Hello and welcome to episode 422 of the Speak Life Podcast. If you don't know me, my name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life, and we had a bit of a break last week, a shorter update episode, but now we are back for this new term with a brand new conversation about summer camps, featuring all three of the Speak Life presenters, Glenn Scrivener, Nate Morgan Locke, and Paul Feasy. So I hope you enjoy the episode and find it insightful. I imagine a lot of our listeners have at least some experience with Christian summer camps or festivals. Maybe you don't, but regardless, I hope this is an informative conversation for you. I will catch you at the end.
SPEAKER_03Well, hello and welcome to Speak Life. My name is Paul Feasy, and today I'm joined by Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_05Hello.
SPEAKER_03This is the first time we've been together in quite a while, isn't it? Yeah. People have been away for the summer doing different bits and bobs.
SPEAKER_05People have, or the winter, depending on where they were. Yeah, of course. I was in Australia. Yeah. Well, I was above the tropics for twelve days, so that was nice. And then a thousand miles south to Canberra, which very much was winter, but uh yeah, it's nice.
SPEAKER_03Very nice.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're glad to have you back. Thank you. It's good to be here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Anyone else go to a tropical island? Just asking out of interest. No, no tropical islands.
SPEAKER_01No. Went to Stoke. Yeah. Yeah, lovely. Similar. Similar, hmm.
SPEAKER_03Dear me, dear me. Well, anyway, uh, we are back though after the summer, kind of getting back into full swing again. And uh it's been as well, I was gonna say as most summers, it's not as most summers, because I was gonna say Christian camps have been running, but they haven't really been running for the last few years because of COVID and all the lockdowns. But this is the first summer that kind of Christian summer camps have started up again. Um so um I don't think we've not been on any camps this summer, but you've your son's been on resonator.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I uh stepped into a new role in terms of Christian summer camps because for the first time I was a summer camp parent. I was the parent of a child on summer camp, and so that for me, having been involved in camps in all sorts of different ways, felt like a a new era, a new thing. So how did he find it? The greatest week of his life so far, yeah, yeah, which his mum struggled with because this was the week in which she'd had the least contact with him so far in his life, and she's like, How dare you But no, he just had an absolutely amazing time, just said this was fantastic, and so um I thought we yeah, we should we should talk about summer camps, as you say. It's the first time since the pandemic that they've been in full swing, and clearly they you know they have a big impact, and lots of people will have been on them or picking kids up from them or serving on them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and they've been quite a big thing for a number of years, but I'm aware that there'll probably be people watching who maybe didn't grow up in church or maybe from other countries who don't quite when we say Christian summer camps, what they might think what you're actually talking about. For some of us, we'll know exactly the kind of things we're talking about. But what are we talking about? What is what are these Christian summer camps?
SPEAKER_05So it's not like the American thing necessarily, which is like you know, hello mada, hello fada, here I am cranada. And it's very entertaining. And they say we'll have some fun. If it's not training, it's not that it's not that we're releasing that single next week. Um because uh American camps tend to be a lot longer, don't they? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Kind of over like like a month or so. They go, they just ship their kids off and see them in a month and then you know.
SPEAKER_01But they also summer camp as an American thing is you know, the vision of it is the log cabin in the woods with the lakes and the all the kind of you know um crazy kind of zany activities. And the the camp counselor is a title that you would have, whereas you wouldn't use the the title camp counselor for a British Christian summer campaign.
SPEAKER_05Commandant, commandant officer, or yeah, adjutant. Yes, like literally adjutant, I think, was the the UN sort of term, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01I don't think it's agitant as it's agitant, someone who's supposed to agitate, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um yes, and so normally held quite often held in schools, quite often posh schools, whether the students that w whether the cappas themselves are posh students or not, tends to be held in those sorts of places for five to seven days. Normally, um yeah, what's it?
SPEAKER_03Lots of activity, you know, so like normal day there'd probably be sort of something you'd you'd normally have a dorm group, wouldn't you, as a leader, so it'd be uh you know, five or six kids, maybe a couple more to every two or three leaders. So you'd often spend a lot of time in that particular group doing the games and activities through the day, eating lunch and dinner together. Couple of Bible, you know, be a couple of Bible talk sessions each day, a little study group thing, um, a couple of days off site doing activities as well.
SPEAKER_05Hunt the leader.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, classic wide game kind of thing like that. A lot of them follow very similar frameworks, don't they?
