The Hats You Wear

What does it really take to pull off a week of camp? In this episode of M3: Merge Ministry Mostly, Daniel and Luke pull back the curtain on the reality of being “camp programmers.” From preaching and production to problem-solving and last-minute fixes, they unpack the many hats required to make camp happen. With humor, honesty, and a few behind-the-scenes stories, they also tackle an important conversation about using AI in ministry and where to draw the line. Whether you're in ministry or just curious about what goes into creating a life-changing camp experience, this episode gives you a real look at the wins, the challenges, and the heart behind it all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

What does it take for a successful week of camp to happen? There are a lot of things that go into it, planning-wise, organization-wise, and in all of those is different hats, different functions, different responsibilities. So today we're going to look at a few of those items that we have to do year in and year out. Different hats we have to wear to make camp happen.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Welcome to episode five of M3, Merge Ministry Mostly. I'm Daniel. And I'm Luke. And we are back for another episode Talking Camp. This will be very much camp-oriented as we look at what it takes to pull off merge. We'll read through a list and not that you're going to remember all of these, or that this covers everything. We made a list of some things that we have to do: pastor, youth pastor, children's pastor, all at the same time. Right. Different camps, you still serve in that function, leading the staff. Then we also bring our youth, my youth group, your kids' group, but also people then look to us as hey, we have some running sites. Author. Author. Fashion designer, movie producer, event coordinator, public relations. You're getting out here on some of these names. Yeah, no, I tried to make it sound fancy. We'll talk about some of them. Human resource officer. I don't know if officer is it. You're involved in human resources.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Content creator, graphic designer, slash videographer, videographer. Videographer, whatever. Videographer. Videographer. Financial accountant, budget expense stuff, MC, sounding light engineer, problem solver, go between between people, between the places we're at, marketing, social media, emails, etc. Team leaderslash project manner, administrator, PE coach, a teacher, a scientist, which yes, scientist is is in there. Most most every year. Most every year. Game show host, actor, mediator, counselor, mentor, husband, father, friend. Look at you. I just had a friend there. That's not in the notes, Daniel. All right. So one of the things that we do is we we do the writing. We do have someone who will write the small group material for kids camp. We also had someone last year, I believe they wrote the quiet times for kids camp. Wrote quiet times, that's correct. Right. Uh, but as far as service goes, teachings go, we do the writing of that. So is it okay to use chat GBT as we're writing? Or how much chat just really has better to do with how much chat GBT can you use in preparing church stuff?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I think that's the better question, not can you? Because I would say, yeah, for sure, you can use chat GBT. But the question of how much, it's like, you know, they recently released a uh work some worship music that's all AI. Oh and people are in like having a frenzy, you know, over it. And it's like that one I heard was really good. How do you relate replace the Holy Spirit in worship? You know what I mean? So it's like writing these songs is is different than than worshiping on Sunday morning. And so, like, I I don't know where I stand on this. Uh I could argue both sides, to be honest, uh, why it's kind of okay and why it's kind of not okay. Uh, but so how much of the chat GPT and this AI stuff can you can you use in writing this material? Uh, when it comes to uh small groups and even sermons, like people you can type in on chat GPT, I need a sermon for this topic, and they'll give you a whole sermon. Use voice illustration, illustration, everything. Intro, outro, like land the plane, like all of that. And I think that's dangerous if you're using it all of that, you know. I think you know, you are like I mentioned a minute ago, uh you're eliminating the Holy Spirit in that. However, there's definitely some benefits to some to some AI and in helping us organize our thoughts and even even developing questions and things like that, like with the small group stuff, you know, sometimes I've I've put in there, this is my sermon. Like I put my whole sermon in there.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

It was like, help me write some uh you put your whole sermon in there after Chat GPT already wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, yeah. I was in there like you're an idiot. No, I don't I do not use that. However, uh yes, I finished my sermon, I put it in there. It was like help me write small group questions for this. And I ain't gonna lie, man, some of them was some of them was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

