What can camping do to help self-absorbed young people?
In a past blog, I said that there are limits to what camping can do for self-absorbed young people who have never learned to give. A reader wrote me with this question: What would your response to the camping world be about how we create young people who know how to minister and give? Here’s my answer: Two of my kids are camp counselors this summer in Indiana (at a camp for poor, inner-city kids) and in Wisconsin (at a camp for rich, suburban ones). They’ve both had a good experience and seen the good that camp ministry can do. Based on that and on my own positive camp experience as a young person, I offer the following five points. 1. Acknowledge and stick to what camping is great at: connecting young people w/ God’s creation and the wonder of it, and challenging them to grow in their faith (“palms up” ethic), some aspects of discipleship, for starters. 2. Recognize what camping struggles to do: give disciples the outreach focus & experience which Jesus demonstrated – the ethic of tou
