chance to learn and grow in participatory, natural environments. The very first camps included Christian programming and educational sessions. The expansion of the summer camp movement closely followed the rise in compulsory education and elimination of the summer school term. The movement gradually gained momentum across the country, tied closely to the back-to-nature movement and muscular Christianity, while building on the success of the highly relational youth societies, such as Christian Endeavor and the Epworth League. Christian agencies, notably the YMCA, were early adopters of the camp model, recognizing in the extended experience away from home an opportunity for evangelism. Denominational groups quickly followed suit in the early twentieth century, promoting small congregational camp outings and large youth conferences, oftentimes on the sites of old camp meeting grounds. Summer camps were serving more than a million campers each year by the 1920s. ⁴

As the summer camp movement expanded, so too did its organization and influence, particularly among educators. The camp model fit particularly well with John Dewey’s notion of progressive education, which emphasized experiential learning, critical thinking, and social interaction over pedagogies focused on direct instruction. Dewey’s student L.B. Sharp was highly influential in promoting the small-group, decentralized model of camping ministry over and against the large-group conference model, and he also distinguished himself as the first person to earn a PhD focused on camping education. ⁵ In 1922, former Harvard president Charles Eliot asserted, “The organized summer camp is the most important step in education that America has given the world.” ⁶

Summer camps continued expanding through the 1930s and 1940s, and they saw a virtual explosion in the post-World War II years, coinciding with the rise of the Baby Boom generation, the ubiquity of public secondary education, and the expansion of Protestant church attendance. During this period, the camp model was largely embraced among Christian educators. Ensign and Ensign asserted, “Church camping is an integral part of the total program of Christian education in our churches, and camping contributes unique learning opportunities that cannot be duplicated in the church or church school.” ⁷

The professionalization of youth ministry in the 1980s and 1990s had a curious effect on perceptions of summer camp. Youth ministry scholars began forming academic guilds and seeking recognition among their peers in academia. Youth ministry historian Mark Senter notes, “Perhaps the most frequently repeated criticism of Protestant youth ministries at the beginning of the twenty-first century was the accusation that they were merely fun and games.” ⁸ Many youth ministry scholars responded to this critique by differentiating certain youth ministry practices from other aspects of ministry that they argued were more theologically grounded. In this way, camp was frequently scapegoated and relegated to the fun and games wing of youth ministry. So it is that scholar and practitioner Mark Devries differentiates his “sustainable youth minister” from what he pejoratively refers to as “the camp counselor youth minister.” ⁹ Duffy Robbins, similarly, uses camp as a negative example of youth ministry that does not last: “If we’re building students whose faith is dependent primarily on a weekly skit, a creative Bible study, or a summer camp that is ‘the best week of your life,’ then we’re building Christians whose faith simply won’t sustain them beyond the high school years.” ¹⁰ Andrew Root offers a critique of the church youth workers who find great meaning in summer camp, saying, “They will be tempted to believe the enclosed emotional experiences of camp can be transferred directly to the day-to-day life of the church-community. But so often they cannot.” ¹¹ Karen-Marie Yust notes that camp directors often emphasize camp as a “mountaintop experience” but fail to demonstrate that it is much more than a “spiritual high” that quickly fades. She also critiques Christian camps that compartmentalize religious teachings from the regular camp activities, asserting that they were little more than secular camps “with a spiritual gloss.” ¹² These heavy critiques of Christian camping among highly respected youth ministry scholars have contributed to a general degradation of a vitally important ministry of the church.

More than Fun and Games

One of the clearest findings of the Confirmation Project was that camp is much more than fun and games. It is an integral part of Christian education programs across the country and one of the most clearly effective practices for forming faith in young people. Importantly, the findings of the Confirmation Project corroborate the findings of a growing body of research indicating the positive outcomes of Christian summer camps.