SPEAKER_05Yes. Um the ones we're talking about tend to be the ones that they they actually don't have a huge amount of Christian input. Like there are some there are some camps that are like, okay, this is like discipleship extreme, and we've got the kids, and we're just gonna drill until five every day. Leviticus and preach the way through it. Or in more charismatic camps, there's there's probably more extended periods of worship and that kind of thing. Um but the camps I guess we're more familiar with, there's lots of activities, and there might be a morning sort of session and an evening session.
SPEAKER_03Is that kind of I think yeah, I think it depends. I mean, I mean we've I guess we've all had slightly different experiences of camps and stuff. So like my experience has been to do and my first things I would have done were things like Soul Survivor, which isn't really like that at all, which is more the festival kind of thing. Um, you know, where you go with your youth group and you've got the kind of big tent. Yeah. Um and there would be extended worship and stuff, and but it was very kind of free, kind of fluid environment in terms of you know, it wasn't like you just did one thing and went to the next thing and everyone did it. You were kind of free to go to what you wanted or what you didn't want to go to. Um but then I've also been on script union holidays, kind of leading on those and being on overall leadership, which were kind of more similar to what we've just talked about, but again, slightly different. I did more of a performing arts one, so there was like music and drama and different things, so people would kind of have workshops and different bits. Um and were kind of more aimed at the they were more you you you were working on the basis that people were kind of coming as Christians on the whole, whereas the other ones I've been to the sort of cipher holidays are more like what we've just talked about and tend to be kind of quite low-level Bible stuff. Although when I say low-level Bible stuff, what I mean is um it's uh it's good solid gospel stuff, but it's it's just very kind of you don't do stacks and stacks and stacks through the day because they don't want it to be too intense. The idea was you could bring a non-Christian friend to camp and they'd feel comfortable, so it's non-threatening, non-pressurizing. Yes.
SPEAKER_05You don't want to spook them, you don't want to manipulate them. Yeah. And and quite often it's um it's therefore assuming perhaps a non-Christian and you want to get them to a point on the Thursday night or the Friday night, making a decision for Jesus.
SPEAKER_03Is that yeah, there's a talk scheme that will start off with you know, kind of God and creation and then sin and fall and all these things, you know, that was often the case. Whereas maybe you know some of the other things I've done have kind of not been really based around that at all. It's just been more of a um there might have been a theme for the week about some kind of particular topic. Um but it was you know, it was much more deeper Christian stuff than just going through a gospel outline, I guess.
SPEAKER_01And did either of you do them as teenagers? Did you go to summer camps at all? I went to one. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Um but it had a massive impact on me. Like I've I've I I wrote the poem I gave my life to Jesus based on this camp that I went to age 13 and was challenged to give my life to Jesus in a in a dramatic teenage kind of a way, which I sort of did, and then didn't feel like it worked. And so, of course, there was another opportunity the next night to in the big tent give your life to Jesus again, and I tried again, and that set me on a pattern of really trying to recapture camp. So even though I kind of just really I went to that I went to like a Methodist and Anglican youth club thing in London, which wasn't really a a camp, but but that was like this this one camp that I went to that even though I only went to it once, I was always trying to recapture it. The the sense of moments, the sense of events what year is this? 13, so uh 1991. 91. Yeah, yeah, wow. Never mind, it was just commencing it's all happening, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Good year for music. Yeah, no, I I never went uh I only went to Source Survivor as a teenager, so for three years, so that would have been 2002, three, and four. Um and that's where I became a Christian. Um Source Survivor 2003, one of those ones, but the other camps I did like um Scripts Union and then the Cypher holidays later were always as a leader. So even the first Script Union holiday holiday I went to, I went when I was 18 as a young leader. Yeah. Um because my youth leader was actually running the camp, so I kind of went along. Yeah. Um but uh no, I didn't. I and actually I mean I would have uh like m even though I led on those kind of cipher holidays thing, if I was a teenager, I would have hated it as a teenager. Okay. But that that continual like enforced fun. You're going to go, we're all going to go and do this now, and we're all going to do it, and we're all going to enjoy it. And I'm not I'm not going to enjoy it. I don't want to get wet and gunged. I want to sit and play guitar and chat with people and have a nice time. Right. You know, leave me alone. Leave me alone. Let me do and listen to some music. I wanted to go to Glastonbury. No, let's get gunged.
SPEAKER_06No. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah. No, I always hate the gunge thing. I've I I've always had this kind of aversion to kind of messy games and messy like, oh, it's uh it's and disrupting the hierarchy.
SPEAKER_05You don't want to do that, do you? Enforce the hierarchy.