So it can be a tool to use. No doubt. It's no different now. If you're using it to write your whole sermon and you sit down and you didn't do the prep work and you didn't pray about it, and it's the night before, and you just use it as a means to get out of seeking God, like that that's a no-go. That's not what we do, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

We're we're not motivational speakers, right? We're not we're not here to like it. All right, let me let me be very clear. What is supposed to happen is God reveals himself to us. We share that with the congregation, and it's not me standing on the stage delivering to you what I have to say, it's it's fly, I'm a vessel, right? So if chat gpt is writing your sermon for you, you are a vessel, not for God, but for chat GPT. However, it is a very good tool and resource to to go to, right? Um, it makes some things like uh organizing. Uh, this is not the preaching side of thing, but the organizing of small group stuff, man, they're way smarter than me. Get those things organized so much better than I can. Uh, but yes, we do. I mean, we've we've used them to help us with small group questions to you know to ask some pointed questions, uh, even for even for some of our camps. But I think the question is not can you, but how much? I think you're right on that one.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

But we've used it to it would design graphics for you. Oh yeah. So logos and things like that. It can it it's helpful. Like, what's the difference in me typing in Chat GBT or Gronk or whatever the other ones are, a question or go into Google and seeing, hey, what does this word mean? Or where is this translation? Where is this word and to found it elsewhere in the Bible type thing?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Well, and there's there's tools, other tools, there's other websites that that have some of that information, but it takes a lot more time to dig and and find them. I mean, Blue Letter Bible is a wonderful tool that you can you can put a word in there and it'll tell you how many times it's in there, but to go and find where it is is a lot more difficult than say chat GPT, where it lists all the scripture out for you.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Um, one of the things that stand out to me is not a a a fun part of it, but kind of the problem solver go-between. Uh, I asked my kids not too long ago which one of them was going to take over merge because we were just talking and it was whatever, it's just a conversation. And I don't remember which one it was, but one of them said, I was like, Would you want to do what I do? Like, would you take over one day? And they said, No, because people ask you too many questions. And I was like, Well, that's that's part of it. It kind of does come with the territory. Like, no, every time you turn around, somebody wants to ask you a question, that'll just get on my nerves.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Uh, but another thing is so let me ask you this before you move on. Does that get on your nerves? It depends. Sometimes it can get on your nerves. Let's just be real. It depends. It's like, especially when so the the worst time that that happens is when we're first getting to camp. Like we arrive and we can't get into Ricker quite yet because we always get there early and we we meet by ourselves first. Then we finally get into Ricker, it's time to bring everything in. And and most everyone knows, most everyone that's there, or at least every single one that's been there before, knows where most of the things go. And they want to come and ask questions that they already know the answer. That's what bothers me. That's what gets me. It's like you already know the answer to this. Why are you asking me this question? But we tell them, ask if you need to know something, ask. So they're doing what they're told. But the key point you just said was if you need to know something, they already know it, Daniel. They already know it, they don't have to ask the question. So is there ever a time that we get maybe, maybe you, maybe not you, but for me, do I ever get frustrated? I do. I think I do a pretty good job of not showing them that I'm frustrated. But yeah, sometimes those questions are frustrating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Well, you mentioned the other part where uh said one of the things that we do is kind of a go-between, between where we are, the location, and the camp. You're trying to work schedules out and different things. It reminded me of I think it was two years ago, we got into a building a little bit early. Oh boy. Um, and we thought we were clear. We had an understanding with the people that we were coming in behind. That we even one of our people even talked to one of their people ahead of time, and they said, Yes, help them, it'll get things going sooner. So we thought we had an understanding, and we got there early, and we went in and we wasn't supposed to go in. And I remember standing in the worship center, and two individuals darted in the door. They went up and talked to the group that was ahead of us, and I saw them walking straight back to me with this look on their face, and they walked up to me and was like, What the heck, Daniel? I was like, you know what happened was we thought we were on the same page. Yeah, that's my fault.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