In the survey of more than 300 camp directors, respondents rated the importance of various aspects of the camp experience. It was clear that they felt fun was important, with 92% rating it very or extremely important. Significantly, however, they rated five other aspects more important than fun. Unsurprisingly, number one was participant safety. It is instructive to note the four priorities that fall in-between safety and fun for camp directors. These included: fellowship/community building, self-esteem/character building, facilitating participants’ experiences of or encounters with God, and individual faith formation. In the eyes of directors, camp is much more than fun and games. In fact, the fun of camp is a key pedagogical tool aimed at enhancing the more important priorities. Activities that are novel and enjoyable are encoded more deeply into long-term memory. Interpersonal neurobiologist Daniel Siegel notes, “For memory, arousal leads to enhanced encoding via increased neuronal plasticity and the creation of new synaptic connections and therefore increased likelihood of future retrieval.” ¹³ Furthermore, adolescent brains in particular have a propensity for “novelty seeking, social engagement, increased emotional intensity, and creative exploration,” all four of which are hallmarks of the camp experience and tied closely to the priorities identified among camp directors. ¹⁴

Yust’s observation that many Christian camps paint a spiritual gloss on what otherwise amounts to secular activities does not seem to apply to the camps of the Confirmation Project. These camps prioritized religious experience and faith formation ahead of fun. The directors also overwhelmingly agreed (92%) that faith formation and Christian practices should be incorporated into all aspects of camp life. During the site visits, this incorporation of faith and practice was abundantly apparent. Camper groups processed diverse activities using faith connections and biblical narratives, including a kayaking adventure on Lake Tahoe under the full moon that pondered the majesty of God’s creation, a pirate-themed game night at Camp Lutherlyn in western Pennsylvania that included Wor-argh-ship, and a camp-wide orienteering course that doubled as a Bible-themed scavenger hunt at Camp Stronghold in northern Illinois. A young girl at Camp All Saints, an Episcopal camp in northern Texas, summed it up: “You’re getting a connection to God the whole time. Whether you’re playing a silly game, he’s there. Or when you’re in worship, he’s there. When you’re just talking with your friends, he’s there.” These combinations of novel activities and social engagement with intentional faith teachings have powerful learning potential.

Unlike the camp programs observed in Finland, these ministries did not stand apart as isolated enclaves of participatory learning. Most camp leaders saw their camps as partnership ministries with affiliated congregations. The director of Camp All Saints summed up his philosophy of camp activities: “I’d like to believe that everything we do is geared towards giving young people tools they can go back to their church with.” In the survey, 78% of directors agreed that camp worship and programs were designed to get campers more excited about and engaged in their home congregation. Most camps also incorporated local clergy members in various aspects of programming, including leading camp worship services (54%), ministering to summer staff members (49%), and visiting while congregational members attended camp programs (52%).

Camp was a common, though far from ubiquitous, experience of student survey participants. Nearly half of respondents (47%) had been to overnight summer camp at least once. Camp attendance was most commonly a confirmation requirement for Lutheran programs, which were the only programs studied that frequently spanned the summer months. About 20% of Lutheran programs required attendance at confirmation camp, while another third included camp as a program option. For most confirmation programs, camp attendance was not a requirement but was, rather, an element of the larger ecology of Christian education that included congregational programs, faith in the home, and partnership ministries like camps.

Outcomes of a Christian Summer Camp Experience

The research team measured growth in terms of three aspects of students’ faith lives, summarized as believing, behaving, and belonging. The believing index included survey items asking agreement level with specific belief statements (e.g. Jesus is risen from the dead). The behaving index combined survey items asking about frequency of religious practices (e.g. personal prayer) with willingness to engage in service to the church and world. The belonging index was designed to assess the sense of connection and belonging participants felt with a Christian congregation (e.g. If I have personal problems, there is someone in my congregation I could turn to).

Students who reported having a positive and impactful experience at a summer camp in the previous year were significantly higher than their peers in all three measurements of faith formation: believing (t_213.354 = 4.013, p<.001), behaving (t₄₀₃ = 3.816, p<.001), and belonging (t_168.488 = 3.431, p<.01). Additionally, increased frequency of camp attendance correlated with increases in all three faith measurements. Those who attended once had significantly higher scores than those who never attended. Those who attended multiple times showed higher values than those who had attended once, and those who attended four or more times had even higher scores. This positive correlation does not prove that camp experiences caused higher faith, since it is possible that students with higher faith were simply more likely to attend camp. However, regression analyses identified camp as one of several factors having significant, independent effects.