SPEAKER_01No, I just find it's like, oh, look at this person that we've sat them in an inflatable paddling pool and covered them in baked beans and scrambled eggs and shaving foam. I'm like, that's that's degrading. This is someone made in the image of God. Anyway, so I've always kind of hated that, but I did I did a couple of camps as a teenager. Uh Great Ayton, I think I went to one year. Um it was the year of global hypercolour t-shirts and trolls dolls, you know, the trolls, like the first time they came out. And I had an amazing time. I think we went to Lightwater Valley or something, which is like a uh theme park. Um, but I don't remember it having any kind of great profound spiritual impact on me. Um, but what was then strange for me was that I went as a leader to a falcon camp 2005, um, and falcon camps run by CPAS under the auspices of the Church Pastoral Aid Society, um, and falcon camps were kind of different from ventures, which are you know, my son went on one a couple of weeks ago. Uh falcon camps were designed for children facing particular challenges, challenging circumstances. So we used to take kids from inner city London, inner city Bristol, take them out to Pembrokeshire and have a week with them. And because of the nature of the you know, the site and the the type of kids we had, we kept intentionally small, and so we'd only ever really have like 20 to 25 kids, and we tried to have at least that many leaders, so it was a ratio that was kind of one-to-one. But I had such a great time in 2005, I was like, This is this is the thing I want to do, and so for then a decade I was an overall leader, used to run it with my sister and her husband, and my wife was part of it as well. And we sort of dragged the rest of my family. I was quite kind of evangelistic about like come and do this camp, because with less than 50 people, and we were working with eight to elevens, so much younger than typical kind of camps would be, and just thought it was amazing. Like, and and we came up our motto was Firewood Falcon, as it eventually was called. Firewood Falcon is a family holiday, and so this was about trying to recreate a kind of really healthy family holiday by the seaside um as much as possible, and within that to do teaching, to do you know, activities and all that sort of stuff. So I was genuinely for that period absolutely loved it, but I I had quite strong views on how it should be run because I was conscious of some of the challenges with camps and their structures and that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_05So you led those for ten years?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 2006 to 2016, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And you've been leaders on camps for many years?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we are from I did from 2004 until 2017. Wow. Yeah, I did at least one camp every year. Okay.
SPEAKER_01And it's it's weird as well because if you do if you're involved in youth ministry, you're doing a lot of youth retreats which have you know it's obviously it's not as long because it's generally a weekend. But some of the structures that you put in place follow that the pattern that was given to you in this kind of week-long camp thing. And so I think that is a a pretty significant impact that's the camp expectation, the principles of running a summer camp in the circumstances we described have had long-reaching kind of impact uh into into the rest of the way that we do church. Yeah. But I think we'll probably get into that.
SPEAKER_03Sure. Yeah, we were trying to kind of get some history on uh summer camps because we weren't really sure when they'd all started. The book of Deuteronomy. Yeah. Lots of people put outside the camp going, but that's true, yeah. All kinds of reasons. Um so no, I think we're gonna have some slides that come up. So we kind of traced some bits back to the mid-1800s where there was the fresh air movement, which was created by religious, health, and charity organizations providing daily excursions and week-long trips to the country for children living in poverty.
SPEAKER_01Um fresh air mm required because this is sort of industrial Britain with smog everywhere.
SPEAKER_03I'd assume so, yeah. So taking them out to the country. So presumably inner city children taken out for their health and spiritual health as well. Um and then just after the First World War, 1918-1919, around that time, there's renewed interest in this fresh air movement during the Spanish flu pandemic. Um and an open air hospital in Boston, Massachusetts was considered well, you know, now we've got a resurgence of camps after our pandemic. Um early 1900s, so we're private camping programmes which began for upper socioeconomic class boys and later girls. And then, of course, we had the scouts uh in 1907 by Robert Baden Powell. Uh then in the 1920s, the Church Pastoral Aid Society or CPASS, uh, their camps started off there uh as fresh air fund camps. They're all big on fresh air. Yeah. Fresh air is a big thing at this stage. So it's probably no CPAS, because I guess things like the cipher holidays, venture holidays, all those bits, they're all under that, aren't they? Yeah. They're all part of the colour.
SPEAKER_01Well cipher it what I can't remember what cipher stands for. C Y F A. S, yeah. And then you've got because that was CPAS, didn't just give people here are some camps, and they do patronage and and help with sort of appointments within the Anglican Church. But they gave people the names for Sunday school groups of which Cypher was the oldest. Because you'd have Cypher Pathfinders, Explorers, Scramblers somewhere near the bottom. But that was like, you know, so everyone's got to name their Sunday school group something.
