I was prepping for speaking at our upcoming camp when it hit me: I’ve been going to camp as a leader for 20 years. I have the scars, sun damage and wrinkles to bear witness to each camp experience. I’ve participated in more games than I can remember and sat on the beaches, snow banks and hard gym floors praying with students as they surrendered their lives to Jesus.

As I prepped, I have to admit that running through my head was my love/hate relationship with camp. There is so much to love: Camps and retreats allow for more concentrated time with students than we get all year in our regular weekly programs. More time means more relational growth, which typically leads to greater spiritual impact for students. Also, camp is super fun. Whether we’re in the mountains, at the beach or at another church 30 minutes away, fun and games are always part of our time away.

Now for the bad: Camps can be so much work. From organizing details before, pulling off the actual camp, and of course the dreaded clean up after everyone else has gone home. At times, it can feel as if all this work is for the sake of a camp high, momentary excitement for faith that quickly disappears once we’ve returned home.

My mind was spinning with all these conflicting thoughts, and I began to pray for wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit about what camp could be for my students, as well as my own heart. While praying, students’ names and faces kept coming to mind, and I was struck by two thoughts: These students hadn’t fully experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives; and/or they were stuck in some form of isolation. Faith was boring to them, and in their minds was merely a set of rules. A few would be bold enough to admit faith had turned out to be a letdown, and it felt as if faith was not helping them out of their loneliness and shame.In many ways, camp is an escape from those things. At camp, students experience a faith that feels alive and exciting. Every moment is experienced and celebrated together. At camp, there is a real sense of community. So while it may be a needed escape, ultimately it can heighten students’ feelings of faith letting them down and feelings of isolation once they return home.

I realized camp should be an invitation to a faith fully alive and to true community. The difference between an invitation and an escape is simple in that one has an ending, and one is only the beginning. How do we make camp more of an invitation and less of an escape?

The answer for us was discovered in three invitations:

Invite Students to Release Old Ideas and Ways

We had to be willing to talk openly about sin and false ideas about faith. We had to create a place where shame was not part of the conversation. Could students confess their sins and their honest opinions about faith without being shamed or rejected? We invited them to a sacred place of honesty and vulnerability about themselves and their beliefs. If they could speak their deepest thoughts, then it made room for us to get to the very heart of what was keeping them from living out their faith.

Invite Students into Spirit Living

We had talked plenty about Jesus and God, but our ministry had been pretty vague about the Holy Spirit. We began to sense that our students didn’t know what it meant to listen, follow or be guided by the Spirit. Did our stories seem too nice instead of being stories of radical living led by the Spirit? Had we made the fruit of the Spirit sound weak? We decided it was time to tell the stories of modern teens and young adults who lived out dangerous, adventurous and Spirit-led lives. The invitation was to go home radical, not to go home bored but good.

Invite Students into Connected Community

The longer I minister, the more I realize community is essential to living out faith. We need to point students to community, not emphasize attendance to our programs. I’ve seen the impact of years of promoting programs instead of connected community. Programs don’t follow up when things get hard or when people go missing…but community does.These invitations meant that we had to restructure some of the ways we did camp and re-imagine how life would be after camp.

How These Invitations Played Out

We tried to create time and space for the Holy Spirit to move. This meant we aimed to start sessions earlier, so we didn’t feel rushed to end them. We wanted students to taste and see how it could be to listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. We created more time for community, and we aimed to have students and leaders together who would continue together all year long. Finally, we practiced making covenants together. Now, this one was way out there for us. So, let me take some time to explain.

In Galatians 6, Paul wrote about what it means to live out faith in community. Check out verses 1-2: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”Through these two verses, the idea that we needed to make covenants with each other came alive. So, we created a simple covenant: “I give my community permission to restore me and to carry my burdens. In turn, I ask for permission to restore them and to carry their burdens.” Each small group went around to each member of his or her group and asked/gave permission for community to take place in their groups. One by one, students made covenants with each other.

We invited students to see the deepness and the sacredness of shared life and shared faith. If a student goes missing after camp, if a student falls back into an old way of living, then the students who made covenants with him or her should follow Paul’s words about restoring the person gently.

It was a beautiful night at camp to watch groups sitting together and taking first steps into a greater and more biblical way of living out their faith.

Now, I believe camp has the potential to be the greatest invitation in a student’s life: a life filled with listening to the Spirit and living in community. I no longer have a love/hate relationship with camp. I simply love camp.