Using OLS regression, the research team identified five factors that had clear effects on the confirmation students’ overall faith in terms of believing, behaving, and belonging (see Table 1). The most significant factor, by far, was faith in the home, which was measured according to how important faith was to the members of a participant’s household. The other factors that had significant positive effects included frequency of attending a church youth program, frequency of attending vacation Bible school, frequency of Sunday worship attendance, and frequency of camp attendance. In all four cases, as frequency increased, so did the faith measurements. Retreats, mission trips, Sunday school attendance, and confirmation programs had inconsistent or no significant effects in these models. These independent effects offer strong evidence that camp experiences were causal factors in increased faith measurements. However, it is also evident that camp did not stand on its own. To the extent that camp experiences made significant contributions to Christian education programs, they did so in partnership with multiple congregational ministries and faith in the home.

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Table 1.

Regression models for three faith measurements from the Confirmation Project, youth ages 10–19.

	Believing	Behaving	Belonging
Full-model statistics	F (15, 1385) = 20.204, p < .001R2=.180	F (14, 1459) = 43.075, p < .001R2=.292	F (15, 1395) = 20.866, p < .001R2=.183
Control variables	t value
Gender	–.127	1.946	–.356
Race	–2.224*	–1.832	–.336
Age	–2.582*	–2.510*	–1.662
Region	–.524	–.501	–.027
Denomination	1.873	3.022**	–1.938
Congregation size	.906	–1.205	–.566
Test Variables	t value
Faith in home	11.354***	10.929***	10.566***
% Confirmation complete	1.200	1.096	.218
Camp attendance frequency	4.211***	2.635**	1.603
Retreat attendance frequency	–3.284**	.907	–1.463
VBS attendance frequency	3.336**	4.412***	2.918**
Mission trip attendance freq.	–.530	3.576***	1.115
Sunday school attendance freq.	–.699	2.960**	–2.203*
Youth program attendance freq.	2.644**	8.113***	5.970***
Sunday worship attendance freq.	2.373*	–	4.165***

*indicate that the t-value was significant at the level p < .05 (*), p < .01 (**), or p < .001 (***).

These findings corroborate other recent research on Christian camping ministries. The Effective Camp Research Project found some evidence of a camp high that faded after the camp experience, but there was also growth measured at camp that lasted through a follow-up survey two-to-three months later. The camp high was associated with cognitive belief statements and increased positivity, while the lasting impacts included greater self-confidence, an increased sense that faith was relevant in the world, and increased spiritual practices, such as family devotions, personal prayer, and church attendance. These findings suggested “that the Christian camp experience facilitated living the Christian faith (orthopraxy) more than knowing the right things (orthodoxy).” ¹⁵ Although the Effective Camp Research Project only tracked participants three months after camp, secondary analysis of the National Study of Youth and Religion dataset isolated impacts that lasted at least five years after a religious camp experience. Again, these lasting impacts were not associated with cognitive belief but, rather, with increased communal religious practices, including “frequency of religious service attendance, college campus ministry participation, and participation in religious small groups.” ¹⁶

Together, these research projects shed substantial light on the unique contributions of summer camping ministries to Christian education programs. Camp is designed to be supplemental, not comprehensive, in terms of Christian education. The lasting outcomes are not associated with the content of faith but, rather, with the practices and attitudes that sustain faith in the long term. The style of education modeled at camp offers valuable wisdom for other educational ministries, many of which focus on content over process.

The Camp Model

Both the Confirmation Project and the Effective Camp Research Project identified characteristics that make Christian summer camp a unique educational ministry. According to the Effective Camp Research Project, the five fundamental characteristics of camp are that camp is relational, participatory, unplugged from home, safe space, and faith-centered (Fig. 1).¹⁹ These characteristics functioned in dynamic interplay at the sites visited in the Confirmation Project.

