wwW July 16 - Something is going right here

I have stood on the side and watched Camp Vertical and Camp Zoom since they started. My children have grown up here. I checked them in and hovered, waiting, watching to see what the program was going to be like, listening to see what my children would be taught, picking up staff handbooks left here and there and leafing through them with the intrusive nosiness that only a mom can have.

My kids had fun, lots and lots of fun. And they built relationships with the staff. Camp grew over the years  as did my children and when my oldest daughter first grew out of being a camper and joined as a volunteer, I sat in wonderment as I looked over an amphitheater full of students, lots of them - sitting through training for the summer to come. I was not surprised when they asked for questions and my daughter's hand shot up first. "How old do you have to be to be a counselor?"

I knew then that it would be a lot longer until we grew out of camp. And over the years I started to see something really neat. In a word "retention". The same staffers came back year after year after year. It's not a field that lends itself to that. When I was in college you were considered an "old-timer" at a camp if you were on staff for more than one season. In an occupation that lends itself to volunteer hours, small stipends, or minimum wage and draws from high school and college students to fill the ranks, it is not surprising to have a high turn-over rate - in fact it is expected.

But not here.

Here there is something different happening. The staff keeps coming back. Not only did they come back, but they started getting more applications than they had positions. Students work for a year as a volunteer to be considered as staff the next. Campers grew out of volunteer helpers and into staff in a natural progression. So many of them that the number of weeks middle school volunteers served has to be limited. Vertical ended up with more staff than some camps have campers. It is one of the first times in my life where I have looked at a ministry and said "here the workers are not few".

And I have seen some of the reasons why along the way.

Camp here looks at their people as valuable. They pour time into training, growing, and building their staff. And then after they do that, they listen to them. It is one of the first positions I've held where my voice actually counts. That is valuable. It plays out in the simple things. Asking staffers what their opinion is of a Miley Cyrus song on the playlist. Listening and acting on suggestions. Giving time to talk with staff and be available to them. Scheduling a full week of training before camp starts where the basics are covered and gifts are explored and developed. Making sure that camp is a place for everyone to grow.

That type of valuing and respect from the top filters down through the ranks. And people look to value each other. The environment is supportive and encouraging. And that in turn impacts our campers positively. I am sure that it could all be chalked up to best practices. But here it is more than that. I think it is Christianity in action:

love, 

joy, 

peace, 

forbearance, 

kindness, 

goodness, 

faithfulness, 

gentleness 

and self-control. 

That cannot be powered simply by doing what other successful leaders do.Real Christ-like-ness has another power source - a greater one than human best efforts. So I guess it should not surprise me to see something different happening here. Something bigger and more profound that what I have ever seen before.

But those things that are going right, they aren't limited to keeping staff on. There is a purposefulness here that I find refreshing. There is a type of thinking that slows down to consider that our children are constantly changing and the world they live in is different now than it was five years ago. It is a type of thinking that takes into account that our youngest campers have never known "Hannah Montana" a family friendly Disney TV show - they have only known the Miley Cyrus of the current headlines. It's the purposefulness that keeps a program age-appropriate and safe. It allows for appropriate touch in a way that the public schools no longer can. And  it thinks through how we approach our faith and passing it on. It is intentionality, and this coupled with a look at the details spells out L-O-V-E  -- the first in that list up above.

After a particular thought-provoking dissertation, in staff training I heard the young man next to me thoughtfully say,  "Maybe if we want a relationship with God to be our focus, maybe when we use the Evangi-cubes, our opening shouldn't be 'Are you sure you will go to heaven?'Maybe we should be asking a different question?" Not too shabby of an idea from someone a third of my age. Training, thinking, adjusting. . . it is healthy.

These are a quick glimpses of what I see going right here. There is care, thought, change, support, and community. Sure there are warts in the mix - every place has that. Yet I see something really cool happening at Zoom & Vertical, something that makes dealing with the sticky situations, the occasional frustrated parent, and the children, some of whom are hurting so much on the inside - worth it.

If I could talk to those frustrated parents, those hurting campers; I'd want them to see what I see. A community that is pouring themselves into its youngest members, a community that keeps coming back to care for campers in a way that only God can make possible. I'd want them to experience worship with 4,5, and 6 year olds - an experience that is joyful in a way that most adults don't have the privilege of experiencing. I'd want them to be able to laugh and play and have water fights and eat rice krispy cookies, and use facepaint. I'd want them to see a noisy joyful place that through it's care is pointing to the one who cares for us all. That's what I'd want them to see.