Articulating our Theology of Outdoor Ministries

I spent the past week at an outdoor ministry conference in Lake Tahoe with a group of Presbyterian (PCCCA) and Lutheran (LOM) camp people from across the USA and Canada. Together, we talked about the changing world of outdoor ministries and ways to collaborate in the future. We worshiped together, attended workshops, and listened to some challenging words from keynoter Kelly Fryer. More than any of these formal interactions, we talked and enjoyed wonderful Christian fellowship. We talked about our ministries around the dinner table, in some hot springs, and late at night over several rounds of drinks. Camp professionals are gracious, accommodating, and collaborative people. It was a great joy to share in community and bear one another’s burdens.

What strikes me about the role of outdoor ministry professionals is how much they are forced into the minutia of their work. The reality is that many outdoor ministry sites across the country are struggling for their very survival. There was much talk (including in Fryer’s keynote) about being entrepreneurial and how camps can think outside the box in order to provide funding for their ministries. Executive directors have boards to manage, budgets to meet, and many of them are struggling to hold onto their own jobs amidst crisis. The operative word is survival.

Meanwhile, the impact of outdoor ministries is losing recognition outside the camp circles. At an outdoor ministry conference, we all agree that camp is amazing, faith-forming ministry. From the outside, however, many people question the efficacy and importance of outdoor ministry. Support is dwindling as church membership declines and cooperative organizations like denominations are forced to make difficult budgetary decisions. My own denominational body, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has cut the vast majority of its support to the 132 Lutheran Outdoor Ministries (LOM) sites. Perhaps more troubling, the National Council of Churches recently voted to stop funding their Committee on Outdoor Ministries. Congregational youth ministries continue to have national cooperation, deep theological articulation, and tremendous support, but so little of this is focused on promoting outdoor ministries.

In response, some camps are seeking to broaden their reach with token programs for which they are largely unsuited. Since creative programming is helping to slow the decline for some camps, much of what happens at an outdoor ministry conference is intentional sharing of innovative ideas that are succeeding in bringing people to camp. Again, the focus is on survival and “filling the bunks.” Of course, this is overly simplistic. Camping ministers do what they do because they believe in the power of the ministry and have witnessed that life-changing power at work in people’s lives. The problem I see is that they are forced to focus so much on survival that an overarching philosophy of camping gets pushed into the background. The result is that those not familiar with the power of camp do not hear camp philosophy and theology clearly articulated, so they are left to draw their own conclusions. The conclusion I often hear is that camp is theologically shallow or even dangerous, so camp is at best a fun experience for the church kids and at worst detrimental to their faith formation. With no books or scholarly articles on the topic and very few outdoor ministry education programs, it is no surprise that church professionals turn to the ministries that are getting some buzz, such as short-term mission trips.

My belief is that something deeply theological is happening at camp, and we need to tell that story. We need to articulate a theological framework for outdoor ministries that will help our camps refocus on the camping ministry model that is so effective for faith formation. Our theological priorities matter because they shape who we are and to whom we are oriented moving forward.

Each year, LOM has a Leadership Training Event (LTE), and one of the center pieces of the education is to have each participant develop a “philosophy of outdoor ministries” focused on articulating the philosophy and theology behind the programming. Many of LOM’s current program and executive staff members went through the LTE. When I asked individuals at the conference about their philosophy papers from the LTE, people did not remember what they wrote. Workshops at the conference were almost exclusively practical, with almost nothing focused on articulating the theology and philosophy behind outdoor ministries. Theological priorities may be operative at our camps, but they are not always articulated.