There's times where, you know, like in that situation, we just own it, we take it and like it is what it is. Like we we're wrong. However, if you would let me explain myself, I can tell you that they said it was great for us to be here, but they didn't communicate with the rest of their people. So therefore, that lack of communication, they they're thinking we coming in here taking over, taking their stuff, and you know, perception's not reality. Perception is uh is is their reality, right? It's what they think is real, but that don't make it real.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

We're gonna not brag on ourselves here for a minute, but out of the list of things, and even if I miss something, what do you look at that and think is your I say best at, but what uh on that list is probably more in your wheelhouse than others?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Certainly not author. That is definitely not on there. Uh I enjoy I so what I'm what I'm best at, not what I enjoy the most. I think um I enjoy the I don't know if it would be the human resources side with our with the students that are there serving. I enjoy whatever that would be called. Enjoys the I mean what I what I'm best at. Sorry, what I'm what I'm best at is is the relations, the dealing with the with the youth while they're there and you know helping them get you know plugged in and involved and that kind of thing, that or kind of the the sound side, the production side of things. I I I both either one of those things. Probably production. Probably production is what I'm probably the the best at in that. Not that I want to uh say that I'm the best at stuff, but that's probably where I thrive, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Do uh do I need to remind you, Mr. Production, what happened a week ago when we were trying to set up a camera for three hours and we couldn't, Mr. Production guy over there. Uh sometimes we have bad days, Daniel. Sometimes we have bad days.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

We don't always uh we don't always play at peak performance.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah. Mine best at, and I'm I'm looking to see if it's uh even on here as as a term. Um, but the I say experience, like finding that next big thing or adding something to like we do, we have on here scientist one year. We took a I don't even know remember what it was, styrofoam and cut a big 50 gallon barrel in half and melted the styrofoam in service. We did the elephant toothpaste one year.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Uh both of those things. So it the UCA, you put scientists on there. Both of those things, we are not scientists by any means. Uh, and both of those things, there's probably been been more. My my father is a scientist, like he is a he was a chemistry and physics teacher for for a while. And so we call, I call him and ask, like, hey, this is what we're looking for. We've seen it online. Is this gonna work? And typically he says something along the lines of, yes, but you probably shouldn't do that in that room. Like, if that acetone spills, it's gonna cause a big issue. If you know this could this could light on fire, or sometimes we use fire, and he's like, This is could potentially a a very big problem. And uh so far we've just done it anyway.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

We found a way.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Uh, but he has made us be a little bit more cautious than we might have been. True, and we actually practiced a couple of them.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

That's true. We're getting better at that, too. Instead of just being like, eh, we hope hope it goes for the best. Yeah, we haven't had and watch it happen this year, uh, illustration that has completely flopped.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

So they have been able to work with with the acetone one, so with it was styrofoam, but we built a wall. It was like it was like five and a half foot wide and about five foot tall. And we built it like 3D. We put the two tubs together, but what we didn't think about was how the two tubs are together, and like it wouldn't it was trying to separate it. So I had to like get behind it where the kids couldn't see me, but Daniel's kind of like pushing it down a little bit, and I'm having to make sure it goes in. Uh that's we've we've had some some hiccups there because we did test it on a smaller scale in a big scale.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, I like to push the envelope sometimes, probably a little too much. Uh, but also in like things we do, like adding the flower fight, those things, like thinking of those big things is probably what I what I I like to do.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I remember back when it's okay to say you're the best at it.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

I'm not when I was a children's pastor, like doing like the fall festival, then looking at the fall festival and going, hey, how can we turn this into a real fair? So we added things along the way. VBS, we always tried to do something extra. Um, so that part of it I've I like to do and so far have found things. And I have a group of people who like this past year, I tried to make a high it wasn't a bomb, but you fill up a balloon with certain things and it makes a really loud boom. Unfortunately, it was very expensive, so we did not do that. But elephant toothpaste, everybody was like, Yeah, let's do it. Shooting toilet paper across the room out of blowers. Everybody jumped on board with that. That was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

