When I was in my teens, I have participated in many youth camps. Let me take you all back to the 80s and 90s. I have attended SU camps, YFC camps, FMPB camps, Navodya camps and the various camps conducted by the church group and school groups. I have witnessed the following things
1) The camp revolved around prayer. The volunteers, musicians, speakers immersed themselves in prayer
2) The theme would be selected based on a Bible verse and all the events and activities of the camp will revolve around the theme
3) The speakers and the musicians had a testimonial life
4) The speakers had logical answers from the Bible
5) The speakers had a good grounding in the Bible and they knew their doctrinal adherence
6) Follow up sessions were frequent post camp to see how we were growing in the Lord.
These 6 points summarize how youth camps used to happen in the past. Some times these camps were boring too as they did not draw the attention of the youngsters. But now a days this trend has changed a lot. The above 6 points are still preserved but with its own twists and turns. To run a youth camp, all you need today is
1) A music team that invariably can belt out songs in a great manner ( The whole purpose of the music team is to liven up the youngsters) even if they do not have testimonial lifestyle
2) A catchy theme (Mainly an abbreviation, even if it is controversial) I was discussing the theme with a youth gang when they came up with different abbreviations. One suggestion that popped up was SEX 3:16. I had no clue how that popped up. The guy gave his explanation. SEX stands for Soul Enlightened Xtians and 3:16 stands for John 3:16. I could only see at him in disbelief. There have been camp names with titles SHUT UP, 360 UP, OMG, SACHIN and so on
3) A choreographer who can do actions for the songs even if the choreographer does not believe in Jesus
4) A skit team that practices skit (Invariably with the same quit smoking/drinking/ girlfriend theme)
5) Random speakers who have no clue on what their doctrinal stand is (I am not labeling all camps with the same brush. But I have seen this trend booming up big time)
6) Even if there is no prayer, the practise sessions will go on and the media team will take care of promotions on facebook.
Follow up sessions for camps like these are zilch. The camps become an yearly activity with no follow up. It becomes a yearly event management function in most cases.
Solution:
1) Help the youth to be grounded in the word of God
2) Teach them about church history
3) Encourage them to be the salt and light to the world
4) Have corporate prayer fellowships
Unless these four things happen, the youth camps will get worser and worser.
- Prason
