<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/qcamp.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-386" title="qcamp" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/qcamp.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="335" /></a>

<strong>Today is Q's last day at church camp.</strong>

Having a child who's old enough to go away to camp has really taken me back to my own camp experiences. I think it's safe to say that, as a kid, my favorite week of every year was my week away at church camp.

I started going the summer after third grade, and didn't miss a year for ten years straight. In case you're wondering, I went to a variety of United Methodist-run camps in Michigan. If you've ever seen the movie <a href="http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/"><em>Jesus Camp</em></a>, it's nothing like that.

<strong>I'm pretty sure my camp experiences could be categorized as very typical; perhaps that's because they were mine, and the only ones I've known. Anyway, you can tell me if they were anything like yours:</strong> Lots of singing around campfires; silly rituals and traditions; cold scrambled eggs, thick spaghetti and iceberg lettuce; swimming and canoeing in the lake; giggling and passing notes during "horizontal hour" in the cabin; feeling convinced that I just met my new best forever friends and the boy of my dreams; getting too much sun and not enough sleep; hugs and tears at the end of the week, along with heartfelt promises to keep in touch.
<h4>Absorbing those subtle but so important things about faith</h4>
Church camp, of course, had the added element of Bible studies, prayer, worship times, and discussions about God and how we relate (or try to relate) to him.

<strong>When I think now about what I learned about my faith during those weeks at camp, it sort of feels like one of those "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten" lists.</strong> As my faith deepens and matures (<em>very</em> slowly, I might add, in a two steps forward, one step back fashion), I find myself drawing more and more insight from many of the basic concepts I absorbed at camp.

It wasn't that I was learning heavy theological material, or winning Bible quiz competitions. <strong>It was more that I was learning really subtle but important things about the nature of God, and about how to make my relationship to him my own.</strong> Here's some of what I learned:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>- God is not confined to any particular church or building</strong>—not even Central United Methodist Church in Lansing, Michigan, the church I went to for the first 18 years of my life. He's in the woods and in the lake. He's wrapped up in laughter and friendship, in the dining hall and around the campfire. He's certainly in the starry Northern Michigan skies and the Northern Lights we witnessed at camp one magnificent night.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>- God is available all seven days of the week, not just Sundays.</strong> That means worship can happen any day of the week, and any time of the day. Prayer can happen at times other than before dinner and bed! Who knew?!? And amazingly enough, all that worship and study and prayer doesn't even have to be boring or dreaded!</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>- God is not a gift bestowed upon me by my parents.</strong> Sure, they were the first people to teach me about God, and they've probably taught me more than anyone else. But there is no umbilical cord running from me to my parents, then on to God. I learned I can forge ahead in my faith on my own, and even in my own way. I can also look to other adults to serve as mentors and guides—there are other people out there I can talk to and trust.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>- All kinds of people (even really cool people, believe it or not!) can have relationships with God.</strong> Each person and their relationship with God has its own back story and day-to-day characteristics, too. Christians are not always cookie cutter stereotypes. Growing up, I got the feeling that the cool people in my public school weren't into God, but the sort of geeky-but-nice people were. I always felt torn, and tended to not be vocal about my faith. Then I went to camp, and that whole paradigm shifted.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>- There is a strong, indelible connection between God and freedom.</strong> It's common to think the connection is between God and rules, or God and boundaries and confinement. But all of my earliest experiences with freedom—my life experiences away from home—were tied in some way to God. I'm sure it's not a coincidence. My parents probably felt more comfortable sending their nine-year-old away for a week to a church-related camp. But the analogy holds true to what I've learned about God in the years since then: True freedom isn't an utter lack of boundaries, or being sent out into the wilderness to do whatever you want. True freedom involves enough form to allow you to feel safe, which in turn allows you to really be yourself, and then to explore and open up within that form.</p>

<h4>Wondering what my next "church camp" experience will be</h4>
I'm pretty sure these are the very sorts of things Q is learning at camp, too, even though she might not be able to articulate it for another ten or twenty years. I'm really glad she loves camp as much as I did, and looks forward to it each year with as much dramatic anticipation. H, who has been going to the same camp ever longer, feels exactly the same way. Next year S thinks she'll be ready to give a week away from home a try.

<strong>I'm also pretty sure that I've had several "church camp" experiences since the last time I actually <em>went</em> to camp as a teenager.</strong> Like the times I started going to a different church, or experienced a different denomination. Or when I met someone who surprised me because they didn't fit my Christian stereotype mold, in personality or in their approach to faith. And those few times when I've gone through a life changing experience and found God, the same but different, on the other side.

It all makes me wonder, of course, about you. <strong>Have you ever been to church camp, in a real or figurative sense?</strong> Have you had a chance to examine your faith away from your past, your parents, that particular denomination or that particular person who discolored it for you?