It is time to dust off those philosophy papers and get some theological and scholarly attention on the vital ministry of camp. If you have not written one, sit down and put into words the theological priorities inherent in your outdoor ministry philosophy. We know that something deeply theological is happening at camp, but outsiders do not know that. To them, it’s all just fun and games. There is a lot at stake here, much more than just the survival of our individual camps. The theological priorities of outdoor ministries have the potential to shape the theology and ministry of Christ’s church. The “fun and games” of camp turn out to be generative theological praxes that take seriously the activity of Christ in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit. As practical theologians continue to make the case that religious practice is not mere application but rather the very foundation of theological understanding, they would do well to recognize Christian camping ministry as a place where the activity of practical theology is already underway. Church professionals, too, have much to learn from the theological priorities of outdoor ministry. I have articulated some of these priorities in previous blog posts and in academic circles, and I will continue to do so. I invite you to join me.

Theology of the Cross and Camp: What a Mess!

Let’s get something straight: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” is not in the Bible. (All the camp directors give a collective sigh of relief.) We Christians love building nice-looking church buildings “for the glory of God.” We hang beautiful artwork, the communion wear is spotless, and the stainless steel (or crystal) baptismal bowl is filled with fresh, potable water. The churches that really have their program in order boast worship bands that practice hours in advance of the service time so that the music throughout the service will be seamless and beautiful. Worship services are scripted to the point of perfection, and everyone has their part to play. Individually, these things are not necessarily bad, and most of them are done for very sensible reasons. My fear is that a focus on tidiness and cleanliness tends to gloss over the messiness of life and ministry to the point that they are unrecognizable as the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Life is far from neat and tidy. Life is a mess. If the primary place for encountering God is sterilized, what does that say about the relevance of the gospel in daily life? A cursory look at the gospels reveals that Jesus’ ministry was messy. He hung out with the outcasts of society and walked the dusty wilderness roads. The gospels come alive with the smell of the manger, the dirty feet of the disciples, the rot of leprosy, the bloody discharge of the hemorrhaging woman, and the stench of Lazarus’ tomb, yet the institutional church trades the muddy banks of the Jordan for the polished baptismal bowl.

The cross looks all neat and tidy when we place it shining on the altar or discuss theories of the atonement, but there is no tidying up the cross of the crucified God. The cross reveals that God is found in the messy, Godforsaken, suffering world. The tidy God can be controlled, polished, and presented to the masses, but the God of the cross breaks into the world in unexpected ways that cannot be neatly packaged or easily accounted for. Daring to create space for the messy human encounters where Christ might just show up is risky because it can shake the tower of theological academia and challenge denominational institutions. The truth is that much of the great theological work of the 21st century is being done in the dirty, imperfect world of messy relationships where the incarnate Christ is breaking in with news that the Kingdom of God has come near. The church needs places where people can connect as children of God amidst the grittiness of life, acknowledging one another in brokenness, and open to the diversity of ways in which God is working in people’s lives. It is difficult to find a place where this happens more concretely than at the Christian summer camp.

At camp, living in the Spirit becomes a way of life, not a sermon point. In intentional Christian community and through active engagement with the word of God and the practices of faith, campers are awakened to the possibility, or even the probability, that they will see God in some unique, unexpected way. At camp, young people become the recipients and the providers of pastoral care, with more direct attention to the reality of their suffering than most (if not all) other communities to which they belong. God shows up outside the pristine walls of the sanctuary in a grove of trees, an outdoor amphitheater, a campfire ring, or a lakefront. If they associate the church as place of worship with “the house of God,” they are able to reevaluate their notions of where God’s presence is found.

Even the camps that practice these virtues are far from idyllic worlds. Camps are risky places, full of tetanus, giardia, high-risk adventure activities, theological catastrophes, hormonal adolescents, and atrocious B.O. The reality is that relationships, experimentation, and openness to questioning make for a very messy environment not unlike the places Christ selected for his ministry. College-age summer staff that have very little theological training are wrestling with big faith questions alongside children and adolescents in their care. The explanations they try out in camp’s theological playground may or may not be theologically sound, but their wonderings are encouraged and theological thinking is affirmed in a manner that has life-long and even cross-generational implications. This theological playground is full of mistakes and failed experiments. It is messy. But the mess is where Christ shows up. Perhaps the most important thing that camp can teach the larger church is to be more comfortable with the mess.