Make Camping a Tool

When I go into the auto shop at our camp, I am always amazed at how the mechanics there can skillfully use the tools at their disposal. When it comes to doing the impossible, they smile and get all excited about their latest purchase and the chance they will have to accomplish a difficult task with relative ease. It is even more impressive if I have been working on a problem for some time, and they come in when I am bloody-knuckled and on the edge of despair; they walk to their tool box, pick up a new tool, and walk over and solve my problem.

It is equally impressive watching mechanics talk to the Snap On (Tool Company) representative. Their discussion revolves around the latest and greatest in tools that can solve a host of problems. As they talk, the adrenaline flows, the eyes widen, and the disaster stories of unsuccessful attempts to fix the problem without this tool flow like water over Niagara.

Those who understand Christian camping get excited, just like our mechanic friends do, over the tool of camping and what it can do in the body of believers at a local church. Camping is not the church, but a tool in the hand of the church. Camps make some of the jobs that the local church is working on easier to accomplish.

Camps are ideal places to hear Gods voice apart from the normal distractions. Camps foster a safe, yet challenging environment that forces young people out of their normal comfort zones. Camping is conducive to building rela ...