"Let me encourage you"

Posted in Family

Nicole Callen is a long-time Uniting Church SA member who currently works in family ministry at Unity Hill Uniting Church and as a pastoral care support worker at a primary school.

Nicole reflected on her experiences of church camps for the August/September print edition of New Times. The fantastic stories she shared were too lengthy to be included in their entirety in print; New Times online has published the full reflections in three parts.

Part Three: What is your current involvement with camps in the Uniting Church?

I have heard it said that church camps are just too much work to organise.

I have heard it said that the camps usually run at a loss.

I have heard it said they are not worth doing because attendance is often low in terms of the whole congregation.

Please let me encourage you. These setbacks should never diminish the value of church camps for those that do attend. God uses these camps in ways that we could never even hope to plan for.

Our most recent congregational church camp had a focus on spiritual disciplines. We called it “Spiritual Bootcamp”. During the day we had teaching times for the adults and the kids. I worked with the children, and we learned about the same things the adults were learning. We created prayer walks in the sand, we created discipline dials, we worked on memory verses, and we even had solitary time (for about 5 minutes). It blew me away to have the kids describe how they sensed God around them when they sat quietly. These rowdy, busy kids had the opportunity to sit on a rock or a bit of sand and experience God in a tangible way.

We also shared in non-structured free time. At one point I paused on the veranda and observed the activities of those around me. I saw kids mucking around in the seaweed with youth and non-parental adults. I saw a game of cricket on the beach. I saw a game of Scrabble being played by a grandmother, a 10 year old and a 6 year old. I saw parents with a cuppa chatting with one another. I saw a community caring for one another.

I am also involved in the organising of KCO on the Eyre Peninsula. KCO is much smaller on the EP than in Adelaide – at least in regard to numbers – but it has the same impact.

We usually have around 100 kids in dorms at Thuruna campsite near Tumby Bay. The groups come from Port Lincoln, Cummins, Poonindie, Driver River, Cleve, Tumby Bay, Yelanna, as far north as Kimba and other towns around the Peninsula. There are a lot of kilometres between these towns meaning many groups travel long distances to get to KCO.

When the kids come together at camp their eyes are open to the size and spread of the Uniting Church.

Many of those who attend are not connected with the local church but are invited along for the camp experience. For some it is the first time they have heard the awesome news of Christ. For others, like my own kids, it is a place where they can be encouraged in their faith and can see that they are not alone on their journey. It provides an environment where they are encouraged to show, question and develop their faith.

KCO on the EP is also a great time of encouragment for the children and family workers in more remote areas. Each church is responsible for a particular part of the program – the Saturday night entertainment, Sunday morning beach games or Saturday afternoon fun. Each group also brings a couple of craft activities for craft time. On the Saturday night, after the kids are in bed, the children and family workers come together for a formal meeting. Other opportunities for conversation and encouragement occur many times over the course of the weekend.

Now that I am “on the other side things” as an organiser of these camps, I can clearly see the impact they have on the children, youth and adults in my own church.


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