So, all right, so I don't you are you are very good at that, and some sometimes it sounds like as you're explaining it, I'm like, that's dumb. So we took a paint roller, like a paint stick and a roller, put toilet paper on it, and turned on blowers, like it was strapped to the blower, and we turn them on and it shoots toilet paper out into the crowd. And legit, as he's explaining this, I'm like, What's the point of this? This sounds so stupid, and then we do it, and it was like, This was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

That was how so awesome.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, but having people around who, when I say stuff like that, they don't ask, uh what's the it's not they don't ask why, or they don't say no, they say how can we make it happen? Oh yeah. The year we did the creation at the beginning, we had a video and I was like, hey, this is something that we could do. So then everybody got together and it turned into like people running up and down the aisles and different lights coming on at different times and all that. And that was that was probably the best opening that we had.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

That is that is probably something that that's like culture. Uh culture is created, it doesn't just happen. And from from the top down, obviously, people respond to you because you're willing to do the same thing, yeah. You know, like if if somebody else had that idea, you wouldn't be upset because it wasn't your idea. Um, in the same token, like that culture is is who merge is at this point, it's part of our identity, and uh it is really cool to see people not ask the why would we do that? I had the thought this was stupid, but I'm like, hey, I got a blower, my dad's got a blower, brother Rob's got a blower. Like, we I got you three right there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Like, let's do it. So I I just saw the term imagineer. I mean, I'm a big Disney fan. Imagineer. All right, so now we talked good about ourselves. Now let's talk bad about ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Graphic designer. Graphic designer's the worst. I suck at it. I do a lot of it. You do, I do a lot of it, but I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I don't know if it's are you logos, just the logo part?

SPEAKER_01 18:41

All of it, all of the graphic stuff, like even yeah, the videos. Like, I I guess I'm not the worst at like we get to a good place, but I can do what other people tell me to do. The designing of it and the creative side of this, like, I'm that's what I'm absolutely worst at. When people start throwing ideas, I can utilize the technology to make it happen, but creating it on my own, nah, bro. I um I'm terrible at that. I would say mine. I'll be using chat GPT for just in inspiration on that. Like, give me some creative ideas because I have zero.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

I would say mine's probably the fashion designer. One um the least fashion person really, I mean, why am I even friends with you? Uh in my personal life, fashion is not. We went the other day to the store, me and Colby and Abby, and just plain color shorts. They were different colors, but I asked Colby, I was like, what shirts go with this? I was like, I I I can't, I'm 43 years old, and it was a pair of red shorts. And she was like, You could wear black, you could wear blue, you could wear you could pretty much wear any color, plain color with plain color or something, and I'm sitting here going, Nah, whatever you say, khaki pants, blue jeans, like then I ain't gotta worry about it. So that having to create a camp shirt every year because you want it to be something, and I and I think, and maybe there are people out there and they just thrill my heart. I want to think that people look at the shirts that we wear, and it's like, wow, I'm gonna wear that all the time. But I don't ever wear the camp shirts.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah, there's been one or two that I I wear uh outside of just that camp. Yeah, but most of the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

