COVID Will Change Christian Summer Camp Forever

Quick to Listen

Christianity Today

Religion, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.3 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2020

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Transcribed highlights of the show can be found in our episode summaries. 2020 has been a year unlike any other for Christian summer camps. Here’s how CT captured the situation in a recent report: Like most businesses and ministries across the country, Christian camps felt the economic halt right away. Church retreats and events were called off in March, April, and May due to bans on mass gatherings across the states. Before long, camps were forced to grapple with the unimaginable: no summer camp.By May’s end, more than 100 Christian camps had announced cancellations. Most of the rest made dramatic changes to summer programming. Summer camp can represent half of a camp’s annual revenue or more, so skipping it for a year comes as a massive financial blow. Many Christian camps did cancel their summers. Some canceled and then reversed course. Some held programming all summer. This has been a very difficult summer. We've got camps that have been open continuously, even through WWI and WWII, closed down for the first time this summer,” said Jacob Sorenson, the director of Sacred Playgrounds, a ministry offering research and training to camps and congregations. “It's been a very difficult time for the industry as a whole, including secular camps.” One added challenge for Christian summer camps has been politics. “Christian camps are again caught in this political environment where the ones that have a constituency that tends to be conservative have been under a lot of pressure to open up,” said Sorenson, who researches camping ministry and who contributed to the previously mentioned CT article. “While the ones that have a constituency that tends to be more progressive or Democratic-leaning have been under pressure to close down. And it’s made it very difficult for camp directors to make a good decision for the health of their camp communities.” Sorenson joined global media manager Morgan Lee and editorial director Ted Olsen to discuss the financial footprint of summer camp, what to know about how long a “camp high” really lasts, how many camps are using technology in ways never seen before, and who summer camps serve well and who they leave out. Take Quick to Listen’s survey! What is Quick to Listen? Read more Rate Quick to Listen on Apple Podcasts Follow the podcast on Twitter Follow our hosts on Twitter: Morgan Lee and Ted Olsen Music by Sweeps Quick to Listen is produced by Morgan Lee and Matt Linder The transcript is edited by Bunmi Ishola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you in part by The Apologetics Guy Show, the podcast that helps you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity.
0:11.1	Learn to explain your faith with courage and compassion.
0:14.5	Join Moody Bible Institute professor Dr. Mikhail del Rosario at Apologeticsky.com.
0:21.9	Less than two months ago, a sleepaway summer camp in Georgia welcomed around 600 campers
0:27.0	and counselors. The camp had instituted several safety measures in light of COVID. They did not
0:32.2	require anyone to wear masks. Then a few days of the start of camp, nearly half of the folks there had contracted COVID-19.
0:40.5	This nightmare is exactly what many Christian summer camps feared as they wrestled with whether
0:44.9	or not to open this summer. In fact, we devoted an article in our July-August issue of Christianity
0:50.2	today to the story. You can find a link in the show notes. It's called Welcome to Christian
0:54.8	Camp's Weirdest, Hardest Summer. Many Christian camps did cancel their summers. Some canceled and then
1:00.4	reversed course. Some held programming all summer. Now that the summer is well underway and many
1:05.2	camps are in the final weeks, we wanted to get a sense of how this summer has forever changed
1:09.1	the long and beloved tradition of summer
1:11.7	camp.
1:14.8	You're listening to Quick to Listen, where we go beyond hashtags and hot takes to discuss
1:19.4	a major cultural event.
1:21.1	I'm Morgan Lee, global media manager here at Christianity Today.
1:24.9	And I'm Ted Olson, editorial director at Christianity Today.
1:38.3	All right, Ted, COVID and summer camp.
1:42.3	Let us hear your gut check on this. Well, my gut check is that this is an
1:47.1	extremely live conversation for me. I literally am back a day or two from having gone on just
1:54.7	kind of a family camp with my daughter, just the two of us into a state park here and camped.
	...

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