Church Camp: The Long View (Camp Sunday)

1 Peter 2: 4-5

Roger Lynn

January 27, 2019

Camp Sunday

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(the video for this sermon is unavailable this week)

It had been a full and rewarding week at church camp. We had just finished our last breakfast together and in a couple of hours we would be dissolving our temporary community and blending back into the larger Body of Christ. I stood up in front of 34 high school youth and 5 other adults with a guitar around my neck and began to sing. I had been leading them in singing several times a day for a week. My fingers were sore, my voice was shot, and I was very, very tired. But singing together was one of things which had helped to shape us into a community. So I put fingers to strings, opened my mouth, and began to sing. And what came out surprised me. It wasn’t even close to being perfect. But it was strong, and it was filled with more life and passion than I knew was there only moments before. We sang together and it was glorious. We sang “Micah 6:8” (God has shown you, O People, what is good), and we sang “How can anyone ever tell you you are anything less than beautiful?” We filled the sacred space of the dining hall with the beautiful harmonies of our blended voices singing “Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary...” And once again we became aware that we were the people of God woven together in community.

I’ve watched it happened more times than I can count. It was about 36 years ago at Camp Galilee in north central Arkansas when I did my first high school church camp with my friend Randy Kuss. I’ve done lots of camps since then, and they continue to be worth doing. Community is formed. Lives are changed. God is present. Church camp is like the Church in miniature. We have the opportunity to see what can happen when faith is taken seriously. And what can happen is nothing short of a miracle!

In reflecting back on all of those camp experiences, I see the truth found in Peter’s comments in his first letter – God does, indeed, take all that we have to offer and uses it to shape us into the household of God. And it happens in surprising ways. But only when we are willing to let ourselves be shaped. At every camp I have been a part of, community has been formed in powerful ways. And at every camp it happened differently. In one way or another, we come together and say, “Here, I am, Lord! Use me!” And when that is where you begin, there is just no telling what sort of amazing work God will accomplish.

It is said that “It takes a village to raise a child.” The same can be said for Church camp (or just plain old Church, for that matter). It takes all of us together to make it work. And we don’t always get used in the ways we might expect. Over the years I have played different roles at camp. Sometimes I’ve been the director, taking care of the overall planning and details. Often I’ve been a counselor, leading small groups and offering support wherever needed. In the last few years I’ve been the camp chaplain. And at different times different gifts have been central in contributing to the formation of community. There have been occasions when what happened in my small group was the experience which stood out. At other times it was a camp fire experience. Sometimes one of my significant contributions was the music. And I cannot even begin to explain to you how surprising that is to me. I’ve never considered myself to be a great singer, and I’m certainly not a great guitar player. What I have to offer is enthusiasm and a willingness to allow myself to be used by God. And thus it is that I have had the great joy and privilege of standing in front of a room full of energetic youth and helping them to sing their way into forming a community where God’s presence becomes tangible and God’s direction becomes discernible.

But if it had just been me, standing up there with my old guitar and my untrained but willing vocal cords, the real miracle would still have eluded us. It took Sara, with her passion for peace. It took Clint, with his athletic energy and compassionate willingness to listen. It took Kari, with her youthful exuberance and creativity. It took Phil, with his long years of camp experience. It took Dawn, with her love of youth and gift for drawing out other people’s gifts and organizing them for the common good. And it took the willing participation of the youth, each with their own gifts and limitations. Together we allowed ourselves to become the building blocks with which God shaped a dwelling place for nothing less than God’s own Spirit.

And the real reason why any of this matters, out here in the world beyond the boundaries of Church camp, is because Church is exactly the same. God is seeking to form us into a powerful community of faith to accomplish amazing things in the world. And the only raw material available for this particular building project is you and me. Not some idealized, perfect version of you and me. Just plain old, ordinary, everyday, “filled with gifts and flaws” you and me. And the only way it can happen is when we open ourselves to the possibility of being formed and shaped into the building blocks necessary to create such a community. That might mean you will end up contributing something you already know about – a gift or skill you are already aware of. But it might also mean that God has some surprises in store for you. You might even find yourself standing in front of a group of youth with a guitar around your neck. You just never know until you take the chance. What miracles is God waiting to work in you and through you? I pray that we will find out together.