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Figure 1.

The Christian camp model.

Relational was the most common characteristic mentioned in focus groups with campers of the Confirmation Project. Campers lived in close community with their cabin mates, sharing meals, living space, recreation time, and some of their most personal thoughts during evening devotions or group Bible study. In these environments, camp participants built trusted relationships with one another in a very short period of time. “We’ve only known each other for a couple days, but I feel like we’re family,” marveled one boy from Lutherlyn, as his cabin mates nodded their agreement. These trusted relationships went beyond the peer groups to include the cabin counselors, who were almost exclusively college-age emerging adults, and adult mentors who accompanied the campers from their home congregations. Every one of the adult mentors interviewed expressed joy and gratitude at the opportunity to build closer relationships with the young people at camp.

These relationships were built around shared experiences in the highly participatory context of the camp environment. At all four sites, participants learned to trust one another, in part, by participating in trust-building activities on a low-ropes or high-ropes challenge course. These provided physical obstacles and puzzles that could be overcome only through teamwork and reliance on others. Learning was not a passive reception of knowledge through direct instruction. Instead, every learning activity was designed to be participatory and experiential. Participants learned the different parts of worship by planning and leading worship alongside their fellow campers. One girl at Camp Stronghold said about the participatory Bible studies, “When you read a Bible, sometimes you don’t really understand it because they use different words and stuff than a kids’ Bible would. And the activities just really help so you understand it.”

One of the most important and recognizable characteristics of camp is that it is unplugged from home. “You’re your own responsibility,” explained a girl at All Saints, “because your parents aren’t there to tell you to do this and to do that.” The separation from home provided them a novel context, opportunities to take ownership of their beliefs, and an extended amount of time for reflection. Typical confirmation classes in the Confirmation Project consisted of one-to-two hours of time crammed into already busy schedules, which often included sports or music rehearsals, homework, school, and social obligations. The camp context offered time and space away from hectic schedules and interruptions. Incidents that might be considered interruptions in a classroom context became teachable moments at camp. Topics discussed at morning Bible study came up organically and informally on an extended hike at Camp Stronghold and lying in a dewy field under the starry sky at Lutherlyn. These intensely participatory environments were not only set apart from the stresses of the home environment. They were also literally unplugged from electronic devices and social media, which opened up new possibilities for social interaction and creative play. A camper at Lake Tahoe reflected, “Usually when you’re at home, you’re spending time with technology. Here, you’re spending time talking to each other and not on screens.” Interestingly, nearly every focus group participant commented that they enjoyed having a technology-free environment.

Participants also characterized camp as a safe space, where they were free to ask questions without judgment and be themselves in ways that some felt unable to at home or school. One boy at Lutherlyn explained, “Back at home it’s different, because here you don’t have to be someone else. Like, if you’re praying here, no one’s gonna really judge you about it.” The trusted environment of camp allowed many campers to stretch outside their comfort zones and to take healthy risks. These included physical risks, like participating in a high-ropes course element 40 feet off the ground, and emotional or spiritual risks, like praying out loud for the first time or offering a personal testimony. Importantly, all of these challenging and emotionally risky activities were challenge by choice, meaning no participant was forced into an experience. The profound feelings of safety were carefully nurtured over the course of the week.

All of these characteristics of summer camp were combined in a faith-centered environment. These camps looked and felt like Kenda Dean’s characterization of camp as a “faith immersion” experience similar to a language immersion. ¹⁷ In these intensely immersive environments, young people learned the language of faith and what it looks like to act like a Christian day after day. This repetition and relational faith immersion finally had a substantial impact on a Lutherlyn camper who was in her third consecutive year at confirmation camp: “She said that she had always believed in a God ‘out there,’ but she was finally getting to understand ‘this Jesus thing’: that God is relatable and accessible.” ¹⁸ Camp as Christian education did not provide an opportunity to learn more about God as much as it provided space to encounter the living God in new ways, practice faith expressions, and reconsider long-held beliefs in the context of caring Christian community.