SPEAKER_03Yes. I'd forgotten that that was the case.
SPEAKER_01And yet it was CPAS that gave us both names.
SPEAKER_03That was kind of around the twenties, and so they obviously set up camps, and then we've got kind of just more appearing later on. So 89, we've got the new wine conference going on, 93 Soul Survivor conferences began. 2004, the New Day uh event began, which I think is that New Frontiers. New Frontiers thing, which kicked off then. Uh so from the mid-19th century onwards, there was a strong push to get young people outdoors, especially those living in deprived urban areas. Soon the church began to see the benefits of these camps, resulting in annual summer camps to disciple young people. So that's a little bit of kind of the history of where those camps have kind of come from.
SPEAKER_05And in that mix, there is there are the UN camps sort of coming out in 1930 something. So you and the trust was created in 32. Okay.
SPEAKER_03We struggled, I think, to find an exact time the first camp started. Um but I mean, I know for for for a certain people like John Stopp went to the camps, didn't he? And so I mean, trying to think what age he would have been, you know, if he was sort of yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you've basically you've got uh a guy by the name of Eric J.H. Nash known as Bash. And so the Bash camps, which um yeah, those become uh right, they they are designed for um boys at the elite public schools within Britain, and it's it's seen as a very targeted missional activity to go and kind of run evangelistic camps for these boys. And then, you know, but I think he was sort of speaking at you know the public schools as well, and um and that it's through those camps that you get an incredible number of evangelical Anglican particularly leaders. Um and so the tw there there's a great question to ask, which is is British evangelicalism as we now know it inconceivable without the summer camp as its kind of backstory um is the origin of that. Now clearly evangelicalism as a as a as a thread within the church or as this kind of a uh stream of of Christian uh worship and practice precedes the 20th century. You can you know go further back to kind of Great Awakenings and and all that sort of stuff in the 18th and 19th century. And yet so much of the structures that we we see around us within um particularly conservative evangelicalism and conservative evangelical Anglicanism have been given to us from um the birth of these these camps.
SPEAKER_03And lots of people, so I mean we mentioned John Stott, other people who were kind of shaped by that um and went to these camps, David Shepard, Michael Green, Dick Lucas, Nikki Gumble, Justin Welby, um, which I imagine even many people around the world would know some of those names. Even if you're if you're in the UK, you probably know those names even outside of conservative circles, you might know some of those names as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, David Shepard even played for England. Yes. Cricket. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05There you go. Yeah. So and and I I I guess what we're noticing with evangelicalism and camps, like what what what kind of overlaps between those two things? I mean you know, a few things kind of spring to mind for me in terms of why why would the evangelical wing of the church go for camps? I guess one is um Dermund McCulloch in his History of Christianity, he he's he says in his section on evangelicals, he says the one thing you need to know about evangelicals is it's all about your choice for God. And you read that and you go, No, it's about God's choice for us. He's not properly reformed. Of course he's not properly reformed. But then like he kind of articulates evangelicalism on the ground as it is actually practiced, and of course, it's your choice for God, isn't it? Like the whole revivalistic movements of sort of the 18th century and following.
SPEAKER_03An emphasis on that kind of personal salvation. Yes. So often, you know, if you get kids who come on camp from church, there were some who've come from churches, there might be a kind of an assumption that um, well, they've come from church, but they might not really be Christians. We need to see where they're at themselves, you know. So they need to make a personal choice to follow Jesus. Yes, and that camp talk scheme is designed to take someone from knowing nothing potentially through to the point where you can say on whichever night of the week, hey, maybe you're ready to give me love. It's Thursday. It's gonna be Thursday night. If you miss the boat, it's the cross talk, you know. People can give their lives to Christ. So I guess maybe that is quite an evangelical kind of thing.
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SPEAKER_02Let's get back to the podcast.
SPEAKER_05I think it's it's more the conservative end of evangelicalism. I think more charismatic evangelicalism, you want to have the jamboree to get together to encounter God and have a moment with God, and and you're you're kind of assuming a Christianity, or you're you're you're assuming that the kids want to encounter God and you're providing opportunities for that, and the outsider is welcome to come and fall among, fall on his face and say God is really among you. Whereas I think the more can the the non-charismatic evangelical is more as you say, it's kind of if if people have come across the conceptual framework of the um there's the hospitality tents outside of a sporting event, and then some people are in the back of stands, and some people are at the front of the stand, and then some people are running the race. Um it's quite popularly framed as this is the journey that we need to get people on evangelistically. And first we shirt we have the hospitality, maybe that's what camps are brilliant at because there's fun and there's baked beans and whipped cream challenges and all sorts of things. And then, but the back of stands is they have buzz groups all about you know bullying in school or something, and and then front of stands, they're hearing the Bible talks, and then on the Thursday night they are challenged to get onto the track and begin the race. And I th I think non-charismatic evangelicals take camps as the opportunity to get people to make that first decision to join the race as a Christian, whereas I think charismatic evangelicals are like enjoy it's the moment, it's the encounter.
