Our church facility has been eerily silent these last months. With on-site programming curtailed because of the pandemic, our parking lot had been empty and our hallways vacant. Sunday School classrooms have been dormant and outdated periodicals litter our tables. Our Mission and Fellowship Center has been a quiet monument to a hope that has not been realized lately.
Typically, children's laughter would be echoing off the walls, and the sound of kids singing praise songs in the sanctuary would steal my attention.
But not these last weeks. Not since the beginning of March.
I would be lying to you if I said that this hadn't affected me. Walking the dimly lit corridors and sitting in the empty sanctuary has found me forlorn and missing our congregation. They didn't teach me how to pastor a church of homebound members, and I'm not sure that I've become better at it since COVID-19 drove us away from the church building. It's true. I miss our church being at our church.
That's about to change.
Starting Monday, June 15th, our facility will once again have a purpose throughout the week. Summer Explorers Camp kicks off its seventh summer of providing a way for children to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our summer camp experience has its genesis in two church-wide mission trips to two very different settings—namely, rural Arkansas and at a church in Washington, DC. We valued how local churches were striving to be Christ to the children and families in their communities and wanted to serve alongside them.
So, we brought that missional spirit to Main Street in Sylva. Beginning in the summer of 2014, the camp was a 3-hour experience on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Today, the camp is a full-day, Monday-Friday event that hosts children who had completed kindergarten through the 8th grade (and that costs less per hour for care today than when we first began!).
Over the summers, we have ministered to scores of children, employed dozens of college students, and have had the privilege of celebrating more than 50 professions of faith in Jesus Christ. And this doesn't even begin to calculate the impact we've had in our After School Ministry.
As we learned on our church-wide mission trips some years ago to Helena, Arkansas, and in DC, a day camp for children is exhausting, challenging, and extraordinarily rewarding. Children are, well, children. Parents are, well, parents. Bible Story time gets cut short because someone gets sick while trying to recall the memory verse. Field trip days are tiresome. Craft supplies run low, and snacks get stolen by church mice. Counselors weather any number of storms to care for children, and the end of summer can't come quick enough.
But the fruit that the work of summer camp bears is worth highlighting, also. Unchurched children hear the stories of our faith. They learn about why we gather in the sanctuary and how to read the Bible. They play together when they could have been on a device, isolated in a home cut-off from a neighborhood and empty because their parents are away. Children experience the love of Christ in the kindness they receive from their counselors, and kids become familiar with the work of the church. They learn about foreign lands and missionaries. They learn how to love their neighbors and sing songs we sang in church when we were eight years old. They ask questions about our stained-glass windows and get a tour of our baptistery. And at the end of the summer, with tears streaming down their faces and with voices trembling, they confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Brothers and sisters, this is why we do what we are doing. We are not a childcare center. We are the Church. We host a summer camp to minister to families so that their children can hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. In sharing our space, and by investing in young people's leadership, we create a climate for God to plant His seeds in good soil. I can’t help but to remember Jesus’s words in Matthew 13:23 “But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields…a hundredfold.”
Each year that we have hosted camp, we have learned how to be better stewards of what has been entrusted to us. There have been times where, as my father liked to say, we "ran well, stumbled and fell." That is true. Our efforts have not been without miscues. But because of the faithfulness of our church, our staff, and our leadership, we've always been able to pick ourselves up, learn from our mistakes and rededicate ourselves to the opportunity that lies before us.
Y'all, our churches are not intended to be empty. If people do not come to our facility or gatherings like they once did, then it is incumbent upon us to be faithful, relevant, and creative in making sure that we are committed to our call to be missionaries.
Today, there is a great demand for the ministry that we provide. No other church in our community or region is attempting to do what we are doing. And frankly, we know why! The work we have been called to do is hard. It is littered with risk. Parents frequently see themselves as consumers of our efforts and treat us accordingly. In our attempt to do the right thing, we are often placed in no-win scenarios. Ask any service-provider, administrator, and educator. Caring and ministering to children and their families is not for the faint of heart.
And yet, God has provided us the means to serve children and families this summer. The landscape for serving our neighbors has changed in the last weeks, and we have had to modify our offerings. Still, Summer Explorers Camp is something that we can do. Here are several ways that you can partner with us in our efforts:
1.) You can pray for our staff, including Whitney Massingale, our new Summer Explorers Camp Director.
2.) You can see our church's summer camp as the kind of experience we would typically seek out for a mission trip. We don't have to go to Arkansas or Washington DC to serve children and their families. They are right here on Main Street in the same church you grew up in and love.
3.) You can offer to volunteer 30 minutes of your time once or twice a week so that our staff can take a break off the clock. Contact Whitney Massingale at wmmassingale@gmail.com and say you're willing to serve.
Imagine the gift that our summer camp represents to children and families at this time. Children, whose lives have been disrupted in such profound ways, will be given a chance to feel a sense of routine and normalcy with other children. Parents who have been struggling to both homeschool and work from home will have the opportunity to give their attention more fully to their work and their families. And most importantly, our children will be able to reframe the disturbing realities of our most recent season with an understanding of a God who loves them enough to save them through Christ's love.
It all begins this Monday, and I can hardly wait until it does.
Thank you for being partners with us on the journey to serve and to love our neighbors.