So and I put a lot of thought in it, and then of course it comes down to matching colors and fonts and all this, and I'm like, I don't know. Like, why am why am I the least fashionable person on staff designing a t-shirt? But even in so we do merchandise, uh, we do have sweatshirts and hoodies and hats. Thankfully, there was someone who designed hats and t-shirts for us that was different. Because if you ever see anything that just has the word merge or a logo on it, we came up with it. We came up with it. Another thing worst at which is on here, it's shocking, but it's not. I don't uh uh some people is probably gonna be like, I don't think so. The actor part, like if I have to gracious, like I can like talk, like we did we had a uh young lady, was it last year where she oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We had one day, yeah. That we I can bring somebody up on stage and interact with them, kind of off the cuff stuff, but if it is like a script and I have to memorize a script and also act outside of character, yeah. Nah, that's so that's not me.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I so I can't my second one I was gonna have on there was MC. You're very good at MC. That was like I would call what you did with when you bring somebody up and that banter and stuff, like that's just you running the show MC and stuff, but uh I'm not. Good at that, and I'm even worse at the acting part. I remember my first year of speaking, I felt like I was acting because I had part of a script that I had to kind of say it was, you know, all the lights are going out, and I'm talking about it being really dark, and then this little bitty light comes on, and then a big light comes on, and it's the light is the lighthouse, and I'm tying it back to Jesus being the lighthouse. And I remember during the like we're running through services, and back then we still like we went, we literally ran through the service. So uh Matt comes up and he does his you know seven minutes, and then I come up and I'm like, I'm gonna say something like blah blah blah. And I'm like, this lighthouse is dark, you know, whatever. And uh I'm gonna end with this scripture. And Melissa's like, hold on, like I need you to to go through. I was like I can't do it. Like at this point, I feel like I'm acting. I can't, like I can't do it until I get up there on stage. And it was like, she never she never was like angry with me, but I could tell she wasn't happy. Like she wanted me to do that, and it was uh yeah, I I'm not I can't do the acting either. Yeah, that's that's not my I become like Ricky Bobby in my hands. Come on, I what else was doing my hands?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah, if there's ever any dancing, that like that's kind of up there with acting for me. I don't I don't dance. So now let's look at uh what out of these do you actually enjoy the most? Not what you're the best at. It can be still be what you're best at and what you enjoy the most. Seems like that would make sense. There's something on the list you look at and go, that's what I enjoy the most out of all that it takes to put on camp.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Uh teacher, the teaching is is by far my favorite thing that that we do. I love to preach, I love to to teach. And so whether it's talk. Yes, you love to talk. Maybe so whether it's you know, with with youth where it's more of a 30-minute message, or if it's kids when it's, you know, I only go five, four or five minutes times four or five. My point is uh that's that is what brings me the most joy. That is what I feel like God has created me to do. And uh a lot of the other things I enjoy, but that's by far my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I would say mine it goes along with what I said. I guess I was best at the imagineer. Like I like looking at things that most people may look at and go, there's no way. And I go, hey, let's try it. Let's see if we can make it happen. Yeah, but thinking of that, what what is next? What can we add? Not just for adding something, but add that's gonna bring quality that is adding something that is a different experience or a different way for a kid to learn. I told you we had I was at a a baseball game, and the kid came up to me and he was like, You're Daniel, right? And I was like, Yeah, he's like, You do merge, and we kind of talked for a minute, and he comes to to merge, and I was like, Did you enjoy it? He's like, Man, it's the best week of summer, it's great. And I was like, Well, do you learn anything? And he's like, Man, I love the way that y'all teach. And this was the we made the comment about it. He's like, Y'all just find a way to make it cartoonish, and he's like, Y'all just don't sit there and just read the Bible like some boring way, but you take it and you make it interesting and you do a skit or you you show us an object lesson, and he's like, I can relate to that. He's like, I I don't learn necessarily like all the other kids. Uh he's like, but I gotta see it and I gotta visualize it and y'all just make it fun. And I thought that's it.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

That's what that's that's the whole goal. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