SPEAKER_01And potentially that is a bit of a distinction between the the the soul survivor type thing, the new day kind of event, yeah, and then a summer camp. However, like Nicky Gumble was part of those UN camps, and the structure of the Alpha Course is lifted mainly from the structure of the talks that would happen on a on a UN camp. So so even though there is this, I think, this press practice of you know, gather to worship, and as we gather to worship and as we're sort of all focused on that, then we kind of have this encounter with the living God. But at the same time, what's kind of really been driving through more charismatic evangelicalism is of course Alpha. Um and so almost whichever side of the kind of charismatic divide you are on, if you are an evangelical within Britain, you owe your your heritage is very much from this this summer camp.
SPEAKER_03Soil survivor thing reminds me a bit more of kind of maybe your model, Glenn. Like, I don't know whether that's surprising. Just so because in like 321, your thing's very much been like, just come into the house and we'll show you around. You might think it's crazy, you might think it's weird, but just come in and have a look, you know, and see what you think. And you know, you never know, you might kind of go, Oh, some of this makes sense to me. Yeah, which I think Soul Survivor is more that end. It's more like, well, we're just gonna do the we're just gonna do kind of young people doing kind of their church service together. Yes. Um, and people can come in, you know. And of course there is an evangelistic aspect because they're all you know, they do as people to preach the gospel and ask people to, you know, give their lives to Christ. Um whereas, you know, there's the typical cipher camp is much more softly, softly it doesn't look like church is you know, you do a kind of your first meeting is no more than about 15 minutes, and it's like quick, we've got to get them out again so we don't scare them off. Yes.
SPEAKER_05Um Yeah. And and I think that is a reaction to the the fear of manipulating people and the fear of like we know that they're gonna be sleep deprived. There they are in their dorms. Um they'll be they'll be s chatting away to each other till two in the morning, low protein diets, they'll be you know lots of carbs, lots of carbs and lots of sweets, yeah. Lots of sweets, and then and then if you bring them into a worship service that's two hours long and they've been on their feet and someone's been strumming the magic G sus chord, and then you know, like suddenly it's the secret chord that David played. He played and it pleased the Lord. Um yeah, and and so the there's a real fear, and and I think it's it's a responsible fear that we we don't want to like hotbox people and manipulate them. Um but the but the danger is of course that it becomes very regimented and and very softly, softly uh and where is the sense of the verticality and the sense of encountering Christ.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's ironic because I think the fact that it is you know softly soft because I think many of those who would do that would say who would feel that they're much more we're the ones doing the the clear gospel thing. Which you know, so maybe some people might hear that and kind of feel like, oh, that don't that isn't quite but well I would say clear, yes.
SPEAKER_05But because clarity becomes the the the main goal and ex explanation, and it's it's the whole 1 Corinthians 14 thing, is that you outsiders they don't continually speak in tongues, translate your tongues so that people understand what's going on to the degree that they then fall on their face and say God is really among you. And I think I think the non-charismatic evangelical world is all into explanation and being clear, yeah. And the charismatic world is far more into God is really among you. Um but there's uh and we want to be clear, but the thing is, I think we ought to be want to be clear so that the Christ of the gospel connects with people and really absolutely connects with people, as opposed to we want to be clear so that everyone says, Oh yes, I get that, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01You know, yeah. I was just gonna say on the you know obviously Soul Survivor is now sort of drawn to an end, they they sort of decided to sort of stop running it before the pandemic, you know, and um there is a sense in which it remains to be seen what the overall impact of that kind of period within evangelical youth ministry within the UK is. However, youth ministry seems to be the thing that that's covering every base because it's the practices of youth ministry which are then being translated into the grown-up church rather than the other way round, which is that no that we start off with this kind of uh grown up or mature gospel, which has got kind of heritage, and we've actually we're starting from what's the lowest kind of simple message of the gospel that we can communicate, and how much of those more charismatic things is about the the entertainment and the joy and the and the experience, so yeah, just that experience and the fun aspect of it, right? Because so much of what you can do with young people is have a load of fun really, really easily. They're kind of experts at it, yeah. Apart from him, obviously, but was not the fun in the corner. Naturally, but it just sort of comes out like organically, and so then you basically go, Well, what was the level that we kind of got to in terms of the maturity of our Christian life and Christian walk? And then now when we do do church, right? It's just the camp stuff without the fun. Like no, you don't want enforced fund, there is no enforced fund, it's now just this kind of level. And and I I think it's really hard to to work out how do you take what has been a brilliant expression of Christian faith and service um on the whole for UK evangelicalism, in which people have have really like served others and and and come to faith and all that sort of stuff. How do we take that thing and then say, what can we take and escape from it, rather than simply to sort of say, Well, here's 15 problems that have come to the evangelical church through their kind of provenance in the in the evangelical summer camp movement.