1. A Lake
Our camp is on a lake. That’s cool. Every morning I wake up to be blown away by God’s creative beauty. Also, our students swim, tube, fish, and ski. Basically, having camp on a lake is awesome.
2. Buttons
This year our students earned or were awarded 19 different buttons. It sounds ridiculous, and it is, but they went NUTS over these buttons. It was a great way to keep them engaged.
3. LifeLine Gear
Our campers all received a t-shirt, a drawstring backpack and buttons. Our students LOVE our t-shirts and LifeLine apparel happens to be one of our best marketing tools.
Our volunteers received everything our student did as well as a hoodie and a trucker hat. At this point some of our volunteers wear basically nothing but LifeLine gear. They are walking billboards.
4. The Leader Fridge
There is a fridge in the cafeteria of our camp that is packed with Starbucks Frappuccinos, pop (soda if you’re not from Michigan) and other assorted goodies. Simple things like supplying your volunteer leaders with good beverages can do a lot to help them thrive during the week.
5. Christina
We have Christina. You don’t. Therefore we win. Basically, Christina has been either on staff or volunteering with LifeLine for a decade. In her other job she is an event planner—and I mean huge events with billions of people. Essentially, she handles all the logistics of camp and it goes off without a hitch. Just don’t cross her or you’ll be sorry…or dead…or potentially both.
6. Epic Storyline
Because we run our own camp, we have the freedom to create our own programming. Here’s the storyline for this year’s camp:
Chucky and Lucky (who have been at camp before) were Wolf Scouts but now the Bear Scout Den Mother (Sean Connery) has called them to Bear Scout Training. The objective is to capture a bear and prove themselves worthy of being Bear Scouts.
In the process, Lucky is captured by the Bear and thrown into the back of a creeper van. In the end, the Bear and Lucky become friends. Lucky brings the bear to closing session, the bear is revealed to actually be El Mattadore (another returning character) and all the campers receive their Bear Scout pin. Get it?
Ok…ridiculous, I know. Here’s all you really need to know: every time one of these characters appears on stage or in a video the place erupts. I mean, they go nuts. Our students love these characters and the storyline provides and insane amount of fun and laughter. Stop judging.
Lucky Get’s Captured by a Bear
7. Fishing
Shaun, one of our volunteers is an avid fisherman and acted as our fishing guide. Every day our students could enter a lottery for a chartered fishing trip. It was basically awesome.
8. Neon Dance Party
It’s tradition that at the end of our variety show comes a dance party. It’s incredibly complicated, but here are the instructions:
- Bring some dancing fools to the stage
- Begin throwing down some killer tracks
- 3 or 4 songs in, hand out neon to every student
- Sit back and watch the magic
- As always, end early. Leave them wanting more.
9. Muck War
Camp is not complete without an epically messy muck war. Here are your instructions:
- Split all of your students into 4 teams. Place them at 4 corners of the field/arena/coliseum
- Provide teams with: entirely too much flour, billions of water balloons, and an astronomical amount of shaving cream
- Sit back and watch the magic
Side note: have your leaders hold the cans of shaving cream. Giving them to the students may lead to stitches—not that I would know.
10. Morning Show Infomercials
Just watch…
Cheetos Fingers from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
11. Love
I know I’ve already used my allotted 10 things but hear me out. The awesomest thing about our camp is that middle school students experience a whole lot of love. For some, a week of camp can be transformational. I love watching high school students and adult volunteers pour themselves out to love and lead middle school students.