That's what that's what we do, that's why we do what we do, but to have kids to be able to understand things on a on their level to where it is making a difference, where they're excited about it. So I told him, I said, Well, you just remember that. And I was like, when you get my age, I was like, you figure out a way to teach kids the way that you learn so they can experience the same way that you do. And then the other thing I would say what I like the most is probably the mentorship or relationship. But like I look at it and we have different we've had different speakers over the years, different people do different parts of the service, but to give people the opportunity that I didn't have when I was first in ministry, yeah, to be able to stand in front of 600 kids and speak, or be able to have somebody follow you or or shadow you while you do a camp so they can see what it's like to build those relationships. Like I look at it, and yes, I'm the old, I don't say I'm not the oldest one on staff. No, but you're not to be able to sit around with the youngers, the 20-year-olds or the college students, and to talk ministry and to joke around with them like I do anybody else. Yeah. So where they can see that we well, like we said, we want to have fun. We're or we're big on having fun, but to be able to relate to them that I'm not some old person stick in the mud, but to be able to have conversations in the room and to joke around and to pick on and laugh at each other, to see what it can be like to serve Christ while you're serving a bigger function. I would say that's probably the thing other than the imaginary that I would say I enjoy the most about camp.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah. I I love uh being able to be kind of behind the scenes and see some of those things kind of take place, like when we do the object lesson and see it actually come to live, uh come to life. Come to live alive. Seeing it uh come alive to to kind of what this this young man was was sharing. Uh there's times where we're I'm a part of that object lesson. I remember one time you said, Hey, we got this ladder, and I want you to hold it up and I'm gonna climb up it. And I was like, What? And uh so it eventually became you know, me, a couple of us, three of us holding the ladder, and we practiced it. Daniel went up like three steps and we did it. He went up like five, and uh, he's like way higher than he was supposed to be, and was a lot harder than it originally was. But anyway, doing those things, it just it just worked. It just worked. Seeing the kids like make that connection, you know, a lot of people don't get to experience what we experience of being on the stage and seeing, you know, their their responses to those things uh is that side of it is really cool. And then I would say my second too is those mentorships, those conversations that aren't had in a service or you know, in preparation of of what we're about to go do. I remember one night um all the teenagers and uh fun adults, I'm just playing the ones that are are active and wanted to go play and don't uh go to bed, uh they all kind of headed outside and I was on my way, and then the next thing I know, everybody's coming back in. And I had spent you know, that whole time, it wasn't kickball, whatever the whatever that y'all were out there playing, we missed it because we were having like conversations or we were talking about uh some of the things that were going on in their lives, and it was that was a really cool moment for for me, uh, in those, you know, mentorship, those being able to to build those relationships and uh make it about really what what we say we're here for anyway, you know, not here for just the fun. You're gonna have fun, like you're gonna have fun. That's right. Um, but my point is that that that side of it is uh rather enjoyable to be able to experience that as well, which I think again is you know, I've built you up a lot today. I need to chill out, but uh well, you know, it's it is it that is cultivated. It it's not a a a culture that had just happened to to take place that way. It's you know, we are there, we are available, as we've already shared. We're um we we want those things to take place and you can't force it. Yeah, you know, you can't say, hey, if anybody wants to stay back and talk, I'd be glad to. You know, it's like they organically happen, and that is a another one of my favorite uh sides of it.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

So since you don't want to talk good about everything, any of those that you look at that you like the least, I mean we do it and we have to do it, and it's not a oh I can't believe this has to happen, or like we're griping about it.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

But in the middle of camp, when something one of these comes to you, do you look at it and go, I don't want to because I wish I didn't have to, like I wish everything ran perfectly. The problem solving stuff is like, and it's like I don't want to have to deal with this, right? And I or I really what really it is, I feel like I shouldn't have to deal with this. Like this is easy. What are we doing? And and then you're really humbled when you're the cause of one of those problems and you have to deal with stuff, and or or the worst side of that, you have to watch Daniel deal with the fallout of something you did, you know. Uh that would probably be my my least favorite, but most of the time something really good comes out of it, so it's hard to say it's in the moment is the least favorite of you know, it nobody wants to have to deal with problems, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Like it's well, things mess up.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

I feel like some people are better at it, and it seems as though they do enjoy it, but I am not that guy.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Well, uh, I would say the least thing that or the thing that can dampen the spirits quickly for me is the the and kind of the same thing, the fixer, like somebody, and granted it's it's not we're not that we're making light of it, but you'll have one church that'll come up and go, Hey, we got uh youth, we're missing one youth medium shirt, and it's like a huge deal to them, and it should be, but at the same time, we're like, that's one shirt out of 600. Like it's like we we counted it, like we've done this, we lay shirts out, all that kind of stuff, but it's something like that, or a big deal gets made about well, this this name tag's misspelled, and we're like, we we do apologize, we are human, we make mistakes, or it's happened a few times we've asked for certain rooms to have towels. Well, it's two o'clock, one o'clock in the morning, and we're coming in from kickball, and somebody realizes they don't have towels. Well, the person they're gonna come to is me, and then I have to go trek across campus to find towels. So it's it's those things, like I said, one shirt, yes, it's a big deal to that kid, and we typically are able to work it all out, but it's when those things happen, like the camp is going on and everything's going great. Seems like it never fails, something's gonna come up and go, Oh, well, I stumped my toe, or this happened, and now it's a big deal, and then you gotta take time and deal with it, which so no doubt, which we do. I mean, yeah, well, and stuff like a t-shirt or a name tag, some of those things. I think what bothers me when it don't work out is I can't fix it.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Like if it's a wrong shirt, I can't just go pull another one because we don't have them because we try not to over-order and get stuck with a bunch of stuff. So it's the things that and it is a big deal. They're coming expecting things to be great, them to get what everything that they need. That is our intent. Sometimes it works, but that goes back to the whole point of the episode. Like we signed up for this, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:41