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Because I think it is scripture, it's scriptural to gather, and it's scriptural to gather beyond your tribe. You know, so I it was bit tongue in cheek saying it goes back to Deuteronomy, it actually goes back to Leviticus, you know. So in terms of three times a year in the is Israelite calendar, you're meant to come together to Jerusalem and worship together, and this is to go beyond your your kind of tribal boundaries. And and there's something there's something brilliant, there's something great about getting together. Um just here in Eastbourne, we we had Airborne for the first time in three years, uh, which is the world's biggest air show uh that's for free. Yeah, yeah. Um, and it was fantastic to to kind of gather and have, I don't know, 100,000 people or something, you know, over the course of the the the weekend kind of gathering. It's and it's an event and it's it's spine tingling to view something together with other people all going ooh at the same time. There's there's something kind of and and and that's not just it's not just a kind of a trick of our psychology. I think it's woven into we're worshipful creatures and we're all meant to go ooh at the same time, looking up to the to the same horizon and seeing the the the that which is worthy of our of our worship. Um and so I I in you know, but it might be surprising, but you know, you I've said about how my first experience of camp utterly shaped my Christianity to begin with, and and not in a very good way to begin with. Um you might expect me to be kind of a bit down on camps, but in in a sense, I I just think it needs to be contextualized for different age groups in in the church. I think evangelicals are quite good at that milestone of owning your faith for yourself in your teenage years. Unfortunately, we've made that the entirety of the evangelical experience, and all we ever know how to do is to go back to that moment. But there are all sorts of milestones that again it would be important to mark and and have an appropriate outlet for Christian expression, whether it's being you know, young family or being in your middle-aged years, or towards the end of life, it would be great to have different kinds of camps, maybe not camps, but different kinds of jamborees, collections, um gathering together across tribal lines. So, yeah, I don't think we should poo-poo evangelicals for for kind of cornering the market on adolescence. Um that doesn't mean we're infantilizing necessarily. It's but it's it's some it's something we've excelled at. And I don't think it's because we are adolescent ourselves, I think it's because we're quite modernist and the and the modern world is very teeny, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01But and it's interesting with that focus on teens. So um Pete Ward, uh who I think currently teaches up in in Durham, um I studied youth ministry and theological education with him in London. And uh he has a book which traces this kind of um the impact of youth ministry on British evangelicalism, uh which is called uh Growing Up Evangelical, I think is the book published back in the nineties. Um but one of the things that he's sort of keen to point out is that evangelicalism saw youth as a subculture to be evangelized and then adopted the practices of the missionaries, the missiologists, right? So the study of how you go and and speak to this people group and contextualization, i.e., how do you communicate the gospel to this subculture within British life? And I think the challenge with that is it has the challenge, the resultant challenge of that is that it's further atomized our gospel declaration and presentation. So I can't hear the gospel if you don't speak to me in youth terms, if I'm a youth. I I I just lit I can't hear it. It's like you literally are speaking a different language, and so we would all observe subtle differences in communicating on you know YouTube or TikTok or or whatever the social media platform is, but if we over-emphasize those differences, we can never communicate with anyone, yeah, because it's become such an individualized thing, yeah, that I can only like I've got to do so much work of contextualization to reach you, yeah. And at any point at which I don't reach you, that's probably a failure of my creative ability to to articulate the gospel in in tailored bespoke ways for you.
SPEAKER_05What do you think came first? Was it was it that we went after an age group, or was it that we already um have a message and and a shape to our life and worship that is tailored to finding your identity? Like identity is a massive part of evangelical sort of subculture and expressive individualism tends to be you know quite strong with us, experience conversionism. And so was it was it the that we had a theology that that happened to fit youth culture, or was it that we changed our theology to to reach the the youth?
SPEAKER_01I think partly it's to do with the the structures that are built up around that summer camp approach, right? So we would like to reach, you know, as as sort of Nash says whatever it is in the third the nine uh twenties, thirties want to reach this group of young men and obviously the the I think Lymington camps are then joined by the Rushmore camps and whatever else it is, and so girls come along to them as well. But as those camps are put into place, well, of course they have hierarchies and structures. Within those hierarchies and structures is training and the sense in which you are growing up within that training model, therefore, what starts out as a mission to a particular group of people in a particular social and economic and age category starts to become the means by which you train up leaders for wider ministry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so the idea of being an assistant leader and then being a regular leader and then maybe being an overall leader, these are places in which you are trained within the ranks so that your your years of of getting your muscle memory in ministry are performed in a very, very narrow ministry kind of opportunity. And I think that's what then exacerbates the the issue. The the some accounts wasn't so much about evangelism, it was about a training program for the whole church. Yeah. Um and I, you know, and I think of it when we were running the camp that we were running for ten years, again, numbers are kind of very small, but if we had a le a child that that sort of aged out of camp, yeah, they would be desperate. Can I come back as a junior leader? Of course.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you think, well, great, you know, you can you can sort of come back up. Now, how do you how do you safeguard against that being a closed system and a system which is basically which is very open to being uh abusive. It you know, because it's closed and because it's like camp is a bubble. It's intense. What what literally drive so driving anyway anyway drive so drive it, pick my son up, right? We had other other kids from camp, and um we're driving back from the camp, and I was talking to the kids, and they were just so effervescent with joy about the experience they just had. And we basically just said to them, look, I've been sent as your guide to help you transition from the bubble into what is otherwise known as the real world. Right, right. In the real world, yeah, no one knows what you're doing when you do this weird hand gesture and go, oi, you know, like these things are normal on camp. You stand on your chair and perform a salute to Apple Crumble, everyone will think you're a nutter, right? So you actually because it's so kind of you know it's such an involved pressured.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, that is a real thing. Yeah, it is. I mean, the fact you've mentioned Apple Crumble, I know exactly what you're talking about already.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it and the point is it there's a sense in which it this is great fun and really fun to do, but if your life is literally about getting back onto that experience, yeah, you don't really live in the real world. You don't really live and you then can't really communicate because everything's a ninja and everything's a kind of so that challenge of these ministry models, particularly camps, becoming kind of the only way people can think about about reaching others and discipling and training and everything else.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. And so always like the last talk at the camp is always okay, we've had the mountaintop moments, so how do we now go into the valley? And you yeah, you you try and do that. But but does that mean we should just get rid of mountaintop moments like that? Like is it is it too is it too much of a change of gear to go up the mountain and then back down again?
SPEAKER_01I I think that the biggest challenge is you've got to we used to build in like boring time, like dull, like boring time into camp in when we were doing it, and having sort of a really wide age range to just sort of try to mitigate against this being such a completely different experience than you're gonna have in church on a Sunday to help with that kind of uh thing. Um yeah, I uh what you know, church is God's plan, right? You know, that's the only institution that's gonna last, none of these camps, you know, um hate to you know say it. Firewood Falcon will not last into the new creation, right? Um but the the church has been given to us, and so the church as the place for this mountaintop. Um yes, you can't recreate the same things every week, of course you couldn't. And how much of a of a set apart thing can the Sunday morning service be? But um certainly running away with something, you know, the Jeff Goldblum model, your ministry models were you were preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to ask whether you should. And uh life finds a few years. Now there's dinosaurs everywhere. Life finds away.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um but just being being conscious of the of the impact that that has. It they're very, very difficult to replicate that level of of excitement and passion and joy. And I always used to think so for the go back to the Soul Survivor thing and the more of the the the big top festival experience, right? Worshipful. And someone stands at the front and they say it's not about the big tent experience, it's actually about getting back to your church with those two little old ladies who are there. That's what it's all about. Now, everything in your experience, hearing that message, is telling you this is about the big tent experience, right? So the guy standing at the front saying, uh, it's really not about this, it's about something else. You're not hearing it. You don't you can't hear it because everything else is so noisy. But it's about rhythm as well, I think.
SPEAKER_05Um where yeah, it's the greatest week of the year for James. And like some camps, isn't that like their strap line? The greatest year of the greatest week of the year. Or yeah, that's that's the attempt to give people the greatest, greatest week of the year. And and that doesn't have to be let's go behind the back of the local church and show them how things should should really be done. It could be just like in Leviticus 26, there are three times in the year when you come away and you cross tribal boundaries, and that's that's a good thing, but we need to teach people rhythm when when actually because we don't do liturgy and we don't do church calendar and all that sort of stuff, we think everything has to be absolutely the same and sort of yeah, smooth peanut butter, not crunchy, but but why don't we Yeah, why yeah, why it why do we apologize for the fact that there's a mountain topic?