I remember in our uh in our uh what do we call it when we went to Chaco and planned? Our planning weekend weekend. Our planning weekend. What do we call that? Anyway, I'm stupid sometimes. Uh in that, you know, uh a comment was made about like the customer service kind of thing. And you know, the response in that was, well, that's their problem. And my one one somebody else said, uh it's a problem to them. There are things that is a big deal for that person because it's them, right? You know, and it's and it's wrong, or it wasn't correct. And whether it's we can fix it or we can't fix it, none of those things really matter, you know. We gotta do whatever we can to make it to make it work, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

So you get to see, I mean, there is a lot that goes into it. Majority of the time, things go as expected. We pull things off that we didn't test or we didn't really know how it was gonna be. At the end, God made it work. Um, but they're also, as you saw with us, we got a human side to us as well. No doubt. There are things we like, we don't like, there are things that aggravate us. Uh, but at the end of the day, we realize what we're doing, we're putting on a camp, and we want people to have the best experience. And trust me, when it does not turn out to be your best experience, it bothers me way more than it's gonna bother me.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

No doubt. Because when you get home, you're over it.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

And uh Daniel's not, I don't think about it for an entire year, if not longer, of going, dang, how did we miss that? How did that happen? What can we do better next time?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

So so if you've experienced anything that we've shared today, please do know our heart is that we want it to be right, you know, and and a lot of the again, there's it ain't like we've had a lot of you know horrible things gone go wrong, right? You know, we've been very blessed and we're uh prayerful each year. I mean, it all year long. We're praying for what for camp and what's going to happen, what God's gonna do. Um, and a lot of those little things that do take place through throughout, you know, camp that may not be uh too standard. It it is it matters to us, right? And we care and we want it to go well, we want it to be honestly, we want it to be perfect, like that's what we're striving for. We want it to be the best that it could possibly be. And sometimes it doesn't go that way, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:17

And then well, and sometimes like the whole t-shirt designing, that's not what I'm good at, and I I I realize that. So if you have heard us talk and you're like, wow, those guys actually run a camp. Uh yes, we do, but we need your help. Like there are things that you could help us with if you like something that we're not good at, and what God has given us, you've heard it over and over again, a great staff that has filled a lot of holes and does a lot of things to make camp happen. Yeah, but there's always room for more, there's always areas, and as we're growing, doing more camps and trying to advertise and social media and all that kind of stuff. There are things that I know I'm not good at and I'm okay with it. So if you are, we got a website and you can go to it and it has contact information. You can reach out to us and say, hey, these are ways that I think I could help merge and I want to be involved. And I promise I will let you design a t-shirt. No doubt. So, well, we hope you enjoyed the episode today to kind of give you an idea of what all goes on. But I think more than that, just thinking back, you probably got to see a little bit more about Luke and myself than you probably bargained for at the beginning of this. But just know our heart. We like to have fun, we realize we don't have it all together. We do mess up, but at the end of the day, it's all about Jesus and spreading his love to those kids and students and who knows who else here in the near future. So uh that's all we got. Enjoy the next week. We'll post these every Tuesday. Check out our website, like, share, comment, and help us spread the word. We'll see you next week.