SPEAKER_01Just do this the peanut butter thing, just just talk through that a little, just unpack a church calendar is crunchy, right?
SPEAKER_05But but hey, worship is 24-7, dude. Okay, Romans 12 2. That's smooth peanut butter. Don't you think? Yeah. It's just you sort of threw it out now.
SPEAKER_03It's like everything is holy and nothing's holy. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um but but maybe maybe the pushback is well, why don't we as churches go on holiday together? If it is a church family, if it if it is a Christian family holiday, well, our Christian family is our church. So let's go together as church across the age boundaries, let's not be segregated by age.
SPEAKER_03You know, because we do a church weekend away, which is a it is a campaign. Weekends and we did it again this year. And there are kind of you know, there's kids' work and there's yeah, teenage work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, to be fair, when we got back from our church weekend away, um my son said that was the greatest weekend of my life. So potentially he's not a great sort of he's just a real enthusiast, he just has a great time. Yeah life just keeps on getting better.
SPEAKER_05He's a very space for that, okay. Like okay, if we weren't to do Christian summer camps for youth, maybe maybe we expend that energy on the go away as churches and maybe a couple of local churches gather together and cross the tribal boundaries, you know.
SPEAKER_01And what is our vision for Christian families going on their summer holidays?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? If if we're gonna say to people, hey Christian parents, you need to arrange your summer around these Christian youth camps, these summer camps, because they're such an important part, which and I, you know, very happy to do that, right? To say those guys have got a lot more logistics to arrange to plan their their summer camp week than we're gonna have working out where we're gonna go. Happy to do that. However, what are we saying about the the the balance of Christian discipleship that's gonna happen? And I want to say when you go on a family holiday, that is an opportunity for a holy day, right? You can you can have times of refreshing that come from the Lord as you as a family stop with the regular routine and you spend time studying the word in worship together, maybe with other families, right? Not a whole church thing. And and like the families c we don't even think about that as being a place for for a spiritual formation, on you know, yeah. Like that's the that's the that's the time you're gonna do the least spiritual formation. Yeah, you're taking a break. Um, and yet actually that can be a really precious time um in which you know with grandparents you've got you know Bible times over breakfast. Yeah, yeah. You kind of you actually start to encourage that as a as a formative spiritual practice within the family, not just within the church or within this kind of separate age group of youth camps.
SPEAKER_03Great. Any other things to add? Do you think?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, nice. I I I think that's good that this conversation's yeah, helped me see some things and and yeah, I th I think the differentness of coming away is a good thing. Um and I think crossing church boundaries is a good thing. But perhaps there are ways of doing it as all ages, you know. Our local church and a Crowborough local church and another local church in Swindon, you know, for some reason. Yeah, we always do summer, you know, we always do a week together. Um why not do that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Just as long as it doesn't involve gunge. Gunge. Any baked beans I've got to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_03Um well, let us know what you think. Maybe you know, you might be watching this, you might have done lots of camps, and you might love camp, and maybe some of the things we've said where you go, oh yeah, maybe there are some you know things about it that maybe aren't as great as well. Maybe you're negative about camps, but you think there's some positives. Let us know basically in the comments uh what you think about this. We'd love to kind of engage with that. And uh yeah, join us again. We'll be back sort of in the next few weeks with more things, uh, more of these podcasts and uh broadcasts, and we'd love to have you along. So thanks for joining us. Take care and goodbye. Bye-bye, bye-bye.
SPEAKER_02Well, there we go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Just to draw your attention again to the upcoming Oak Hill events exploring the meaning crisis. They're happening on the 3rd of September and featuring Speak Life's very own Glenn Scrivener in conversation with Christy Mayer, Paul Van der Clay, and Tom Holland. Tom Holland, of course, who wrote uh historian, he's he's the presenter, one of the presenters of the Rest is History podcast, a very popular history podcast. And of course, he wrote Dominion about the impact of Christianity in the West. And that was a large influence on Glenn's new book, The Air We Breathe. So I think it's going to be a really interesting day. There are two events, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. If you'd like to find out more about these events or book a place, you can go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash meaning. And we have pulled all the relevant links there and provided some more information. So it would be wonderful to see some Speak Life supporters in person at at one or more of those events. We're really looking forward to it. I think it's set to be a fascinating set of discussions. Well, that's all from me. God bless and see you next week.